This was the scene at my house last night. It started as capture the flag and turned into a wild free-for-all. I volunteered for kitchen patrol, but before the fireworks got started, I had to go out on the porch and water my hanging flower baskets. Stable Boy was standing right next to a basket. The kids were talking to me. Somehow I missed the plant and dumped half a pitcher of water right over Stable Boy's head. Ooops! Good thing Stable Boy's a good sport!
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I had a slow leak in one of the horse trailer tires. Several of my riding buddies have had flat tires this last year, so I got myself a new toy for Christmas. It's a little ramp thingy that you can drive up on. Not only do you not need a jack, but you don't even have to unload your horses to change the tire. That's pretty valuable if you're on the side of a busy highway with no place to tie up a horse safely. Stable Boy suggested I practice with the "Trailer-Aid" so that I would know how to use it if I ever had a flat. I decided to turn it into a learning moment for the kids as well. The older girls and I took turns backing onto the ramp to get a feel for it. I think it would be easy to back all the way over it if you didn't have someone watching to tell the driver when to stop, but other than that it worked great. It was good we tried this at home because I realized that there was nothing in my tool box to pry off the hub cap. We raided Stable Boy's tools and confiscated a spare mini crow bar. Turns out the leak was due to a screw, but I ended up buying a whole new tire anyway because that particular tire had the inner edge worn off. Kind of a drag cuz I just had to replace the two rear tires on my van for the same reason. I guess we're just crooked that way. Stable Boy left at 7 am today to go help frame up a new cabin at Rock Creek Camp where our daughters' go to the LDS Girl's Camp every summer. He hoped to be done by early to mid-afternoon, so I planned to bring up the kids and a couple horses to go hiking nearby, figuring he could catch up to us after he had finished. Unfortunately only about 9 guys showed up to help and not all of them stayed the whole time, so it ended up taking them a bit longer. The kids and I (and Kid 1's friend) took Sweetheart and Raven and hiked most of the road to Horseshoe Lake. It was gorgeous. Several of us took off our shoes and waded in the lake. I think we may try to rent some canoes and go up there to camp sometime. It was our first hike with Raven and Sweetheart. They did good, but it made me appreciate how well-trained Piper and Valentine really are after several years of family hikes. It's a lot more relaxing hiking when you don't have to constantly be correcting, desensitizing, or teaching the horses as you go! We got back to Rock Creek Camp about 7:15 pm and found Stable Boy and a few other men cleaning up and getting ready to head out. They had a long day, but the cabin walls were all up and sheathed. It looked good! Tuesday was another night of little sleep, this time due to Piper and Raven squealing (loudly) while playing dominance games. I think we need to spring for AC instead of opening our window at night.
Piper has a preferred corner of the pen to hang out. Raven apparently decided she wanted that corner. I peaked out my window at dawn and saw Piper pinned in her corner with Raven kicking the tar out of her. Piper is like twice the size of Raven. You'd think she would be the boss, but that is not the pecking order. When I went to saddle Piper, I had to doctor several hoof-shaped cuts and scrapes. She was clearly tender in those areas and when I asked her to go faster, she gimped ever so slightly. I unsaddled her, gave her some Bute (horse ibuprofen) and turned her out to pasture. I was able to use her for lessons today, but had to keep her at a walk or she'd show signs of limping again. Raven doesn't have a mark on her. Horses...they're worse than kids sometimes! I am pleased with Raven in that she finally relaxed enough to start gaiting a bit when Kid 1 was riding her today. Raven spent 2 years with a lady that encouraged her to trot rather than gait. (Oh, the horror! If you want a trotting horse, please purchase one rather than ruining a gaited horse!! OK. Rant done.) Prior to those two years, Raven reputedly had a beautiful, smooth gait. Since she's been here, I've only seen her trot. Today was a huge break through. Back when we first got our horses, Kid 1 fell in love with Ella, an old Tennessee Walker mare that was still owned by my friend, but that lived here for several years. Kid 1 got up early (relatively!) every morning so that she could go on long rides with Ella. She groomed her. She bathed her. She combed her mane and tail until they were silky. She spent hours with that horse. She showed Ella in the county 4-H horse show. She even wrote an essay about her that was published in an online magazine. Ella developed arthritis and started having trouble staying upright on her feet when being ridden. She was no longer safe to ride, so her owner had her put down last fall. Since then, Kid 1 hasn't ridden much unless coerced or if a horse happened to be saddled and ready to go. She said she hates grooming and saddling horses. I mentioned in my post the other day how much Kid 1 loved riding Raven on Thursday. Kid 1 had other stuff scheduled Friday, but when she never came back inside after feeding the animals Saturday morning, I finally went out looking for her. Imagine my surprise when I found her loping around the side pasture on a fully groomed and saddled Raven. Not only that, when she had finished riding, she announced that Raven needed a bath and spent another hour bathing and grooming her. No arm twisting required! Yea! HairKid 4 was getting shaggy, so Stable Boy told him to either have one of his sisters trim it or he would. Kid 4 prefers to have his sisters trim his hair over Stable Boy or I because they leave it longer than we do. So after church today, he dragged Kid 1 into the bathroom with him. This is how he looked when he came out.
Magic returned home today. I spent some time with his owners, teaching them the exercises Magic learned while he was here. They want to continue the groundwork exercises and build on them with the goal of Magic becoming a safe mount. They seemed really pleased with his progress. I suggested to Magic's owners that they try to find a copy of Clinton Anderson's Horsemanship 101 DVD. While I don't fully agree with all of Clinton's teachings, I have yet to find any other trainer that does as good a job of explaining as clearly and concisely how to gain respect and control from your horse. The 101 video is a great summary of all of the basic maneuvers that Clinton teaches. If you have the money to buy and time to watch a lot of training footage, I also recommend Clinton's Gaining Respect and Control on the Ground series as well as his Riding with Confidence series. These series include more exercises and go into more depth on each one than the 101 DVD. Over the last year or two, Clinton has been putting out new DVD kits to replace the ones I've listed above. I'm sure the new DVDs are excellent (haven't seen them yet--they're pretty expensive), but what I'm really hoping is that they will help bring the price down on his older ones. Check out Ebay for deals on used copies. |
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