Are things starting to pick up?

Are they? I sure hope so! Last night was definitely a busy one at our place.


I have washed river sand on top of a hard clay base, it gets dusty in there so I have to keep it watered and that of course with all of the riding I've been doing in there causes it to compact. I spent nearly an hour trying to break up the footing in my indoor arena with the tractor and box blade. Even with the fingers as low as they will go and the box blade angled downward it took several times around to get the footing broken up. Then I went over it with the harrow so now my arena looks great.


I had another horse dropped off for a month of training last night. This is a big beautiful Thoroughbred gelding named Norman. He seems to be pretty level headed and the guy just wants to use him for hunting and trail riding so I'm thinking this should be a pretty good gig for me. The owner of this horse is the same guy that ended up with a horse that I had rescued a couple of years ago. He brought that horse with him so I could see how he looked and dam that horse is NICE LOOKING! The guy just loves the horse to pieces.


The Big Red Horse did extremely well last night even with the drama of a new horse moving in. She is moving of my left leg very nicely but I'm having a dickens of a time getting her to move off my right. I really need to think this through and figure out what I need to do it get her going in that direction. She is just starting to neck reign a bit with leg aids.


We had to deliver a load of hay to one of the people that adopted one of the Gopher Valley horses from me. I'm really not fond of delivering hay but this is a nice way for me to keep tabs on the horse and make sure that all is going well. That horse is now living the life of pampered luxury and he deserves it. Seeing him last night made me realize that a checkup call on the two other Gopher Valley horses is overdue.


Today's photo is a funny one that I took of a friend’s horse while he was napping on my lawn. I carefully arranged the beer bottles and boxes around here for a nice effect. Luckily for me that horse is a sound sleeper so I was able to pull this one off! If that's not red neck enough for you, take a look on the deck in the background, there's an old toilet sitting there for all to see. HA!

A great weekend

Wow this has really been a great weekend. I got to spend a lot of time with good friends, go on some awsome trail rides and eat fantastic food. I'm too tired to go into too much detail tonight to I leave you with a photograph of some interesting lighting effects during the beginning of yesterday's sunset.

Peppi La Pew

Today's photo is my favorite mare Kiwi and her adopted orphan foal Babs.

We had a visitor of the skunk persuasion this morning. My lovely dog had it trapped under the deck when it decided to let loose it's lovey parfume' so now my entire house smells like a skunk party.

Yesterday I had to go over to a big training barn to try to help the trainer get some shoes on one of the reining horses there. Three different farriers have refused to work on her anymore and one of them got himself hurt pretty good trying to shoe her. I worked with her for over an hour and the only thing I managed to do was get the leftover nails from the old shoes pulled out of her feet. Other then that, every time I tried anything else she would kick hard and fast straight out. I'm supposed to go back today and work with her some more but I'm really starting to think that it's just not worth getting hurt over.

I saddled up the Big Red Horse and rode her in the arena today and had a friend riding one of my geldings in there at the same time. The Big Horse Horse did really well with that and all of the other distractions that presented themselves during our ride. I was really proud of her.

Shoeing

Shoeing and hoof care, hmmm now this is one subject where I could probably go on for a very long time! As you begin reading today’s entry you will probably wonder, “What’s this got to do with shoeing?” but don’t worry, we’ll get to that.

Today's riding session on the Big Red Horse started out a bit rough. For some unknown reason there was a booger man in every corner, behind every wall and peaking out behind every crack in the wall. My previous plans of taking her outside for a ride quickly because a distant memory as I spent a good 20 or more minutes just trotting the extra piss and vinegar out of her. Most people are lazy and spend this time standing on the ground holding a lounge line and whip but NOT ME! I like to use this time like any other, teaching the horse while riding, besides, riding the extended trot is good exercise for the horse AND the rider. By the time I had her convinced that the little teeny black kitty wasn’t going to kill her and that spec of dust on the gate didn’t have a bear hiding behind it, I was plumb tired and so was she. GOOD, now we can get something done **insert deep sigh and eyes rolling**. After all of the bending, flexing, disengaging the hip, lifting the shoulder, blah blah blah blah I decided it was time to do the, “We have to try something new with this ride.” thing. Today it was working the arena gate and I have to say, she didn’t do too badly. I was hoping for more then she gave me but was quite pleased that I was able to open and close the gate and ride her through it and we both stayed in one piece. Bravo to the Big Red Horse!

After our ride I of course just HAVE to work with her feet. I mean really, what kind of trainer would I be if I didn’t train the horse to also stand nicely for the farrier. Well, I’ve mentioned before that this particular horse isn’t very fond of having her back feet worked with but I’ve managed to make quite a bit of progress with her over the past couple of weeks. I can now pick up all of her feet and cradle them with my legs with pounding on them with the shoeing implement of my choice. TODAY I managed to convince her to let me place both of her front feet up on the stand and let me file the flare off the side walls. Bravo AGAIN to the Big Red Horse!

Now, on to the subject line. I have never considered myself a professional farrier but I’ve been told by a few very good farriers that I shoe better then most of the self proclaimed professionals in the area. I take a lot of pride in my shoeing and have learned this difficult, back breaking work from a couple of excellent masters of the trade Steve Schmidt and Ben Fry. Steve is the one who initially talked me into shoeing my own horses and taught me a lot of what I now know. Sadly, he died of a heart attack a few years ago and I still miss the snot out of that old fart. Ben Fry took his place with my teachings and thanks to the both of them I can slap a shoe on just about anything.

Okay, okay how about some pictures of my work.

This is Elvis. He had a terrible run in with a fence as a youngster that cause permanent damage to his foot. Here are the before and afters.









And then Mooney, he was just way overdue, not real problems other than his an
gles sucked







And then, the proof is in the pudding, it's really me shoeing those horses, that's my tattoo!


In conclusion, have you ever noticed that when you have to start searching for a new farrier and you call around one of the first questions that they ask you is, "Is the horse good?" Well, he's not asking is it a GOOD HORSE, he's asking, does it stand and behave itself for the farrier!!!! Please people, take the time to train your horse to ride well but also do your farrier a favor and train it to allow it's feet to picked up, cradled between your legs and pounded on.

The Big Red Horse

Today's picture is of Auda, the big red horse. Here, she is exchanging some grooming with the little mini horse, Gigi.


With money being so tight and all this spare time on my hands I decided to start training horses for people. The first one that was brought in for training is a big red draft cross mare that was rescued from a PMU farm in Canada. This big girl is wasn't very brave and so was afraid of everything. You couldn't get anywhere near her back feet and she semi rear back and run off when you took off her halter. Her owner/rescuer spent a lot of time and money to save this horse and she has done an excellent job but she needed a little help, that's where I came in.


I've been spending a lot of time with this girl every day and have come a long way with her. I can now pick up all of her feet and she is calm about it, she doesn't care aboout the halter going on and off and she lets me touch her ears and scratch her everywhere. Every day when I ride her she comes further and further along. I've already gotten her to where she stops dead in her tracks if I just set my seat and say whoa, she moves off my legs on the forhand and haunches and backs with only voice commands.


Today for the first time I took her outside and rode her around out in the pasture for a bit. She was reluctant to move forward but with just a little goading and coaxing I got her to move out a bit and wander around. What a great session it was! Tomorrow I'm going to see if she'll let me work the gate from her back.


This last weekend, the horse's owner came out to watch me ride her for a bit and was very pleased with the progress I've made with her. That really makes me feel good. I hope to get more horses in for taining soon, this is really fun!

Yamhill Derby Days

Today was our small towns celebration days called Yamhill Derby Days. For the past few years we've taken our old Model A into town and run it through the parade. Usually it's just John, Riely and I but this year John jr came with Sophia and Will and we had my Dad along for the ride. We managed to cram 5 people into that car which in a modern car wouldn't be a problem but the 1930 Model A was not designed to be a family car, there is only room in the front seat for two people of small stature! We got everyone comfortably in the car and since there wasn't room for me, I got to watch the parade with little Will.

After the parade we took the car home and went back into town to enjoy the festivities at the park. We participated in the town fund raiser auction and watched the frog jumping contest. Yep, our town is small enough that the PETA people haven't found us yet so we can still have our frog jumping contest. It was so cute watching those little kids try to get their frogs to jump the farthest without touching them.

It's been a long time

Since I've updated my blog. Right after my last update, my life got turned into a whirlwind of activities with horses, work, family etc.

Where oh where do I begin?

I took in 3 new rescues that were seized by the Sheriff's Office. Two of them were in critical condition and took a lot of time to rehabilitate and bring back to health.

A neighbors mare died after giving birth so we put the filly on my mare Kiwi and she has been doing really well.

My in laws had some health issues and were moved up into McMinville.

The list goes on and on. Right now John and I are struggling financially because of his new job and cut in pay and also my hours were cut. In an effort to make ends meet I finally decided to take the plung and start training horses and giving riding lessons. So far I have one horse here for training and I think one commitment for lessons, I hope it works out.

Today I have a pre trial hearing for the latest rescue horses and I've been told it should be the last one, this will be the 4th. If they don't reach an agreement today it will go to trial and the defense will very likely go to jail. I sometimes secretely hope that it does go to trial because that woman deserves to rot in jail for the pain and suffering that she put those horses through.

Today's photo if of the two remaining of the original 3 that were seized by the Sheriff and brought here for rehabilitation. Please pray that we will have some closure at the hearing this afternoon.