Seasons Greetings!

I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! We don’t have too much planned for the holidays other then visiting with the family, eating lots of good food (and I do mean lots) and spending as much time with the horses as I can seeing as I have a whole week off!

So have a safe and happy holiday!!

The Good Fight Continues!

After feeding the horses I set off with my rubber curry comb, blue bristled hard brush and shedding blade. It was time to work on getting as many of the rain rot scabs as I could off of Kallie, we had actually had a few dry days so they had had a chance to dry out and were itching to come off (literally!). Kallie stood at liberty as I proceeded to curry the heck out of her hair, then brush any dirt off her coat that had come to the surface, and followed up with the shedding blade which worked awesome for brushing the scabs off. I then went and got the betadine solution that I had mixed and sprayed all over her withers, back, rub and a few spots on her neck. Let it sit and soak in while I fed her treats and talked to her before I scrapped even more scabs off with the shedding blade.

Kallie was licking and chewing most of the time or really leaning into the shedding blade. At the end of this little session she got a yummy stud muffin as a reward. She was perfect!

*YAWN*

Today was a shelter building day – or so I thought. I didn’t really build anything, just hauled materials down to the site and then passed some pieces of wood to my dad who was working on the shelter. Unfortunately we didn’t get done as much as we wanted, we need yet again more supplies *sigh*. So back to the hardware store we will have to go this week. Maybe just maybe it will get done for the New Year.

While the boys worked on the shelter I proceeded to scratch Kallie and pick off more rain rot scabs. She decided she wanted to stand beside the pile of lumber Anna and I had lugged down, even when the saw was cutting wood! She just stood there totally relaxed, couldn’t care less. I scratched her for some time, she was quickly licking and chewing, and then after the intense grooming session she began to yawn, first time I ever saw her yawn. And then she would look at me with her big brown eyes as if to say: “Please, scratch me more.”

Eventually I went up and trimmed Chance’s feet at liberty. I’d never done that before with him and wasn’t exactly sure if he was going to stay still, but he did with very little fuss. I filed back quite a bit of his toe, his white line was starting to get stretched a bit, and his frog looks awesome. So full and healthy, barely had to do anything to his heels. He got a yummy stud muffin as a reward for standing so nicely!

Quick Update

Didn’t do a whole lot today, the herd is still getting along nicely. Kallie is distancing herself from the others, she doesn’t seem to really fit in, but everyone respects her space and doesn’t bother her. I spent some undemanding time with her in the morning, picking her rain rot scabs off, rubbing her itchy spots and eventually giving her the rest of her dewormer. She had had no side-effects from the last dosage, so I gave her the rest of her normal dose. Hopefully that will clean her out, and in January we are going to start to do fecal counts. And treat accordingly.

Moving Day

Well today I woke up and looked out my window to see that the fence line was practically lying on the ground thanks to the 10-25 mm of ice rain followed by almost a foot of snow! The fence by the house was in much better shape then the fence up the road. So Andrew and I climbed onto the tractor, and drove down the road with the feed for the five up there and some hay. When we got there we weren’t surprised to see that the fence was pretty much non-existent due to all the extra weight it was bearing. And pleasantly surprised that everyone was still in where they should be!

We hummed and hawed about what we should do, I was ready to go back to the house and start walking them back to the house in pairs, but then Andrew suggested we let them follow the tractor with the hay on the trailer. I wasn’t too sure if that was going to work, but once they all spotted the hay they were more then willing to follow along behind.

Chance and Dessi took a few detours on the way back, Andrew drove slowly while I walked behind everyone to ensure they didn’t detour too far and we made it back to the house with no real trouble. It didn’t take long to move everyone into the paddock with Blue, Kallie and Lexi. This wasn’t exactly what was planned for the introductions of the two herds. Granted everyone had met before except for Kallie, Ripley and Storm. All in all it was uneventful, Kallie let out a few squeals and lifted her hind end towards Chance, while Lexi ran around bucking and rearing at any of the horses from up the road – even her own mother and “surrogate” father.

I’m very happy to have everyone next to the house, will certainly make my life a bit easier, once everyone gets into a good routine for going in the feeding stalls anyways.

Good Times

Went for another ride today and Blue was yet again perfect! We did our pre-ride checklist and he passed everything with flying colors so we set out on the trail again. He was moving forward easily, rounding pretty much the second my butt was in the saddle, so light and responsive. I would think something and he would do it! Just a perfect boy!!

We even did some jogging – hard to believe that my ex-race horse (okay so he never really made it to the races but he was bred and trained to move like hell!) can carry himself in a nice western jog. Granted we wouldn’t be winning any western pleasure classes anytime soon but he was slow and responsive. We even did some loping, we were moving as one, it felt like we were just flying over the ground smooth as could be!

We met a truck on the trail, the slowed down and Blue didn’t even balk at it, we just kept going, we even trotted through a few puddles which is a big thing for him seeing as puddles are Blue’s worst nightmare. He is slowly getting better with going through them, and will go through them if I’m on the ground leading him, but it is almost like he doesn’t like to get his feet dirty. What a silly horse.

Another wicked ride and awesome time with Blue!

Flying Without Wings

So today couldn’t have gone better I don’t think? My first big task of the day was tackling Kallie’s feet. I wanted to give her a really good trim before we got another dump of snow, and seeing as we had the knife’s freshly sharpened, a brand new rasp and a half decent day I figured heck why not today!? She was easy enough to catch, lead perfectly up to the cement pad that we have in the front lawn (we are thinking the previous owner had it as a door step when he had a trailer there – not really sure.

Chucked a bunch of hay down in front of her and began to trim. She was over-all very good for the trim, she did get a bit fidgety a few time sand tried to pull her hoof away from me so I made her back up and yield her hind quarters and forequarters then stood her up square again. After a few sessions of the yo-yo game she was great and stood well. I took a fair bit back on her front toes, evened them out, got rid of some points, cleaned out her bar, made room for her frog to expand and grow more and lowered her heels.

Then it was on to the back feet (which I am embarrassed to say I never picked up before this session as she had been so stiff when she first arrived and her legs were so sore from the scratches). She was really good for the back left hoof, but when it came to her back right hoof she decided that it would be fun to lean on me. So I had to get Anna to help balance her, by gently pulling her tail to the opposite side and getting her to even out her weight, she quickly was stand on her own three feet and not relying on me as a crutch! On the back I trimmed the toe back a little bit and really cleaned out the bars and made room for the frog to grow.

Gave her lots of rubs in between picking up her feet and making her stand on three legs to give her a break, I also picked at a few of her rain rot scabs much to her disliking. Soon it was time for Kallie to go back, licking and chewing the whole walk down to the paddock.

Blue stood at the gate basically screaming at me, asking that we do SOMETHING. So since it had been awhile since either Anna and I were able to ride (thanks to a combination of the lovely weather and hunting season in the area) we thought that today looked like a excellent day (seeing as the weather was perfect and you aren’t allowed to hunt on Sunday’s!) So Anna headed up the road with her gear to tack up Tia while I got Blue out of the paddock. I haltered him from across the fence seeing as I didn’t plan ahead and switched into my riding boots before getting my horse out of the paddock which happened to be a big pile of mud right by the gate.

He was perfect, shoved his nose right in the halter and let me guide him along the fence line and around the gate without me having to get my boots covered in mud and water! Then up to the barn where he stood ground tied while I gave him a quick brush over before starting to tack him up. As we tacked I played the Seven Games with him, testing him to see if he was “rideable” today. He played all Seven Games like a pro, no warning lights went off at all!

Stood perfectly while I mounted up (I’ve come to realize that I am getting a wee bit stiff, so had to have him down the hill from me to make it easier for me to get into the saddle!). And as soon as I had my butt in the saddle and even thought about moving forward we were walking up the driveway. Blue just felt so loose, so free under me. We soon met up with Anna and Tia along the road and decided to ride up past the big field towards the many logging roads in the area.

Both Blue and Tia had tones of impulsion and were eagerly stretching out and moving forward. Blue was tracking up beautifully, extending with each stride and his back hoof prints in the dirt road were soon over stretching where his front hoof prints had fallen. And he was doing this without clipping his front hooves; it was like riding a cloud. We worked on his head set which quickly fell into a perfect western horse headset and stayed there the whole ride, he was right on the vertical, I could feel that he was rounded and not hollow-backed.

We gave them a good warm-up at the walk, then we trotted a bit, and eventually worked ourselves up to a gallop. The horses were thrilled to be able to get out and stretch their legs. You could tell how eager they were to move forward. They required no real cues to go faster; just the thought of it was enough. Blue was having a blast, he was galloping full out, the wind was blowing through his mane and my hair as we soared over the ground, we moved in perfect unison with one another, neither restricting the other and we just flew, it felt like Blue was galloping on air, he was so smooth, so perfect it was like flying without wings. It was a wonderful feeling and I hope I get to experience it again soon.

When we finally did stop neither horse was huffing or worked up, they easily fell back into a walk, a very impulsive walk, but not trying to break gate unless asked for. They didn’t even break a sweat! Got to love naturally fit horses! The ride home was great, both Tia and Blue were perfect, could not have asked for a better end to a perfect day!