Updates.

As a family, we decided that Pepper would be better off finding a new home situation, so after several months of that, she is now with a Forever Home elsewhere.

Tule is being prepped to ride in his first competition...well, I don't know that we can honestly call it competitive, but he's doing an endurance race this year. My good friend Ruby will be riding him in a 30 miler in September.

Dillon continues to amaze. He'll be four in April and he's got the mental stability that Tule has just developed at twice his age. Everything I ask him to learn, he clicks into immediately. I'm actively pursuing, in the long term, mounted search & rescue and freestyle reining.

And now, for more news

It was October when I updated last. And it looks like I apologized then, too. Well a lot has happened including a breakup, a retirement, an addition, and we're even in the midst of another move...

Pepper has moved to greener pastures. She's gone to live with her boyfriend, Mozart the unicorn. It's best for her, and we're very happy for her. Green grass all around.

Tule and Dillon manage to make me love them more every day. It seems like each time I ask Tule to try something new he says, "Okay, that will be fine." Dillon is working on being a good horse too, although he has a stubborn streak. I prefer "stubborn" to "lazy." It might be a toss-up.

We are moving the two geldings to a private barn next week. I'm tired of them living on a dry lot. It's more of a story than I feel like writing now, but we're moving to a wonderful place with three grassy fields just for my two boys.

The addition is Toby, a yearling stud colt. And he's temporary. I am essentially rescuing him from a very bad situation, putting training time into him to make him a Decent Horse, and then re-homing him. He needs to find his soul mate and that isn't me.

I'll attempt to write again but no promises!

All sorts of updates!

I was in the Couple Coma for a long time, I see! Sorry about that, but it's totally understandable. I have the best boyfriend in the world and I do love spending time with him instead of updating this blog. We've been dating five months now and it just keeps getting better. He's getting his own horse; she comes home next month after she weans the filly she had by surprise this spring.

I moved my horses to a new barn. I now have my own four stall building and private pasture. And last night I bought a round bale feeder that's going to be custom modified for my needs. It's a cow feeder and I don't want my horses to rub their manes off in it...but Travis' dad welds, and has agreed to help me with this project. We're going to slice it off at the bottom and make the head-sticking-through part with the diagonal bars the bottom, so it will essentially just be a ring sitting on the ground to keep the horses from walking through the hay bale. I'll set a pallet under the bale to try to maintain the mud and rainwater absorption as well.

Dillon's started his riding career. He's now had three different people on board. We haven't asked for much yet but everything we've tried he's accepted. I swear, this horse was Born Broke.

Tule has been learning to be a barrel racer! We've gone once and are going again on Nov. 7th. He loves having something to do and I think it's about the most fun I've ever had.

Pepper pulled a muscle in her leg or butt or lower back and has been lame for a few weeks. We pulled her shoes and are going to let her have the winter off to recover. My son can canter bareback now and it's just a matter of time before Pepper just retires into Pet of the Year mode.

And that's all for now! Back to the pasture for me!

It's been a busy month

I had a family vacation, work, school stuff, friends visiting from out of town...you know, normal things. So not writing in the blog ;)

Dillon's doing well. He's almost officially two now. (One week from tomorrow!)

Pepper has some odd growth on her face, and either decided to shed out before growing new hair instead of replacing as she went, or she's got rainrot or a fungus. It's disturbing. The vet's coming Wednesday.

Tule needs to regrow a brain. We had considered a dressage schooling show next weekend; not going to do that now. He won't handle it well at all and I don't want to look like an ass.

Dead head, for real

I think Tule might have something with permanent nerve damage on his poll. Today he "set back" on his halter while tied to a rather solid post and he practically went to his haunches...the halter didn't break, the rope didn't give, the post stayed in its concrete...and it appeared to have no effect on him whatsoever. I mean he swung on the end of that rope, practically, like Tarzan. (All because I wanted to use the spray bottle of mane-n-tail detangler, the silly doofus...he hates spray bottles.) A horse is supposed to "give" to pressure on the poll and Tule didn't give one fraction of an inch. He chose to come back to reality and step forward...I watched him do it.

All three got pedicures yesterday. Pepper even got a pretty new set of dancin' shoes. Which means her out of shape tushie is going back to work. I put that into motion today...lift your glass to celebrate a "first" with me...I got on her bareback in the pasture, from the ground no assistance of any kind. No mounting block, no round bale holder, no tree stump, just me. Ta da!

The farm manager moved my trailer, though...to a place where I can't actually hook up my truck. So when I got there this afternoon wanting to practice with Dillon...I couldn't. And I got a little pissy about that too. It's seriously inaccessible, and that means in any situation I can't use it the way it's sitting. He must have used the little farm tractor to move it, not his truck. So now I'll have to ask him to wiggle it around....*sigh*

Beautiful day today. Should have been riding...but had other things to do. Dang it when life gets in the way. But maybe tomorrow I can get out for a while...at least I did get Tule excavated out of the mud.

Revelations

I see that I've been slacking off on regular posts--sorry! A lot has transpired, and I've been exhausted frequently thus unable to process thoughts in any coherent order.

I took Tule to Biltmore last Friday (the 6th) for a ride with my friend Cindy and her horse April. Tule was amazing for the most part. After about an hour and half of our morning ride, April bunched up about something as we entered a meadow with a road adjacent. A truck was coming down, but not even a big one; nevertheless, when Tule got into April's space, she'd had enough and she threw a temper tantrum. And I'm the one who got kicked. Thankfully, she didn't land a hoof on me, as we were too close, but her hind right hock nailed my left calf. Nearly a week later, I'm still experiencing a lot of pain, my lower leg is quite swollen, and I'm not entirely sure but that I may have suffered some severe soft tissue damage. But I can still ride, which is all that matters.

At the end of the day when it was time to load and go home...Tule wouldn't. And we tried EVERYTHING. Sadly, trying everything led to sensory overload on my poor boy, and he flipped his mental switch to "off" and off he stayed. As my friend Rhonda put it, I know Tule, and he wasn't there anymore. After about two and a half hours, I called for reinforcements (Rhonda and her 3 horse slant load GN trailer). She spent over an hour trying. Then she called for backup, her husband Mike. And he ended up successfully loading Tule...blindfolded. But it was over four hours after we'd started trying to load the silly jackass. I was completely melted down by this point and was swearing up and down that this was it, it was over, I was never taking him anywhere ever again, we could just dig a hole and put him in it. Yes, it got that bad.

So I proceeded to spend time every day since working on trailer loading my horses. The next day, Saturday, we did get all four of Tule's feet on the trailer one time for a brief moment after an hour. Sunday also saw a moment of success. Monday...again. Tuesday, I got him on all by myself on the second approach to the trailer, fastened him in, and took him for a short drive. Wednesday, we rode first and then went to trailer school, and loaded within a couple of minutes. So it's working out, but I won't be so cocky as to say I've fixed this yet. I will say it's been improved.

On Sunday, we went for a wonderful trail ride with Rhonda during which we had a lovely long canter uphill and another series of firsts that Tule made it through with flying colors.

I do love my horse. He just tries me sometimes!

Happy Trails

On Wednesday, Tule and I joined up in a posse and hit the trails at Dupont State Forest. There were four of us; Flicka and Teri, Apache and Rhonda, Shawn and Manzie, and Tule and me. We left the barn at about 9:30 and were on the trail at 11:15. Tule never gave me a moment's trouble. He crossed wooden bridges, went over/through a covered bridge, drank out of the river, saw a waterfall, tied to a picket line, and was in general Wonder Horse. (I feel like saying "as usual.")

There were some things along the way that he sure looked at intently, but he didn't spook or freak out about anything.

We spent about four hours total riding. We stopped twice, once for lunch and once to climb around a beautiful waterfall. There were some brief moments of canter and trot but mostly we walked; Manzie is a TWH so Shawn did step out a little but we did all stay together for the most part.

Now, if I can just get Tule on our trailer...we'll be unstoppable. (There, I've admitted he has one flaw.)

Here we are in front of the first waterfall!