Back in the saddle

Yesterday Julie and I took Maddy and Lady out for a ride.  It was my second time on Lady, the first was a few days after she squished my foot (which still hurts, but is healing) and I very nearly had an emotional breakdown just getting on her (long story).  Happily I was able to swing up into the saddle with only minimal hesitation. 

This second ride was decidedly more purposeful than our first.  That first ride was more about me being physically back on a horse after such a long hiatus that I wasn’t really worried about what the horse was doing.  Yesterday’s ride let me know a whole lot more about Lady.  First off, Lady is a very forward horse, until she decides that she’s had “enough” at which point she stops, parks, and politely asks that you get off.  Secondly, Lady isn’t particularly brave.  She’s quite willing and forward so long as she’s on familiar ground, but the second that she’s somewhere new, she becomes timid and hesitant… not spooky, but not brave either.  She’s quite willing to follow (and by follow I mean rest her head on the lead horse’s butt while pushing them ahead of her) and then take the lead on the return, but she’s definitely not a brave leader.  For the most part I found her to be solid, if a bit green, and very reliant on her companion horse.  If Maddy seemed spooky, then I felt Lady get lighter in her mouth and more tense.  If Maddy was calm, then Lady was fully relaxed.   We also discovered that Lady doesn’t like dogs (or cats or other small furry creatures).  She doesn’t spook, just tries to decapitate them with a deadly accurate kick.  The only thing that she did spook at during our ride was a razor scooter that one of my neighbor’s granddaughters was riding.  It probably wouldn’t have been a problem at all had the child not raced the thing up ridiculously close to Lady’s hindquarters.  She spooked up a few steps but settled quickly… so quickly that I hardly call it a spook at all.

Overall I think Lady is a bit lazy, probably due to sporadic riding at her previous home, but is showing incredible potential.  Her trot is big and forward.  I have not cantered her yet… partly because she’s out of condition but mostly because I am out of condition!!  She does have rhythm issues, but again I think consistent schooling will iron that problem out as well.  Currently I’m riding her without a whip or spurs (her previous owner relied on both) and in a Kimberwicke (I never tried the bit that came with her as it’s actually too small for her mouth).  I love Kimberwickes for draft horses as they seem much more responsive to that bit than any other I’ve tried (and I’ve tried loads!)  Lady’s previous owner had great difficulty with turning and relied heavily upon a German Martingale for “power steering”… I have not had this problem and have seen no need to tack her with the German martingale at all.  I am having a problem with “overflex” in her neck which is probably due to the martingale, but we’ll see how that progresses. 

I’m not a big advocate for riding with a multitude of artificial aids.  I do ride with a long dressage whip when we hack but that’s only partly for a riding aid… mostly it’s a defensive aid against spider webs (seriously) or flies. 

Anyway… I think we had a good outing yesterday and I’m already looking forward to our next ride… maybe this afternoon??

Meet Beulah and Bruce

New Tamworths from Alabama, originally uploaded by Tapsalteerie Farm.

On Sunday we trucked over to Ranburne Alabama to pick up our purebred, but not registered, Tamworth breeders. The breeder, Greg Dennis, was able to hold Beulah from an earlier litter for me until Bruce was weaned so that we could pick them up at one time.

I have enjoyed my conversations with Greg over the summer. Periodically he would call me with updates about the wee pigs and so it was delightful to meet him and his wife and their pigs (and cows and sheep) in real life.

The drive was loooong. Made longer by hauling a horse trailer through downtown Atlanta (say it with me- CRAZY!) but it all went well! My nephew S went with us so it was a carful of crazy from time to time but we had fun.

On the drive back we decided to take a slight side trip to China Delight (the dim sum place I’ve raved about before) and even though it was after dim sum time, the food was delicious and the pigs seemed to appreciate having a hauling break.

The rest of the trip home was a bit torturous as we got caught in road construction that brought the entire Northbound lane of 85 to a standstill. We opted to exit at the first available road and ended up winding through Seneca and Clemson before finding 123 again. We did find it amusing that the GPS map app on my blackberry kept telling us to turn around and go back to the Interstate!

But by far the funniest thing that happened concerned the clock in the Rover. M and I hadn’t paid much attention to the clock prior to eating supper. However when we piled back in we noted that we had lost all daylight and the clock seemed to verify that the time was quite late. We hadn’t thought we had spent a whole 2 hours in the restaurant, but the clock did indicate that we had. So when we got caught in the road construction we bemoaned the fact that we wouldn’t be getting home before midnight.

I had decided to call Jim to reassure him that we were indeed coming home when I noticed the time on my phone was nowhere near the time on the car clock. I glanced at M’s phone and it too stated a different time. We thought maybe the phones had gotten confused going into and out of time zones (this should indicate how tired we were) and with some trepidation I called Jim to verify via a house clock the actual time. Turns out the phones were right! The car clock was off by about an hour and half, probably owing to the fact that we had shut the kids in the car while we loaded the pigs.

Anyway… the pigs have settled in nicely. I was afraid that they would get sick from being hauled such a long way on such a cool wet day but they have been just fine! I think the bulk of the snuffling we’ve been hearing out of them is due to their nose rings and not a respiratory problem. I did not plan to ring our guys but Greg does his as a matter of form to keep the pigs from destroying his pastures. I had planned to put Beulah and Bruce on our garden overwinter to help turn and root up… stuff… but now… not so sure how that’s going to work out. Greg assured me that the rings tend to fall out so… who knows!

I’m going to attempt to take more pics of them tomorrow, and will try to post a pic or too of the other pigs… it’s unbelievable how big they’ve gotten!!

Meet Lady Annaliese

 

Wednesday we trucked down to Alpharetta GA to pick up another new horse… this time a Percheron that we have named Lady Annaliese, or Lady for short.

She’s a big mare.  Big and very HEAVY!  But more on that later…

Here are her stats:

She’s approximately 11 years old
She is a dappled grey with a wide blaze very different in her coloring than Alise or Fantine… I’m not sure that she’ll fade to white as they have.
She’s about 16.2hh (I haven’t measured her, but this is what her previous owner told me).
She weighs about 2000lbs maybe a bit more.

On the negative side she has poor ground manners and is also a bit overweight. Ok… I shouldn’t say she has poor ground manners as she doesn’t bully or drag people along after her. She actually has a pretty “soft” head (meaning she doesn’t pull against the lead line or halter) but she doesn’t stand still very well.

On the plus side she is already rideable so while she’s definitely going to need some fine tuning she at least won’t be starting from the ground up.

Unfortunately her previous owner sprayed her with a particularly foul fly spray (I do not know the brand) that smelled like cheap cologne and immediately made me break out in great red patches everywhere the horse touched me. So yesterday M and I decided that there was no way around it… Lady was going to have to have a bath! So we brought her out and for the most part she did ok. Until we got to her mane. At some point in the not so far off past (I hope) the previous owner had dressed Lady up like a unicorn and had dyed her mane and tail pink. There was still remnants of the pink in her mane and in the hair under her mane. It seemed to be very irritated as Lady played up considerably during that part of the washing (seriously, it’s totally wrong to dye a horse’s mane/tail/coat… I know it seemed cute, but nonetheless, to me, it’s wrong).

By the time M (who was washing… I was holding) got to her back legs, Lady was pretty tired of the whole thing. So when Martha startled her it was really no surprise that she swung around a bit disconcerted to see someone walking up the driveway. Unfortunately when she swung around she stepped and twisted on M’s foot, knocking her down in the process. M’s sporting 2 possibly broken and badly skinned toes (yes she was wearing boots). So we finished up the bath and tied Lady out on a long rope to graze while she dried out.

And that’s when we discovered that Lady doesn’t tie out on a long rope well. She managed to wrap the rope around her hocks, ultimately cow-tying herself. By the time I got to her head she was sitting on her bottom with her head pulled to her flank. So I unhooked her halter and still she didn’t seem to be able to stand up so I gave her halter a tug and hopped out of the way. Unfortunately I didn’t hop quickly enough as her front hoof came slamming down on top of my foot as she stood up, knocking me down so that I was laying underneath her belly! By the way she has a GREAT “whoa” command! The whole time I was falling I was saying “whoa… whoa… whoa” over and over so when I stood up I just grabbed her halter and we walked off like nothing.

And initially I thought it was just nothing. Until I stopped moving long enough to actually get feeling back in my foot. Jim finally appeared and took Lady from me and I was able to take my boot off to assess the damage. She had stepped on the right middle part of my foot (she didn’t hit my toes at all) and it was swollen to tennis ball size. So I hobbled into the house and immediately put my foot up only to be informed that I was going to the ER to have it X-rayed so I hobbled off to the bathroom and peeled out of my very wet, very dirty, very horsey clothes and tried to look like I hadn’t been rolling in the dirt with a horse and off we went.

We were pretty much in and out in less than an hour and luckily nothing is broken. The doc told me to stay off of it for 24 hours which is laughable. Even the family thought so as they all went off to work leaving me to feed and maintain the kids… so yeah… no biggie.

So anyway, this morning I have a puffy purple foot and a strong desire to go out a mess with the horses, but I’m going to be good and stay inside and let my poor foot have until this afternoon to get better

But back to Lady… I have no ill-will towards the mare. If anything it was my own fault for putting her into a situation where she could get tangled and I simply got what I deserved. I’m hoping to be up to riding by tomorrow (or this afternoon if I push it) and will update more on Lady’s performance at that time.

Meet Willow

So It’s been a day or two and Miss Willow is doing great! She’s so mellow and laid back that it’s just unreal! Nothing fazes her at all and while she doesn’t care for the cows, she’s maintained gracious manners while dealing with them. We’re still getting to know her which has been hampered greatly by all the rain!

Anyway! Here are her stats:
She’s approximately 8 years old
She’s a sabino bay roan (it means she has white splotches on her coat) with a wide blaze (nearly bald) and 4 full white stockings. She’s about 17.2hh
She weighs about 2100 lbs probably a little more but we’re working on thinning her down a bit.

On the negative side she still has a little bit of hoof fungus but it isn’t as bad as when we first saw her.
She also has a cracked hoof that’s going to need attention when Tim comes out. And she seems to be very head shy about her ears which I’m going to need to look into… Could be a teeth issue… Could be a haltering issue… Or something else altogether.

But anyway! She’s just an incredibly calm girl and I look forward to working with her soon!

The pic is of Jim (6ft tall) and Willow (5′6″ at the shoulder) right after we unloaded her.

Horse things in general.

The horse thing is killing me. I know I sat here and typed out the whole “giving up on this for now” post, but we all know that was laughable.

I’ve been out to see another horse.

Not going to buy it, but went to see it. Would’ve seriously considered buying it if not for the I’ve-never-seen-it-this-bad foot fungus problem… that and I suspect she might have a sore back issue as we bucked Jim off rather soundly.

And that’s when it hit me. I’ve moved into the desperate stage of my horse search. I was actually willing purchase an unsound horse if it got me that one step closer to riding again.

It was a big wake up moment.

So I had a firm talk with myself and promptly went here and fell in love with this and this and this.

Hey… at least they’re sound and ride-able and come from a reputable place.

Sigh.

I’m afraid I’ve been a bear to live with for the past few weeks.  I’ve cried over Aimee again and again and again.  The horses at VSH remind me of her, which reminds me that she’s gone, which reminds me that I don’t have a riding horse which makes me look at their horses and then I cry all over again.

Sigh, sniffle.

So… I’ve tried to focus on Beau and Leo. 

Beau is coming along nicely, still a bit jumpy and spooky, but coming along.  He’s getting easier about being casually handled and I lead him around the driveway without a single incident.  He was definitely uncertain and relying on me to clue him in to what was going on, but he listened well and didn’t play up at all.

Leo, on the other hand, has turned into a bit of a menace.  The weather here has taken a slight turn towards Autumn, the mornings are cool and the days aren’t quite as hot and I think the combination of weather and food has turned our once sweet boy into quite the devil.  He levelled a fine karate kick at me just the other morning (he missed and hit the water trough instead) which made me realize something.

The gonads have gotta go.

Seriously.  On our little quarter mile road there are 16 equine.  Of that 16, five are geldings, five are mares, four are jennys, one is a jack and the other is Leo the colt.  Two of the jennys are bred but that still leaves seven ladies to love and one gent to fight.  Zeke, our jack, is better mannered than Leo, but isn’t happy about the colt being here either.  So I’m waiting for the vet to let me know when he can come out to do shots and then we’ll schedule his procedure.

FYI- I don’t own all the horses on our road.  We have 7 horses and 5 donkeys.

Ok, after typing that I feel the need to explain.  Yes we own 7 (EEK!) horses.  Here’s the run down-

Alise- white Percheron mare, approx. 30 years old.  I retired her several years ago although the kids do sit up on her from time to time.  She’s the boss mare of the pasture and at about 17.2hh she’s got the size to keep that ranking.

Fantine- white PercheronX mare, approx. 10 years old.  She is a PMU mare and has absolutely no concept of horse behavior.  She is unpredictable at best and while I have high hopes for her, I’m realistic that she’s pretty much going to be a pasture ornament.  She’s about the same size as Alise.

Maddy- bay Appaloosa mare, approx. 14 years old.  She is the gigantic mare that Julie rides.  We got her the summer before Jim and I got married as a “if you buy this mare will throw the App in free” kinda thing.  The mare we originally bought, a OTT TB didn’t work for us so I gave her to a friend, but Maddy turned out to be a real gem.  Maddy grew from about 15hh to 17hh in the first year or so that we had her but we never thought about how big and well boned she was (particularly for an App) because we compared her to Aimee.  Next to Aimee everybody was small!

Belle- bay Mustang mare, 17 years old.  Ah Belle.  My first from the ground up training experience.  I should’ve picked a more sane horse as Belle has always been a bit on the screw-loose side.  Belle is maybe 14hh… although I would say she’s shorter.  I have ridden her and even did lessons on her for a while, but eventually she was retired because of her unpredictable nature.  We’ve toyed with gifting her to somebody that wants a companion horse, but we always come back to the fact that Belle eats very little and her actual maintenance is slight and she’s Maddy’s best pasture mate so Belle stays.

Skye- blue roan POA gelding, approx. 12 years old. Skye is very nearly as wide as he is tall.  He hasn’t been the best pony in the world, having a distrustful nature (yes, normal for a pony I know) but Xander loves that he’s blue and has spent quite a good bit of time lead-lining around on him.  He’s also a favorite of my nephew Spencer.  I think he’d make a fine cart pony, but I have neither the cart nor the harness to make that happen.

And of course there’s the boys-

Beau- bay Mustang gelding, approx. 7 years old.

Leo- Palomino TWH/QH colt, approx 18months old.

So while I have 7, some of them are special needs and some of them are retirees. Only Maddy is truly ride-able and that’s Julie’s go-to mount and since Julie is my go-to riding companion… well you see the predicament. 

Sigh.

Have I mentioned that I miss Aimee? Cause I really, really do.

A Game

I told the kids that today was going to be mostly TV and computer free. They were less than thrilled to say the least. So with much grousing and grumbling they all came out to play while I topped off waters and checked on the animals. When I asked them to help pull Dess’ pen into the grass they eagerly joined in and it rapidly morphed into an impromptu game of imagination. Sophie and Xander are some sort of adventurers and Dess is some sort of shark/bad guy. The object is to walk around the rails without Dess licking their toes. Sounds simple but there’s loads of hysterical shrieks of laughter coming from the calf pen. Too funny what kids come up with when they have to think up entertainment for themselves!

On a less whiny note

The tomatoes and peppers are coming along nicely. I canned 9 qts of tomato juice last night and that was just from a brief foray into the garden between feeding the pigs and feeding the horses. Hoping to put up some roasted peppers today!

Giving it up for now :(

It’s not exactly common knowledge that I have been looking for a new riding horse. I had a specific type of horse in mind but not a specific breed. I wanted a nice stout horse… Draft or draft cross… Didn’t have to be “finished” and somewhere between 4 and 10 years old and not too terribly expensive.

I have found, with the help of Julie, several possibilities. Several I have inquired after and even a few I made arrangements to go see.

But the truth is there won’t be a new horse anytime soon.

Beau and Leo are already adding substantially to the (already expensive) feed bill. Leo will have to be gelded and the whole bullet thing explored and that costs money.

I have yet to file the boys readoption (which is finally ready!) which is significantly more important than a new horse.

I need to buy hay

I need to start the milking barn since it’s looking pretty much like we’ll have two cows in milk by October.

And that’s just a few things that outrank a new horse.

And even though the practical side of me understands all of that, I’m nevertheless overwhelmingly depressed. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without riding.

Ever.

I think I’m up to about 4 years without any serious riding at all. I did ride Alise long enough to ascertain that she is no longer sound (she’s pushing 30 which is pretty old for a Percheron) for an adult rider about a year or so ago, but that’s it.

Sure I’ve tried to tell myself that the horse part of my life is over and that I need to just accept it and move on… But somehow I’m just not buying it.

But regardless of what I want the truth is I’m giving up for now. I’ll settle for working with Beau and nursing Leo back to health and maybe even try working with Fantine again… Not the same as riding but at least it’s working with horses right?

Why?

Slowly we’ve been piecing together history for Beau and Leo.

Beau we knew was a captured mustang, I did the research on his tattoo and discovered he had been in a herd in NM and he was approximately 7 years old. I already knew about the abuse he suffered during training and have discovered that its effects run deeper than I had originally thought. He has a deep seated distrust of men but we’ve been working on that with mild success. He’s eager to please but wary of being hurt. Trust is a big issue for him.

And then there’s Leo. On the surface he looks like a simple victim of malnutrition. But I have come to find out that our sweet tempered, mild mannered colt (he is not gelded) has been subjected to the maniacal whims of a apparently deranged man who found great humor in shooting his rifle to make the horses run. Turns out he either aimed at or accidentally hit Leo during one of those sessions. The photo shows where the bullet hit him. I can’t find an obvious exit wound so the bullet may still be lodged in there somewhere.

Why?

I mean I love to watch horses running… But shooting them to accomplish that? Explains why Beau has trust issues… And yet Leo is the same old sweetheart. What’s really annoying is that the neighbors called out the USHS when they saw the blood on his flank and later heard the shooter bragging about what he had done. And USHS did nothing.

Sometimes it’s just not fair.

Testing something new

How dangerous is this? Posting from email from my bb… Too cool… Say hello to more blog posts!!!