Atta girl...

Been a while since I checked in. I've been doing Level 1 On Line Parelli groundwork (not in the halter in the picture, FYI) with Ab. We've got our Friendly, Porcupine, and Yo Yo Games mastered. Driving game is a little more of a challenge, and Circle game confuses the heck out of her (why aren't you turning to follow me? and she breaks gait behind me). But we've made a lot of progress. In the last two weeks we've:

1) Learned how to back up. She did not seem to have this concept from any point in her past.
2) Walked across a tarp.
3) Learned signals for moving her feet in four directions, but not towards me yet.
4) Messed around with some Liberty, as well, in her vast pasture, and being the Right Brain Introvert that she is, she has no problem sticking with me. Liberty is almost more exhilarating than riding.
5) Made some progress with the mounting block. I think I could've gotten on her the other day but she got anxious so we went for a walk until she got out of Right Brain Extrovert mode. I think she is going to be mostly RBE under saddle, which might not be a bad thing, considering the stuff I want to do with her.
6) We're currently playing with the plastic bag on the carrot stick, which she's pretty wary of and other than letting her nose it I haven't touched her with it yet.
7) No idea how we're going to do sideways and squeeze games. There's not a fence on the place that is straight with no ditch in front of it and no barbed wire. I might have to improvise with poles and barrels or something.

I really can't wait to ride her...

In other good news, Russ has sort of decided he's interested in riding... not so much for its own sake but for things like mounted medieval games, mounted archery and such. I'd love to have a second horse that I can put just about anybody on and take them riding. And a horse trailer. Maybe by spring.

Into The Dark and Scary Woods

Miss Abbey has been chasing the cows out of their corn and as a result she is getting FAT. She's going to be moved to a different, cattle-free pasture but in the meantime we thought we'd go for a little walk today, in hand.

My normally Right Brain Introvert mare decided that evil things were lurking in the woods (hey, she lived in the wild for a year) and was suddenly quite eager to go, go, go. Someone had a campfire so I'm not sure if that was what was spooking her so much, but she was very Extroverted, pushing me, trying to decide where we were going to go... we had to do a few reminder moves along the way (hey, I'm the lead mare and I will protect you from the monsters).

Since I intend to ride her on trails I find this verrrrry interesting.

(By the way, are you not just so excited about the new Where The Wild Things Are movie coming out? I LOVED that book!)

Kids and Horses

Pony rides at WCMS Renaissance Faire

If you rode as a kid, do you remember how magical horses were? How amazing it was when they responded to you? Have you forgotten how that was, and have horses become work for you?

This week I got the opportunity to work with two things I love - kids and horses . For the first time in 20-some years :) I'm teaching three kids how to ride: Jade, 8; Kyle, 6; and Daryl, 13. They're great kids! They ride Buckwheat, Rocket and Apache, respectively.

Learning Parelli, it was really neat to have a new perspective on the way the kids' personalities meshed with their horsenalities. Jade's a natural born rider and Buckwheat was all try for her. I put him on the lunge for a while so Jade could focus on her seat at the trot. Kyle and Rocket have matching attention spans! We spent most of the time learning and keeping "go" for them. Rocket has a lot of anxiety when Buckwheat's not with him and spent part of the time whinnying piteously. Apache (the only horse of the three, the other 2 are ponies) was a little jumpy at first but I had Daryl do some circles on him and he started to settle down and listen to his rider (once the hands came down).

I'm really excited about this opportunity to work with these kids and their ponies/horse. The greatest thing about it is remembering the process and how it was for myself as akid.. the magic of just being around them at the beginning (I'd not wash my hands all the rest of the day so I could go to bed and still smell horse on my hands!), the frustration when what I envisioned didn't quite happen with the horse I was riding, and the sense of accomplishment when I figured out how to ask correctly, and the horse gave.

Carrot, Stick, or Carrot Stick?

Miss Abbey likes to back up when she doesn't like something (RBI behavior or LBI). For a while I tied her while grooming, then I thought, I don't want to have to tie her, so I just held the lead rope while grooming, which she mostly enjoys. Sometimes I hit a sensitive spot. She backs. Today, I thought, the heck with that, I'm not moving around you for grooming, you're going to move around ME. So we practiced "back" "step up" and a send-away turn so I could get her exactly where I needed her to reach the spot I needed (I gave her some leeway for the back-end zone). This worked pretty well since she likes grooming and I'm learning her itchy spots, so I reward her with good curry on those when she moves where I want her.

Afterwards, since grooming seemed like the lesson today, I just took her and did some mirroring. I got a big sigh that seemed to say, "Oh, I like you so much better when you're not making me do stuff. By the way, got any horsey treats?"

Just got to know what motivates a horsey partner, as the above video demonstrates!

Cow Horse & Family Stuff

Here's Abbey the day she moved in to her new home. That was two weeks ago. Yesterday I got a call from Mike saying she's gonna have to be moved to another field... she's chasing the cows out of their feed trough. If they even get close to her she turns toward them and flattens her ears and they GET OUT OF HER WAY. RAWR!!

We're starting Parelli natural horsemanship soon, but the work I've done with her so far seems to be progressing well... I can "pretend" to get on and she stands now (she used to back up). Next step: pretend w/ saddle. Besides the mounting issue and the occasional balk in hand, I can't find much I don't love about her.

We went to visit my family the first part of this month. My grandfather isn't doing well (he fell and broke his hip 6 weeks ago) and my mom is really having a hard time with it. I really, really wish I could be there to help her with the rough stuff and help her take care of the stuff she shouldn't have to worry about, like dinner and housework.

Abbey

I'm two weeks away from being a horse owner. This is Abbey, an eight-year-old BLM Mustang. Isn't she freckly? Our first meeting was a hit; we kind of "joined up" (a la Monty Roberts) right off, and her owner said she was amazed at how quickly I was able to get on her (she has back sensitivity issues). I just took my time with her, leaned on her a bit first, and then got on, and she stood like a rock, which apparently she has not done for everyone.

She's coming home with me (not my home, but not far either) on August 10. I've wanted a horse since I was five! So she's a dream come true. We're going to start out slowly but we'll do some dressage, some trail riding, and dabble in whatever else seems like it might be fun for both of us.

Oh, the funky markings on her neck are a freeze brand (I said it looks like it's written in Klingon). Each mark represents a number and by looking it up you can find out about where she was caught (she was 2 when caught wild, apparently in California) and more. I can't read it from the pictures but I'll definitely be looking it up.

Dontcha just want to hug her neck? :) Better pictures later.

First Tomato

Disclaimer: this is not my tomato. I'm not sure I'm prepared to photograph mine. :)

I wish to become an organic gardener. This year, I planted three tomato plants in containers, which were too small, had problems with the bottom parts of the plants turning yellow and looking awful, and they're all pretty stunted. I broke down and sprayed them with Sevin because I don't know what I'm doing.

My herbs, by the way, look great. Although the basil had some creepy critters in it and I had to spray it too. The lemon verbena choked for a while because my pot wasn't draining properly, but it's coming back nicely. The mint looks fantastic.

My first tomato of the season is black on the bottom and pretty small, but it's a tomato! I've got quite a few that look like they might be better.

The plan is to educate myself on organic gardening, and next year I will have the space (and own the house) to make some raised beds and plant all the pretty/useful/delicious stuff I want. Organically. Responsibly. I want to make pickles. And salsa. And can stuff. Like a real country girl.

It's a disappointing start, but it's a start.