Spring Break Fantasies

One of my recent posts told of our expectations for spring break. Here's the reality of the week. First, I want to say that it's really difficult to get on a computer at my in-laws house. They have a computer, but there were 3 teenage girls there, along with 4 other adults. My Mom-in-law also had other plans, such as sewing a quilt that they wanted my help with. So, I have not posted since we got there.

When we got to the in-laws, it was still daylight, but barely. We set up the portable electric corral and put in the water and feed pans. We put Koda in just as it was getting dark or I would have taken a pic of her in the "play pen" as one of my blog friends said. I kept checking on her through the evening and well into the night. My husband said I was being like a mother hen.

As always, when we schedule to visit the in-laws, dad-in-law plans to be off work, but they call him in for the entire time we are there to visit. He had to leave on Monday morning at around 4:30 so he went to bed kinda early. We went to bed at around midnight (after checking on Koda one more time). When dad-in-law left he noticed that the corral fence was down and there was NO sign of Koda!!! Talk about a wake-up call. Hubby and I threw on boots and jackets and hollered at the kid to get up and help. I grabbed a lead rope and went one way while hubby went another. Mom-in-law grabbed keys and went in the car a third way. Thankfully they live on a dead-end street, and far from a highway. The horse went the correct way also. She went to the end of the street and got stuck in a corner of 2 fences. She was easy to catch and we walked her back home even though she was completely keyed up. She kept running circles around me, literally. We got back to the house, and, not having an electric corral, put her in the back yard. It's about a half acre in size and completely enclosed with fence about 5ft tall.

When I got up the next morning, I went and looked at the fence to see if it could possibly work and saw that the side where she broke out had a metal u-shaped pen that was split in half. I started by calling the makers of the fence, then the company I bought it from. The makers, Zareba, only offered to replace the broken part. Stateline Tack offered to replace the whole corral. My husband and I contend that there is no point in having it if it can't even keep the horse for one night. We finally convinced Stateline to refund our money, but they only gave us a credit on our account.

If ya'll didn't catch this...I DON'T RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT. I took the fence down today (after snapping the pics shown) and noticed that the electric tape is stretched in a couple of places where it connects to the corner posts. Also the "u-bolt", or what ever it's called, where the tape connects to the corner post is not a single piece, but connected together with a very thin piece of plastic sleeve. I don't think this could keep a horse in unless it's a 35 yr old nag that's too old to move more than 5 ft from home without SERIOUS cajoling. DO NOT spend your $300 on this product!!! If we had been out in an open area camping, it is fairly possible that we would not have found Koda EVER. I will look into a locking metal panel system at twice the price, minimum. My horse is worth it.

My other fantasy was that I would ride every day. And I did ride on Monday. However, Tuesday, the climate change caught me and I was miserable with allergies. Wednesday, mom-in-law caught me and I was busy with quilt and family activities. Today was busy packing and heading home, after sleeping until 10.

My husband took a live video of Koda eating in their back yard. It appears to have just done a still shot with several seconds of air time so don't bother clicking play. Something went wrong with his phone's recording. Either way, here's Koda in my in-laws backyard.

On our way!

Tama is finally allowing the pup near her.

We are on our way to Ft. Worth for Spring Break (well, we were when I sent this pic, but now I am sitting in my in-law's house because this didn't post to the internet.)

Horse, dogs, and people all made it here safe. I found out after we got here that there will also be another couple here. They annoy the crap out of me and I kinda wish that they had waited until next week. They think our rottie is evil. Oh well.

New look

I thought I'd get a new look. What do you think?

Portable horses

We have used our horses as a great excuse to NOT have to spend more than 1 or 2 nights with parents and such, especially when we had the old mare. She could not get nourishment from pasture grasses or hay so she had to be fed 2 times daily. We did however understand that a day would come when we would need to be at my in-laws for more than 1 day and would need to make other arrangements. So I started looking into local barns that rented paddocks. I went and checked one out that was really close to the parents house and it was reasonably priced. I think they said $10 per horse per night. No problem for a couple days having my horse nearby.

Well, Spring Break is coming and the inevitable has happened. I have to go Sunday night and am coming back on Thursday. That's 4 nights and I now only have 1 horse, so I called the people to schedule a place for my horse. The price went up to $20 a night. That's $80!!!!! You know I rent about 35 acres for 10 -15 head of cattle for $20 a MONTH. The 20 was just a place to stay. That did not include hay or feed of any kind. I was supposed to bring my own feed. WOW!!!!

So, I started looking for other options. We had looked into getting an electric corral for when we went camping and hubby got paid extra this month sooo... I got this portable corral from Stateline Tack. Of course, I looked at several on the internet before deciding on the Stateline one. It helps that I already had a Stateline account. The fence is 900 sq ft and both hubby and Koda informed me that it works. :)

We are going to put her in it for an hour or so every day until Spring Break, then she'll have to stay in it at the in-laws. I think I just figured out how to mow the grass with out the lawn mower!

I am curious if it is expandable though. The in-laws have an acre and it would be a shame to pen her in such a small area if not necessary.

Trail Ride

The church had a trail ride today. We went the same route as the last trail ride. We started at one church family's house, went down the road from her house to our pastor's property, through the trees and back to the original property. As usual, Koda acted a fool all the way down the first road. She wanted to run. She wanted to be in front, I think. I fought her all the way to the end of the road where she finally decided that she could walk. After that, she was good. On the way back, one of our boys (about 13 yrs old) started having trouble with his horse. The main problem was that he hurt himself on Thursday while riding his horse. His horse loves to try to run back to the barn and usually the boy will sidepass on him to wear him out some. This time the sidepassing hurt. We convinced him to switch horses and ride a calm horse.

The real fun started after we got back to the starting location. We grabbed a snack then went on a second ride. This time we actually used a trail. There were ravines, gullies and logs to climb over. I like those rides better than the road rides.

Is this Sid?

I saw this @ a car dealer. I thought that maybe someone plucked the feathers off Sid Vicious, a rooster discussed on Laughing Orca Ranch's blog.

Sunday riding

So I am a little late with this post but I thought I'd feel you in on how my ride went Sunday. I took her to the church arena again and longed her before I even thought about riding. She was responding pretty well, so I climbed on. Meanwhile, there were 3 other people in the arena and they were playing with cattle. They would release one from the chute with a loud clang and then chase it down to rope it or run it to the cattle exit. Koda gets REALLY excited/nervous when they do this.

I'll finish this in a few hours gotta go to town first.

(the next Sunday...)
Sorry, I never managed to finish this post. I will sum it up with letting you briefly know what happened.

We struggled with attitude for a little while especially when we were around the cattle chute. She finally calmed down after I took her around some cones in a straight line.