Summer's Here!!!

It's almost been one week since school let out and I have been busy. Of course there's the standard catching up on laundry, cleaning house and so on. In addition to that it's now time for the horse and myself to seriously bond. I started at the beginning of this week with daily training for both of us. The goal is to be ready to ride Takoda in a parade at the end of the month.

I am learning how to longe her. I found a website that has great information. http://www.kbrhorse.net/tra/line01.html has a step-by-step guide to longing, round pen work, and other basics. We have been working on getting the instructions for walk, trot and canter (though I think I am going to say "lope" instead) together. Koda and I are having to do the ground work without a round pen. I just found a place in the pasture close to the house and started doing the ground work. We are having issues with keeping the circle round and having serious trouble with the lope. It will come though. I will have the husband record a session and I'll post it soon.

When, if, I start teaching others to ride, I think I will begin the students with ground work. When they can do the ground work, they can then begin to ride. Ground work is hard and has not been covered at my riding lessons or at the 4-H riding club meetings. It's kind of weird that the way to get respect from horses gets neglected in the training sessions.

Horse events coming up this summer:
There is a rodeo in a nearby town this week, then a local 4-H district horse show next week for our 4-H district. The ferrier comes next weekend and then the following week, we go to New Braunfels to visit some friends and go to their district horse show. That weekend is the local parade I want to ride Koda in.

Dogs, Horses and Wind

I got home from work today with a couple of expectations. First was that my husband would be in a class tonight and not home. Second, we were supposed to have lots of rain. Third, is that I had to rotate the animals tonight.

Our wonderful labweiler (part lab - part rottweiler - mostly goofy) decided to let his lab parts shine lately. He is escaping the fence where we keep him during the day. To correct this temporarily, we will put them in the horse pasture. It's fenced with bull wire and is about 2 acres of land. He should be happier in there for a little while. We closed off part of the cow pasture and put the horses in there. This is good because it was time to rotate pastures anyway. The 2 problems with this pasture are that it is leased for cattle (we have permission to rotate occasionally as long as the horses don't eat it all to the roots.) and there is not much shelter from anything in there. We build the loafing shed in the horse pasture.

So I decided the weather was going to miss us so the kid and I went out and got the horses and started grooming them. As we were grooming, it started thundering. We picked up the pace. I asked the kid if she wanted to go ahead and put them in the new pasture or wait until tomorrow morning in case it storms. We decided we don't get up early enough to switch pastures in the morning. So first, I close the pasture off, then the horses are released. Then we have to deal with the feed. Their feed containers are clipped to the fence on the horse pasture and have to be moved to the new one. And we have to feed and we have to water.

Meanwhile, remember the thunder? It's getting worse and now there's even lightening to go with it and the wind picks up. We got through with every thing except the water as the worst of the storm is beginning. It was around 8pm. I left the water running and ran the kid inside so we could listen to the fire dept scanner. As I turned it on they announced that there was a TORNADO warning for our county and specifically that they have sighted funnel clouds in our town!! We got flashlights, cell phones, and my kid's mattress and huddled on the floor by my bed for a while. The tornado touched down southeast of our town and we are west of the town.

The horses are ok (no thanks to us moving them in the shelter-free pasture) and we had absolutely no damage at our house. Unfortunately, my husband, the firefighter, is out still helping with damage repair in our area. He was called out of his class to help.

It is now 11pm. The stars and moon are out and my household is safe even though he's still out.

Bareback lessons

I got on Takoda bareback today. This is the first time I have ever been on a horse bareback. She had no saddle, bridle, or halter. I also was not appropriately dressed. I had on blue jean capris and sandles with no helmet. OOPS. It went ok though. We have to work on driving cues. She does the stop ok. I only sat on her for a few minutes but enjoyed almost all of it. I had to get my balance for the first 30 seconds or so.
We got the horses a new toy. It's a hanging apple barn toy. We hung it in the loafing shed. I don't know if they have played with it yet. When I went to town today they had not played with it. I got home and it was too dark to even see where the horses were.

Trade #2, Meet Takoda

So we took Bella back to her mom and got Takoda. Her name was Chula. Takoda is Souix and means "friend of anyone." Chula is Spanish means "pretty girl." I like Takoda better. Anyway, we took Takoda to a friend's for some round pen work yesterday and just did some ground work with her. Today, we went out to the pasture and pond. I did some more ground work with her on longe line for a little while. I then put my saddle on her. Since we had a back cinch, I trotted her again on the line to make sure she was ok with that. I got on her and rode her near the picnic area. Then moved out further and kept working my way out away from my "safe area", the area where my husband was. I rode her into and around in the pond. She did everything I asked her to. I did find that her reverse gear "jumps" a little. When I told her to back up near the house, she did a little hop and spin around on her back legs. Unfortunately, my pasture is not conducive to making her canter and trot for any distance. My goddaughter got on her bareback when she was tied out in the pasture. Mary enjoyed the ride.

Hello Bella and Goodbye

Apparently the trade didn't work. I was ok with the trade of Bella for Tonto. Especially the "for Tonto" part. He is extremely green broke. I guess the previous owners let him do whatever he wanted to when they rode and never made him do what they wanted. He is ok to ride if you don't challenge his opinion of what to do. He has already bucked off and hurt someone at his new home. The part that didn't work was her losing Bella. She decided she can't live without Bella. She's going to let us have a 14yr old Arab/Quarter horse that is for beginners. She is a light bay color. Other than that, I don't know much about her. We'll see.

Tonto's Gone!!

This weekend, we traded Tonto for a better model. As I said in a previous post, Tonto was not the horse for us. Instead, we now have an 18 yr old Tennessee Walker that is about the color of dark chocolate. Her name is Bella. She is very sweet but probably starting to be a little arthritic and needs to gain between 100 and 200 pounds. I got her Saturday and rode her Saturday, and Sunday. I have never ridden a gaited horse and am not entirely sure about how to ride in the gaited walk. I am used to a western pleasure type horse.

Of riding and the inevitable fall...

We went riding yesterday at our riding lessons. Our horse, Scarlet has a cut on her leg we wanted to let heal so we both, the kid and I, rode stable horses. I rode the horse that the kid normally rides. He has a very jarring trot. I am appearantly still learning the proper way to sit through a trot. The kid was on a 19 yr old Arabian hunter. She's beautiful!! She's gray with a beautiful long silky tail. Anyway, so we went in the arena and started riding. My stirrups had to be adjusted so the kid started walking her horse around the arena. We then got into the trotting. I was, as I said, having trouble with the trotting when the kid passed me. As they passed, the horse kicked up her speed a little. The kid did NOT like this and got scared. The kid shrieked for the riding instructor. When the kid did, the horse got spooked and went faster, which prompted the shriek again, and the spook. Every time the kid shrieked, the horse went faster. At one point, the kid was quiet for a second and the horse slowed down. Then, the shriek again, and the horse sped up. This time the horse stumbled and there went the kid over the saddle and the horse's neck. She landed on her helmet. The helmet cracked and her forehead has a nasty red bump. It cracked from the vent hole to the front of the brim, as well as from that crack around the helmet where the brim attaches to the helmet.

You know, I was kind of lax about requiring the kid to wear a helmet. After this accident, I don't think either of us will ever ride without one again. If this happened to the helmet, think about what would have happened without the helmet.