Where is the time going?

Last night I offered to let my niece come out to ride. She hadn't been out to the farm in a while and she's a pretty die hard horse girl. I waited until after she was out of school before texting her (yes, she's 10 & has a phone) because I knew she'd get distracted if she knew she was going to get to ride. Next time I think I'll wait until I'm ready to pick her up before asking her if she wants to go. I think she texted me every 5 min. from 3:30 - 5:30 she was so excited.

I put Carmella in the RP while I saddled up the horses. She was having a bit of a fit about something. I don't know if it was the corn moving or what but she was full of it. It is times like this I wish the kids could saddle for themselves as I missed a perfect opportunity to work her.

Saddled and ready to go the kids headed out to the pasture while I headed up to the house to start supper. It didn't take long before we heard the giggles and saw heads flying across the pasture. My dad asked me "are they supposed to be going that fast?" "Nope but you aren't going to stop them."

While they rode I took Abby to the RP to get some video of her movement for some friends.







I wish she moved like this all of the time but unfortunately she doesn't.

The sun is going down by 8:00 so it feels like I'm just getting started and then have to quit. I'm ready for the fall temperatures but I'm not ready for the fall hours.

I’ve got my hands full!

Finally! We are having some nice weather and extra time at night to actually enjoy it!

Tuesday it was in the 50’s with a slight breeze but it was still lovely so I took the boys out to ride. The hair is just falling off of the horses so between the mud and the shedding grooming is taking a bit longer then normal but we finally got them cleaned up and saddled.

Chase was off in a flash with Black and I don’t think he stayed in a walk for more then about 2 minutes. Since Nikki hadn’t been ridden in a while and Ty is only 4 I decided to put her on the end of a 14’ line and just let her walk a circle around me. Well, that was what I thought I was going to do anyways – Ty had other plans. I was informed very quickly that “I can do it myself mom” and was told to “let me go! I can train her myself”. Ok!

I took the lead off of Nikki and off they went. Of course Ty wasn’t happy at a walk either so he quickly got over by Chase and asked Nikki to trot. She did and the giggles echoed over the pasture. By this time I finally had to tell Chase to cool it with Black. The poor old girl looked like she was ready to have a stroke.

I think both of the boys enjoyed themselves. I think Chase is enjoying Black and I’m hopeful she instills some confidence in him so when Abby is back he is not intimidated by her. Ty……………..I’ve just decided that kid is going to be a handful!

Weekend ride

Saturday it was so hot! I hosed off the horses and put them in their stalls with the fans on. I decided to leave Cat’s bandage off to see if some fresh air would help her laceration heal a bit faster. I put some wonder dust on it to prevent it from bleeding and then put her in her stall. She proceeded to lick every ounce of wonder dust off (that had to taste good) until her leg was clean and started bleeding again. Needless to say the bandage went back on.

Sunday Chase, MIL and I went for a ride. I decided to pull the old lady (Black) out since I knew we wouldn’t be going far. We ended up riding down to the river and over the river bridge. Abby was very good for Chase and Sis was her usual lazy self. We trotted some and even loped a little on the way back. Black felt pretty good and was striding out. I had to chuckle on the way home as it was Black (25), then Abby (9), and then Sis (10) bringing up the rear!

Later that night Ty decided he wanted to ride so I pulled Nikki out for him. She’s a good pony but she’s learned a few tricks over the years (like diving for grass and snatching the reins away from her rider or shaking and unseating them) so I made up a set of grass reins before Ty ventured out. He likes to ride “by himself” so as soon as we made our way to the backyard I turned him loose. Nikki of course set her path straight back to the barn. When she learned the gait was closed she came back to the backyard (yes I was watching close by) and then proceeded to walk circles. He rode for probably 20 minutes before I made him get off. Little stinker thinks he’s big stuff now!

My ass!

I've been wanting to do this for a long time but I either don't always have all of the horses here or something else gets in the way. Last night DH was gone but I decided to try anways and here are the results!

The line up!

Sis


Black


Lucy (can you tell she was hot?)


Abby


Cat (I promise her back leg isn't that messed up, she was kicking flies on her belly)


Nikki


The gang!


The End(s)


The end!

What a beautiful day!

Tuesday night MIL and I went to drill. I took Black but don’t worry, it was just to ride around while they were warming up/cooling down so I could get her in with other horses. She did a pretty good job too. Not much ear pinning and when she does do it she seems to get over it faster. We walked, trotted, and even loped some. Boy does she have a nice stop! MIL wasn’t very happy that she stopped better then Sis. I told her it was just because Black would rather stop vs. lope.

On Wednesday we had another beautiful day & Chase wanted to ride. What he didn’t know was that we’d sent Abby home w/MIL so we could go trail riding this weekend so we improvised.



All-in-all Lucy was very good with him although he got yelled at quite a few times for being a little quick with his hands. She learned quickly she could grass snatch with him so after that she was happy. He did get along with her fairly well which pleased me since I can’t even remember the last time I rode her.

Shari could ride all day but she was having issues since the grass was as tall as Nikki.



Lucy coming to chase Ty and I on the 4 wheeler



DH even got on for a little bit but I told him he had to walk!



Old girl isn’t looking too bad is she?



We have a new pad ordered for her so I hope it helps make her back feel better since she’s lost so much muscling across her top line. She is filling out but like everything it is a slow process.

(Can you see the kids in the back messing around?)



Man doesn’t lll look good all slicked out?



I hope you all have a good weekend!

Round and Round We Go

Tuesday night DH, the boys and I headed out to the barn. We had left the horses in earlier in the week due to a rain/snow storm so we had stalls to clean. Poor Chase doesn’t think he should be responsible for cleaning Abby’s stall and when he does clean it he does it like most kids would do it. I’ll admit I’m pretty picky about how my stalls are cleaned so I wasn’t happy when he was just trying to throw away all of the sawdust vs. actually cleaning his stall.

By this time my niece had come down and started brushing Nikki for a ride. DH helped her saddle up and about 20 minutes later Chase was finally done with his stall so we started on Abby. I sent the kids out into the pasture to ride while I jumped on Black bareback and had Ty join me in the drylot. All I can say is that it is a good think Black ignores ½ of the cues you give her! Ty was clucking to her trying to get her to trot and when I’d take her towards the barn he’d grab the reins out of my hands and try to steer her back over to the gate because he wanted to go out to the pasture with the kids.

After a while of that he decided he was done. It was a good thing too because I nearly unloaded on my eldest child. Looking back I probably shouldn’t have gotten so upset but it is a little too late now. All he wants to do is run that pony (yeah I know I did the same thing when I was young). I had told him several times not to and when I would turn around he would be giving her the cue to trot and then he’d tell me “she just started doing it on her own”. **inserts not a happy mom face here**

Needless to say by the end of that night I was ready to sell Abby.

The next night we sat down and I explained to him what my expectations were for him. I expect that if he is going to have a pony and that if he wants to show (more like show off) then he needs to practice just like he would with baseball or wrestling. So that night we headed back out to the barn only this time I loaded my pockets with a few quarters. I gave both kids (my niece and Chase) $2.00 worth of quarters and told them when they didn’t listen I got one of their quarters. If they lost them all they were done riding. Whatever money they had left over at the end of the night was theirs to keep.

This seemed to work out well and Chase lost a quarter right off of the bat for giving Shari some “training tips’. About 5 minutes later he lost one for not releasing Abby when he flexed her (we had to buy her a caveson because she’s been biting him hard since he isn’t releasing her). I had them do some ORS at the walk and then I let Chase do some at the trot. We need to work on Nikki a little bit but I think her toes are a bit sore from some of the hay we had so I didn’t push her trotting.

After that I brought Nikki in with me and had Chase do the passenger lesson at the trot. Abby kept taking him behind the barn, by the gate, etc. He trotted her for probably 15 minutes and then I had him take her to the far end of the pasture, flex her and just let her stand still for about 5 minutes before bringing her back up to the barn to stand tied.

Then it was Nikki’s turn. Instead of letting Shari do this in the pasture we went to the dry lot so I could help “encourage” Nikki to go. Any time Nikki’s head would go down she’d get a friendly “pop” on the bum. I didn’t ask her to go too fast or too long before we put her up as well.

With DH’s bad back Black has been missing her exercise so I decided to RP her for 5 minutes each side at the trot. She wasn’t amused but she needs the exercise as well.

Isn't she looking good?

Spring is in the air

Yesterday was lovely (52*) so I had planned to ride after work. I told DH Chase could go with me and go on Max. He had already ridden him once so I didn’t figure he’d be too bad. When I called DH to tell him I was on my way he said there was a little girl in the barn that was just dying to go with. My niece is so horse struck that she reminds me of myself when I was younger. I wish Chase had some of her passion. Unfortunately my rule is one adult per kid when we are on the road.

I made a phone call up to the house and my sister agreed to swap kids (she’d take Ty and I’d take Shari) and Brandon said he’d go with so we all saddled up for a ride. I wanted to ride Abby one more time to see how she was going to do so Lu was left back at the barn.

I did get video of Black being saddled so you can see how pissy she is but I can’t seem to figure out how to rotate it so once I do I’ll post it. She has a chiro appt. next week that I am hoping will help but I have a feeling that it is so ingrained into her that even if she feels better it will still take time.

Here is Chase (showing off since he’s on Max), Shari, and DH.



Shari was afraid Nikki was going to take her in the ditch.



The boys yapping their traps.



I’m not quite sure how Chase got out in front but can you see the nice tuck Max has to his head?





Chase looks so little on Max.



Nikki & Shari were bringing up the rear.



That old black mare. *smirk*



One of the things we need to work on with Chase is keeping his hands down.



DH took that a little too literally and got a bit too relaxed on Black.



I lost my patience with Chase a few times. He’d say whoa but really mean easy and then he’d let Max keep on walking. He was also in Max’s face a lot! I realize he’s a kid but he needs to decide if he wants to ride or not. Right now he just enjoys showing off. He was telling Shari what a great rider he was and honestly she rides a lot better. I thought Max did very well dealing with all of Chase’s antics. At one point I caught Chase clucking and kissing just to do it. And this is why I’m training Abby to ignore him. *sigh*

One the way home I heard a bit of a commotion. I looked back to see DH quickly dismounting off of Black as Nikki was going down on Shari. This is something Nikki has always done. When she gets tired she rolls. Usually she waits until she’s hot and sweaty but I guess she decided she was done with the ride. The kids aren’t coordinated enough to whack her when she goes down. I’m seriously considering putting a shock collar on the dock of her tail and zapping her when she starts to go down.

Like a trooper Shari got back on and we headed back home.

Lucy was happy to see us.

Move those feet!

Last night DH and the boys got home early so my plans of riding where shot out of the water. MIL had planned on coming over to ride with me so instead I let her ride with DH while I worked with Chase and Abby.

DH saddled up Max and I let MIL ride Lucy (this is the first time I’ve let anyone ride Lu). They were going to go for a walk down the road and I felt comfortable enough with Lucy to let MIL take her.

In the meantime Chase got Abby out, cleaned her up and we put the bareback pad on her and Shari got Nikki cleaned up too. I had the kids ride bareback with a halter and 1 rein so they could learn how to do the ORS without fumbling with their reins. We started out by walking and then having the kids do ORS. Then we moved to trotting. This posed to be more of a problem then I had expected because the two ponies like to crowd each other and get pissy with each other so I pulled one pony into the middle while the other one worked.

Shari has such a natural seat when it comes to riding. I really wish Heather could afford to get her lessons. Chase on the other hand…….he’s like me and he’s going to have to work at it. As soon as Abby would trot he’d get stiff and start to bounce, then he’d start to lose his balance and then he’d start to grip with his legs. This is what we are trying to prevent. Right when he was starting to get better Abby decided to cop a tude so I told Chase to get off and told Shari to get out.

I took the bareback pad off of Abby and we did some round penning. I’d ask her to lope she’d swish her head so I’d make her go faster. By the time she figured it was just a good idea to lope we were getting along much better. I set some barrels up and had her jump just for shits and giggles and to my surprise she can jump fairly well and fairly correct (hmmm – jumping pony prospect LOL).

I had Chase grab his saddle and get back on. He trotted a bit then did the ORS and then we loped a few strides and he did the ORS. Abby’s attitude was greatly improved. LOL She even had a nice, free flowing trot.

Chase was done riding and Abby was pooped so we let him get the mini bike out and ride. In the meantime Shari decided to take Nikki in the pasture to ride (still only had one rein). She was trotting all over the place, chasing the 4-wheeler and the mini bike. Shari almost had more control with just the one rein then she does when she has two.

By this time MIL and DH had returned from their ride so I put the English saddle on Max (figured I needed to rectify my ride from last night) so I could ride him for just a few minutes. I asked MIL how Lucy did and she replied “I just love her! She’s such a wonderful horse.” I giggled and replied “why do you think I like her!” DH said she was very good and just plunked down the road.

I hoped on Max and did some flexing and then we walked out and flexed and then moved to trotting transitions. He has “easy” down very well now. He was a completely different horse (but then I was a different rider too) last night. He was soft, easy moving and slow. When I asked for the lope transitions he smoothly moved into them and then stayed in a lope not a run. We maybe worked for ½ hour and then I put him up. The gal from ND had her weekends messed up and won’t be coming until next weekend so that gives me a bit more time to work with him.

Tonight is the queen contest. MIL is so excited to see Sis go. I have the camera so hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures on Monday.

Two steps forward, one step back

Well last night was my one step back with Max.

DH and the boys were gone so I decided to go for a ride. I saddled Max up and as I got ready to leave my sister came out and decided she was going to tag along in the cart with Nikki. I told her that was fine but she had to figure out how to hook up the cart because I was riding!

While she got ready I trotted Max up and down the road. Of course he was wonderful trotting away from home. Nice, steady, easy trot. When we turned for home……….he thought he could break into a lope. Needless to say we did a few ORS.

When Heather finally got Nikki ready we headed down the road. I would trot in front of her and then trot past her and go behind her and then lope ahead of her and then lope behind her. Max wasn’t doing too badly. Then we hit the neighbor’s house and a little kitten decided to follow us. We are pretty sure he was dumped because he was at the abandoned house the other night when we rode but my sister is going to call to check tonight.

Needless to say he followed us down the road (the little fart kept up with the horses trotting) so when a car came by and my sister had visions of a smashed kitty she lost it, put him in the cart and took him home. I told her I was going to continue riding.

Max and I headed on down the road (of course at a much slower pace since we were going away from home and Nikki had left). I asked him to canter and he had a fairly nice, smooth flowing canter (this has been one of our biggest issues).

I’ve noticed I typically ask for the right lead when I ask to lope so I decided on the way home to ask for the left lead. This is where things started to fall apart. I got the left lead but I also got a race horse.

When I asked him to slow down his head went up in the air and he became more belligerent so I said “fine, you want to lope fast we’ll lope”. I turned him back around and loped him back down the road (away from home). He was still going considerably faster than what he needed to go but we were running out of road (I didn’t want to get too far away from home because it was dark) so we turned around and loped………ran. When we got to where we started on the road we turned around and went the other direction. He wasn’t caving and my patience was running thin. So we loped some more.

We loped to the point that I wondered if he’d ever slow down. The problem was he wanted to go from a run to a trot, there was no in-between gait.

When we got to the corner I worked on flexing him and bending him all of the way home. He was still full of P & V so when we got back we headed for the RP (our RP is oversized and the only “flat” surface I can ride). Once inside I just let him go. He ran and ran and ran. Pretty soon that got old so I decided to do rollbacks on him to see if I could slow his thinking down a bit. Please note I was in an English saddle so when we did the first rollback I almost didn’t go with him.

I’ll bet we did rollbacks for a good 20 minutes. I have blisters on my ass to prove it (I’m guessing this is why English peeps ride in breeches instead of jeans).

He still wasn’t really listening so we did some transitions. I’d lope him a few steps and say easy and bring him back to a walk. Lope a few steps back to a walk. It was dark and I knew I was loosing my patience and not gaining any ground so we returned to the middle of the RP and worked on flexing.

I will probably try to ride him tonight but ask for a lot less of him. Last night was just as much my fault as it was his. I want too much too fast and it’s not fair to ask for it. I know if we weren’t trying to sell him I’d never have pushed like I did.

On the positive side. The guy from the feed store is going to start having roping practice at his house every Wed. night and has invited me to join (he really likes Lucy). He said he’d help me teach her how to track cattle and has no problem burning calves (the other place doesn’t score them out as much nor do they let you track as much). I’m so excited but I’m sure DH isn’t going to be to thrilled that he has no horse to take with him.