One Picture

Sorry guys, this is all you get today. I was a poop and didn't do much. Curse this gray and mushy weather.



Cricket and me playing with trot poles a couple days ago. (Photo is from the session I last blogged) The poles are one of the things we've been playing with, along with hill therapy, and now we're also starting some riding. I'm hoping to keep somewhat of a photo diary of her progress this spring and summer, and keep posted on here. She's a very special girl and her journey is going to be worth noting :)

Savvy on, I'm off to go read some more Outliers, which is a FANTASTIC book, by the way. It's on Pat and Linda's reading list, and for good reason :)

Tis the Season to be Naughty...

Short blog today, but I thought I'd share what's up at least.

Spring has sprung, and along with lots of rain and mud, we've got a herd full of SASSY horses. I headed out to the farm late in the afternoon, let Prin and Cricket into the west paddock and went about my routine of mixing feed, etc. Got everyone fed, and decided to play with Cricket, simply because I'd played with Prin for a while yesterday, and it had gone well.

I haltered her up, just on the 12' line (my 22' is soaked and muddy at the moment)and played with getting her using her topline (it was circle pattern meets bullseye, meets hill therapy, oh yes!). She did wonderfully, I think she's going to be just a GORGEOUS English riding horse, she's got such nice floaty gaits, and she carries herself nicely.

After playing with Cricket, I had to put Prin back. She'd finished her cubes, and was on the "I'm going to play with you if it's the last thing I do!" path. So, away she goes, cantering and farting. Fortunately, though, she really did want me to play back, so I went running WITH her. Not after her, or chasing her, but with her. Almost immediately, she slowed, stopped, and turned to look at me, like "Oh...well that was my grand idea, what's the plan now?" and I led her by the ear (oh the humorous expressions on her face for that...) back to the paddock and put her in.

So all in all, a very wet, sloppy, and fun day. I'm looking forward to the rain stopping so I can start riding again.

That's all for now, folks!

Oh Cresty...

I say this in the most loving, adoring possible way, by my GOD he is FAT AND OUT OF SHAPE! Of course, lying almost completely dormant for 6 weeks *might* have something to do with it, but seriously-lol.

So, that being said, it's probably obvious I played with da boy today. It's the first time since my being home that I've done anything with him other than feed him cookies and give him kisses. Anyway, he's totally obese and out of shape. He's got a huge hay belly, and virtually no topline. His neck is short and bunchy, and he's tight in his stifles and HQ, surprise, surprise. Seeing this, I decided that I'd be nice and not ask him for anything vigorous at all, but opted for lazy-boy hill therapy to at least get his body loosened up and hind-quarters going again. I headed out for our hill, which is a very lovely sloping corn field. For those who have been to my place, it's the one out behind the West Paddock/Driveway that runs parallel to the road. It's a pretty steep hill, but it's a good walking/trotting hill therapy hill, and fun for a good gallop on Prin occasionally.

Anyway, I headed out there with Crest on the 22' line (45'? are you kidding, he'd die!) asked him out on a circle. What I got from him was the most embarrassing thing I have EVER seen. He sent out at the trot, and within 10 seconds, was panting. He offered a downward transition, which was fine, I didn't want to push. He walked several laps before giving me this "Can I PLEASE come in?! I'm DYING out here!" look. I let him come in, gave him a cookie, and sent him out the other direction. Same thing. We repeated this for 15 minutes, and by then,I was seeing a bit of change, his walk stride (that is SO embarrassing) was lengthening and he started to show signs of his handsomeness again. But I'm not going to delude myself, this is going to be one heck of a journey to get him back in shape. Cavaletti and more hills tomorrow, Cresty. I'm not riding him again until he's got some muscle. Oy...

I also trimmed Clue's feet. He's got nice, hard, well shaped feet, I did some minor adjustments (His bars were a little long) and gave them a nip and rasped them down and they look pretty nice :) Have to do Cadence's tomorrow, and I should probably do Crest and Silver too. One thing at a time though.

I'm off to finish my dishes now.

Savvy on,
F

Online, Freestyle Patterns and the Like

I have to say, since starting to play with Nugget, I've gained a whole new appreciation for the usfulness and effectiveness of the Parelli patterns pack. Not that I had any doubt about it, but being that I come from older Parelli, I'm kinda partial to the levels formatting, particularly to old levels. But the more I use this new stuff (with my prior knowledge of horsenality and the seven games) the more I like the format.

Anyway, point of this statement is to open up what I did today. I actually started out with Crest before playing with Nugget. After my experience yesterday trimming Crest's feet (I didn't write about this because I was too exausted, but long story short, I had a hard time doing his back feet because of the weakness in his stifles leftover from the accident we had in winter '07) I decided he needs to get strengthened up in that hind end. I figured probably the best way to go about that was to just do another 4 weeks of hill therapy, but because his back is strong enough this time, and I have a good saddle, maybe allow myself to ride him a bit. So we started playing with the circles pattern, and I put hills and obstacles in the way accordingly. We pretty much played all over the property, up and down, over barrels, down through some steep stuff, up into a nicely sloping corn field, and Crest seemed to really enjoy himself, while getting a really good workout. Watching him move all over the place like that had me DROOLING. He's such a gorgeous horse.

Moving on to miss Nugget. She was queen of multiple horsenalities today, and I could have been better "on my game" at first, but I think all in all it went well. We started out playing the catching game for the first time since she's been here. I'm of the opinion that Crest and Cricket are teaching her this during feeding time, since one or both of them consistantly takes off after being fed, insisting that they have some grazing time. Anyway, we played with that for about 5 minutes, then she came to me with a truly confused look ("I don't know why but I'm strangly drawn to you...") and we headed out to the west paddock to feed and play.

Nugget has had a little (VERY minor) food aggression thing since she's been here, and I've played with it a little bit, but just enough to get her to not lay her ears back while I'm throwing hay. Today, for some reason, I was not in the mood to play dominance games anymore, so I pulled out a new trick. I decided that this pan of feed was MY feed, and that she didn't get any until she yo-yo'd to the end of the line, ASKED ME PERMISSION to come in and eat,and then came in with her ears forward, or at least one ear on me. She wasn't exactly pleased with this at first (got some serious tail swishing) but when she caught onto the game, it actually improved her entire attitude in the session.

Next, we played a little with the weave pattern, which she was quite RBE about at first (I'm thinking I may have scared her a little with my sudden quest for dominance) but she calmed down after seeing that there was purpose and "FOCUS" for her scattered energy. We also played a bit with more extreme friendly games, getting comfortable with the "helicopter" action with CS and string, etc.

Then I hopped on, and this is where things got really interesting. She was a little uneasy at first coming to get me off the barrel, but she soon settled when I played friendly and just leaned on her back, etc. When she finally relaxed, I put some weight on, and she didnt' object, so I hopped on. I asked her to bend in each direction, then backup, then stand, and then I asked politely for her to walk on. She had a CLASSIC RBI moment, and totally froze up. I backed off until she turned her head to check in. I played friendly and then asked her forward again. 3 little bucks in a row, on the spot is what I got in return. How INTERESTING...I bent her head without getting tense, asked her to back up, and then asked her forward again, and she kind of BLASTED into a walk, and proceeded to attempt to walk me off, I think. Instead of asking her to slow (I'm HAPPY that she wanted to move!) I immediately directed her towards the barrels, where I still had my weave pattern set up. We power-walked through the pattern about 4 times, and then, like clockwork (Pat and Linda sure know what they're talking about ;P ) she started to lower her head, blow out, relax, slow down, etc. Her ears went forward, and all of a sudden, she had this attitude of "Let's DO something!" and she took me for a walk around the paddock, just investigating everything. I even got several strides of a lovely smooth trot, and got her to walk over a log, and do an entire fence line of running walk. This gaited thing is kinda fun!

I ended the session with her relaxing and blowing out even more adrenaline, and walking me over to the gate, no hurry, just moseying. I'm pleased with this girl's progress! Pix to come soon, I hope :)

Time for me to go to bed now! It's supposed to snow tonight, YAY!

A Day of Excitement

It's been a VERY exciting day for me today. The excitement started when Richard approached me about Cricket. Cricket is the APHA mare that belongs to a friend of ours, who's been staying with us for the past 8 weeks or so, fattening up on our nice pasture. Anyway, Richard said he'd talked to Cricket's owner, who's DESPARATELY trying to find her a home, and that it was mentioned that if I wanted her, I could HAVE her for FREE. So...exciting news. I have a new horse! I'll probably develop her up and try to find her a home with someone just starting PNH. She's a very nice horse with a huge heart, and I feel like someone could really go far with her. She's so quiet and sweet, she's SO deserving of that wonderful home, and I'd love to help her find it, and in the mean time (however long that takes, I really am not wearing a watch here) I'll provide it.

I would say her only big downfall right now is her horribly atrophied topline. She's been undereweight, and now she's just sadly undermuscled. We started a hill therapy program tonight, and got through the first 5 minutes of circling, and then I realized that she really had NO CLUE how to pick her feet up when she moved. She'd stumble over some tall grass, or a small stick, etc. So instead of the second round, I pulled out some cavalettis about 6" high, and set 4 in a row up along the fence line. She started out REALLY clumsy, as I expected, but as we kept going along, (I kept the same time scale as if we were using a hill) her eyes got brighter, he feet got higher, and she started to REALLY use herself. I've NEVER seen something have that drastic an impact in one session physically before. It was remarkable. The last 30 seconds or so, she was prancing over those cavalettis like she owned them, and she was rounding her topline even on the rest of the circle. At the rate she's going, she'll have a topline like Remmer before the month is out-haha!

My second piece of exciting news is slightly less heartfelt, but I'm still PSYCHED! Parelli Collection called me this afternoon to let me know that my saddle is READY TO SHIP, and will be going out either today or tomorrow. OMG! It'll be here in A WEEK! Maybe in time for Farrah's clinic? I HOPE SO! God that would be PERFECT. EEEEEKK! I can't wait to have it :D This'll be wonderful. I felt giddy today after I got the call, I actually drove down to Winona and pathetically invested in a saddle stand especially for it to sit on. I'm silly. Anyway, REALLY excited, it should be here by Tuesday or Wednesday next week!

Okay, bedtime, I have to get up and water flowers tomorrow, oh joy.

PS, trimmed feet today, Crest's are like BLACK GRANITE...Need like, robotic limbs to pull that off!