Poking my nose places it shouldn't be

I can't afford a horse... I don't have time for a horse... I can't afford a horse... I already have a horse I can ride....

Yet I'm still looking for one!!!

I have the pony bug, bad...

Ack.

Found this super duper cute paint pony, 13.2hh, sturdy as a tank, 12 years old, basic training, for dirt cheap. Want. Want. Want. He would be an awesome project, retrain, start in harness maybe, sell for 10x what I paid in a year....

But I really really don't have time for a horse of my own, with school, work, the kids, my second job cleaning stalls, I barely have the time to ride the one horse I'm retraining as is. How in the world could I fit in my own project?

I still want him though!!

I'm hopeless, lol

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Puppy meets ponies

This past week little miss Maggie bear got to take her first car ride down the street to visit the barn. Along with fearless Fiona as her mentor, she was able to tackle all the strange and exciting sights and smells of the equine world! She learned some really valuable things that she'd like to pass along.

1. Horses are actually NOT puppy eating monsters
But they are still big and scary and should be avoided at all costs. However, they are much less scary when mommy is standing right next to them to make sure they don't trample me. They are much less scary too when they are on the ground, when they leap up though, I don't really like that.

2. Horse poop is good
Really really good. Especially when it's fresh.

3. So is grain
Fiona and I love to sniff around and pick all those good little tidbits off the ground that the horses drop. Only problem is I get wood shavings all over my nose and it makes me sneeze.

4. Big, strange dogs that bark a lot are scary
But their owners are super sweet and I really like them, once I sniffed noses with the big strange dog though, he wasn't so bad. He just barked a lot at first and I thought I was gonna get eatted so I ran away as fast I could to mommy and she told me that it was OK. Phew.

5. But, getting to ride on mommy's lap in the truck with my nose out the window is best of all!

Until next time, I'll be keeping a close eye on those ponies, they might step on me ya know.

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The Mighty Mouse Hunter

My puppy scored herself a kill yesterday, first one ever. And she was so proud of herself!!

I got home from work and let her out of her kennel and she was running crazed puppy circles around the house so I decided to take the dogs out front to burn some energy playing keep away with each other with the spiffy pink tennis ball (total win for girl dogs btw).

Hubby then came home with our "new" vehicle, so we were checking it out, seeing what needed to be done, etc. As we were doing so, the dogs kinda dissapeared around the vehicles into the neighbor's yard, I knew where they were so didn't think much of it. Until little Maggie comes trotting back into our yard, head held high looking incredibly proud of herself carrying... something... in her mouth.

My husband goes "Is that a mouse? I think she got a mouse!" I look a little closer and sure enough, she has a fat little mouse held in her mouth, and oh so proud of it!!

Now we had to get away from her before she ate it, or worse, brought it into the house. But she wanted nothing to do with us and it became an even bigger game of keep away as she happily galloped around the yard, mouse and all, with one adult and two kids attempting to corral her. LOL

I finally got her scooped up and managed to snap a quick picture of Maggie and her prize before we deposited of the mouse.

The mighty hunter

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Goin to the dogs

Just when things seem like they are finally settling down and getting to resemble some sort of normalcy, bam, ya get another curve ball. And another... and another!! DUCK AND COVER

Just had to get that out. So, my husband got his car squished between a pickup and a semi on the interstate on monday. Oh joy. And only liability insurace. Double joy. Now we gotta find a new vehicle asap. Triple joy. Definitely been a rather large lesson in trust and paitence this week, we are probably going to end up getting the minivan I learned how to drive in from my mom, she's been wanting to buy a new car anyway, what better timing?

Aside from that, I am having much too much fun with my little ball of terror... I mean, little adorable puppy.



Finding the chickens more than a little interesting

 She an Australian Shepherd mix of some sort, possibly lab in there. And, she's about 10 weeks old right now, that means we got her at 8 weeks, poor baby!! But, she's thriving, growing like a weed. And noming on everything.

Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom.

And those wittle teefies HURT!! Normally she's just play biting and it doesn't hurt, but every now and then, crunch... you hear "No biting!" all day, lol, she's now figured out that biting human flesh is a no-no... so instead she's recently decided to bite our clothes. Oy! So whenever I'm in the kitchen she is constantly grabbing my jeans and puuuuuull!!!

She is so people oriented though, I love it. :) She is happy to have you sit on the floor so that she can crawl in your lap and happily nom away on her rope, her gumby, her ball, your jeans...

And she is SMART. Holy smokes she's smart. She's already got "Sit" down pat, at 10 weeks! Wow. She is now doing it on her own unbidden because, sit=treat, and if she sits, treats follow... right? So she follows us around, wagging her tail, and sitting when we look at her. Not yet understanding that she first must be told to do so in order to receive the treat. Oh puppy, she is so darn eager to please!

I've decided I'm going to do agility with her when she's older. Because she needs a job, big time! When you have her focused and working on sit, and now she's learning "down", she is so attentive, and so eager, and not biting. When she's just playing... she is a little terror!! This is gonna be fun. Ah, but I wuv her!!! <3

Extremely proud of herself for stealing the chuckit. <3

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Officially horseless

So, little crazy Callie mare left Tuesday evening. Was I sad to see her go? No, not really. We didn't click, and she wasn't really that much fun to ride for me. But, she was a fantastic learning opportunity, reminded me how much I've been able to slack off on push-button horses. Oops.

I am sad to no longer have "My" horse at the barn. I still have two horses I can ride. Baby, the 21 year old thoroughbred mare that knows it all, just needs to be brought back into shape. And Magic, an older QH lesson mare who needs a bit of a tuneup after being ridden by kiddos all the time. And with the current changes in my life and how dang BUSY I am all of a sudden, it's for the best really.

Things too have fallen through with the baby I was going to get. I was going to get a very nicely bred Warmblood baby, but the stallion owner hasn't really been cooperating, with the stallion actively competing it's super hard to have him at home when the mare is in season. And things in my friend's life (who owns the mare) have kinda gotten turned upside down in the past month as well. Then, considering what all is going on in my life right now, realistically, I cannot afford a new horse right now, and probably won't be able to do so for at least another year or two, maybe three. We'll see.

So, for now I'll settle with catch rides here and there, and be satisfied that I'm still lucky enough to be able to go and be around horses every day regardless!

And in the mean time... I got a new puppy!! So all my time and what spare change I do have, will be going towards spoiling her <3 I will be sure to do up a post about her in a little. She's my baby. :)

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Half-halts and the Lunge Line

I had a bit of a light bulb moment the other day while lunging Callie. It finally truly dawned on me how important half-halts and leg are while lunging a horse.

You may be thinking, "whaaaa? but I'm not riding, leg? are you crazy?" I might be lol, but just because you aren't riding your horse doesn't mean you can have your leg on.

Most people think of  lunging as a quick and easy way to exercise their horse, slap some side reins on, throw them at the end of a line, and voila, I can build fitness, exercise them, and help improve their balance. Right? Wrong.

Only if done correctly. The horse may have side reins on, may have a bit in their mouth and saddle on their back, but if they are just carrening around on their forehand, unbalanced, hindend disengaged, they are doing more harm than good.

In order to have impulsion in the gaits and to have a good, solid working walk, trot, and canter, the leg needs to be in. In lunging, the leg is the whip and voice. With Callie she is incredibly sensitive to these cues, I often only have to give a little cluck or lift the tip of the whip about a foot to get the desired response. This keeps her engaged and her hindend working up under her.

But then I need to be able to control this forward energy and not let her just run it into the ground by being on her forehand. So that means that the half-halt must be effective. There is where I see sooooo many people getting it wrong, their horse either doesn't understand the contact, or refuses to take it. When lunging there MUST be contact with the horse's mouth! If they keep cutting the circle and coming in towards you and giving slack in the line then they are not on the contact. Callie is awesome with this, she really likes a steady, solid contact with the bit and actually puts quite a bit of weight in the reins/lunge line. This is not bad and not to be punished, this is just what she finds comfortable.

So, whenever I give a "leg" cue with the whip or voice I make sure to give a little half-halt, just a soft squeezing of my fingers on the line, a subtle yet quick give-and-take of pressue, often many of them in a row as we go around. This reminds her to pick up her forehand and balance, and not plow around on her nose.

The result? A balanced, energetic picture of a horse working correctly, with implusion, responsive to the aids, and able to change gaits quickly and easily because... they are balanced!

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When it rains, it pours

Literally and figuratively!!

Literally, the storm front moved in and the thunder started rolling Tuesday evening, it's been raining ever since. Things are muddy, wet, cold, and gross. Trying to get the muck cart from the barn to the dump pile is an epic task, the mud is slick as ice, I can't get any traction! It's only a matter of time until I loose my footing and faceplant into the manure... oh my.

Figuratively, life is just crazy right now. CRAZY! I'm soooooo glad the semester is over, although I didn't do so hot on my finals DUE to said craziness, oh well, I still passed both classes with a B, I'll take it, considering all that's gone on in the past couple months. But man, just... man. Things are looking up for us, the changes that have happened are really good, but I'm so stressed about things, these are BIG changes. All I really want right now is a lazy afternoon at the barn where I can do whatever I want and not be under some sort of timeframe or pressure or expectation to be somewhere to do something to satisfy someone. Crossing my fingers I'll get it this saturday. Crossing them hard!

Otherwise, little miss Callie mare is getting a break, mostly in part to the literal rain, and a lot in part to the figurative rain. Just when I was starting to make progress with her, fiddlesticks.

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