WE FINALLY DID IT!

I can't believe it, the rescue horses were FINALLY relinquished to the Yamhill County Court and they are no longer in any danger of ever being retuned to the sick woman who beat and starved them nearly to death. This has been a long, time consuming and frustrating journey and it is finally beginning to come to an end.

After finding out this wonderful news I went out and gave both of those mares a big fat hug and told them they are safe now.

I have two new horses in for training; Socrates and Dusty. Socrates bucked me OFF last night. I don't know about you but I think that unscheduled dismounts SUCK! He wasn't trying to be naughty but rather got spooked when we walked past the mounting block and some sand got kicked up on it, the sound of that sent him sideways and knocked me off balance. Then he darted the other direction and took a couple hops which sent me into the air and off to the side and I accidentally harpooned him with my spur. He wasn't very fond of THAT so went off into the other direction and just when I thought I'd stick he took a big jump and sent me flying into the air. Unfortunately, this is when long legs do not work in my favor, I didn't clear the saddle and my spur hung up under the horn so I went down head first and became a human sled for a second. I didn't get hurt other then some sore spots on my body but my hair, mouth, nose, ears and underwear were full of sand. Take it from me, this is not a pleasant experience!

After I had a moment to gather my wits about me and shake the sand out of my hair, I noticed that poor Socky was standing there with a Steve Erkle “Did I Do That?” look on his face. He didn’t seem too rattled so I just lead him over to the mounting block and kicked sand on it a few times so he could see that the Booger Man wasn’t going to jump out and attack him, hopped back on and went back to work. The rest of our ride was uneventful THANK GOD! He did finally start responding to my voice whoa so I didn’t have to reinforce with the reins and I was able to work him into the corners that were pretty darned scary the night before. I’m hoping that soon I’ll be able to keep him moving smoothly forward and begin trotting.

Dusty got more ground work. His owner wants him to walk, trot, canter and whoa on voice command so I worked with that for quite a bit free lunging. It takes him quite a bit to whoa and transition from the trot to the walk so I might put a long line on him next time so I can reinforce with that a little. I’ve also been asked to work on his fear of plastic so the old tarp came out. I was able to drape it across his back and I got him to walk across it. He is still afraid of it when it’s just lying in a heap on the ground so tonight I’m going to heap up several tarps in the arena and work him around them for awhile. He’s a really smart horse and working with him is fun.

Both horses have a bad habit of trying to come out of the stall before I have them haltered so I make them both back up when I open the door and stand there quietly while I’m facing them. If they come into my space I twirl the lead rope right in front of me so they have the choice of backing off or being smacked with the twirling rope. I don’t hit them, they get themselves hit and it seems to be working well. I made them both spend the night in the stalls last night in the hopes that they will be more calm about staying in them to wait their turn to be worked each night.

Todays Photo is a warm and fuzzy. It's the neighbor kid petting Kiwi and Babs, this is one of those photos that just "has it all!"

Yet Another Day in Court

I have two new horses in for training and as soon as I get home today I'm going to get started with both of them, I'm really looking forward to it. Is it weird that I love working with horses so much? Does my desire to train horses make me some kind of a dominatrix? I don't think so, I think that my desire to work with and train horses stems down to my desire to make sure that each and every one of them are somehow given a "get out of jail free card". I strongly feel that educating your horses will hopefully ensure that he will have a good home to live out his senior years and not be sold for slaughter.

Finally Got Some Rain

We have finally been blessed with a measurable amount of rain. With it of course comes thunder and lightening but that's always fun too! This morning the rain was comming down so hard that it felt like ping pong balls hitting me but I really didn't care, it felt so good to have that wet stuff comming out of the sky and seeing the thirsty earth drink it up just as fast as it could come down.

The only downside of all this is that Cindi the old dalmation is scared to death of the thunder. The poor dog spent all night in our bedroom crying while the storm passed over our small ranch. I tried to comfort her as much as I could but I guess she just couldn't help being afraid.

Today's Photo of of an American Kestrel Falcon that was kind enought to let me photograph it. They are really pretty, very shy little birds of prey.

Dog Sitting Whether I Like it or Not.

It seems that the word is out that I am a pretty good dog sitter. I am now watching an old Dalmatian for two months while her owners are on vacation in the Philippines, her name is Cini and she really is a sweet old girl. The downside of this dog is that she is a house dog and we are not house dog people. This hasn’t been to terribly difficult to deal with though, I just vacuum more often, brush her a lot with the Furminator and sweep the kitchen more regularly. Hmm, maybe this is a good thing, my house is finally cleaner!

I think that the dog’s owners will be very pleased when they return from vacation as they will find their dog happy and healthy, well groomed with shorter toenails and they’ll get some awesome photographs of her, all for free!

So in closing, today's photos are of Cindi, my new house dog for the next two months. The backdrop is one of the wonderful sunsets that our recent hot weather had been providing us.

Getting A New Puppy

John and I are babysitting a mother dog and her 8 puppies for some friends while they are on vacation. Of course we've become quite attached to the lot of them and are thinking about keeping on for ourselves.

This is the one we are considering, we've already picked a name for her; Agnes.



On another note. The owner of the Big Red Horse came out Sunday and I took her on a long trail ride up at the Flying M; I rode the Big Red Horse, she rode Buster. We had an awesome ride together up the water fall trail to the top of the hill and on across the river and down the other side. The Big Red Horse was awesome for the entire ride, even when she got stung by a bee.

Sadly, the owner of the Big Red Horse has decided to take her home when my first 30 days is done. I'm sad because I'm having fun riding that horse and also because that will mean I won't have any horses book for August. I had someone bring a big thoroughbred in but I had to send him home because he was limping and coughing. Hopefully I'll get some more horses in soon, in the mean time though it will give me some more time to ride Kiwi and Stinky.

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.

Rescue ROCKS!

Today's photo is of Cassanova and his new Person. Cassanova is one of the Gopher Valley rescue horses that I got about a month ago. He sure turned out to be a nice little gelding and I wish his new owners the best of luck with him.

Life here on the ranch has been exahusting now that I'm working for the Sheriff's Office. There is a lot of comming and going and a LOT of work that has to be done all of the time. I am so grateful for all of the people who have come up and helped me out with my newest bunch of rescue horses. Without them, I'd be even more tired than I am now.

Kiwi is now a nursemare

My time is very limited these days so I have to keep this one short and sweet. Hopefully I'll have the time soon to come in here and give you all the full story of my current rescues and daily activities. Now on to the subject of today's post.

I've always known that Kiwi was a very special mare. She and I quickly developed a bond with each other and I can say with confidence that I love her more then I have ever loved another horse.

Last Friday Kiwi got a new job, nursemare. A neighbor's mare died from complications of giving birth. She brought the orphaned foal over and Kiwi accepted it in seconds. There was no intruduction period, it was instant love.

Kiwi's milk never completely dried up from her first foal that was born 3 years ago. She then stole a foal from a rescue mare that I had last year and nursed it until I placed it in a new home.

We put Kiwi on a horse HRT paste to get her milk to come in heavier and it seems to be working. We still bucket feed the foal with Foal Lac just be make sure she is getting all of the nurishment that she needs. John and I call her BB; it's short for Bucket Baby.

They’re baaaack!

Those danged elk are hanging around in our hay fields every day now and boy does that ever chap my khakis! The bulls look so cute now because their horns are starting to grow and they all have fuzzy nubs on the tops on their heads.

Yesterday was a big day at our ranch. The vet came out to castrate poor Casanova, the mustang stallion. Castrating aged horses is tricky and this one looked like it was going to be difficult. We had a hard time getting him down and he got up before we were finished and knocked the crusher off. I had to keep a close eye on him throughout the day because we were really afraid he would bleed. He did well and this morning was as happy and alert as can be expected. I was hoping to be able to deliver him to his new home this weekend but the vet recommended that I keep him at my place for at least two weeks to make sure that he is healed properly. The adopting family was okay with that as it will give them some more time to build some additional fences.

The person who is adopting the Arabian also came out to meet with the vet and talk about the rehabilitation program for him. They decided to name him Sultan and are really excited to get him home. I will be delivering him on Saturday.

I need to try to find a home for the filly. I have some contacts from when I had them advertised on Craigslist who are on a waiting list in case anything fell through so that will come in handy!

More visitors from the birds.

It seems like nearly every day there is a new species visiting the bird feeders. This guy has been comming around for a few weeks but he is very shy so I haven't been able to get a good shot of him. Today he decided to grace me with his company while I just happened to be sitting out on the porch swing WITH my camera. What luck!

Haven't been in here for awhile

Sorry about that! I've been so busy with the days being longer and whatnot. Things have been kind of hecktick around here lately. Last weekend I went out on a horse rescue and had to pick up 3 starving, neglected horses. This time I had to have two sherrif squad cars accompany me due to the circumstances but fortunately the people didn't give us any trouble and I was able to get all of the horses out of there safely.




Fortunately for these horses they weren't in too bad of shape and I was able to place them all in new homes withing just a couple of days. They are still here for at least another week because I won't deliver them until the stallion has been castrated and I am sure that he is stabelized.




So, my photo for today isn't of very high quality but it is of the three rescue horses. Two mustangs, one stallion, one filly who might be pregnant and one arabian.

Another one with the AWWWWWW factor

We were so careful to pick just the perfect pony for our grandchildren. I spent countless hours looking at ponies that were offered for sale and even put out "pony wanted" ads to make sure that we got one that was safe and gentle for the kids. We ended up spending a lot more money then we wanted to on the one that we finally picked out but she was worth every dime. She is kind and gentle with the kids, broke to drive and really easy to look at.

Of course we couldn't just have ONE pony, we had to get another one to keep her company. That is how we ended up with Gigi. Now Gigi just magically came to us for free from some people that I used to show on the pinto circuit with.

Well it turns out that Riley likes the free pony MUCH BETTER then the one we spent $1500.00 on. He won't even pet Honey and yet loves all over Gigi and leads her all over the place with a piece of baling twine. I suppose the fact that Honey bucked him off last weekend might have something to so with that. OOPS!

We love our Grandchildren

We have Riley every weekend and he never stops comming up with ways to make us laugh or just say awwwwww. That kids is extremely entertaining to us. In this photo, he had just gotten a hair cut and taken a bath and was spending some time acting like he was a muscle man. He had a blast giving me several posses for the camera.

Saturday, the weather wasn't too bad so we were able to spend some time outside picking flowers and petting the horses. I saddled Honey up so Riley could take a short ride and that didn't go too well. Honey decided to be a pill and Riley came off. It was his first time falling off a horse, poor little guy. But he was such a trooper and I managed to get him back on the poney and lead him around a bit more.

In the evening when it was time to bring all of the horses in for the night, he wanted to help me with the ponies. So I took Honey and he got Gigi and with just a piece of baling twine around her neck, Riley led Gigi all the way to the barn and into her stall. Gigi was so good for him! She walked nice and slow so he could keep up and she never tried to stop and eat or pull on him in any way.

'Tis the Season

For wonderful sunrises! I was a little late getting on the road for this shot but I still thought it was really cool how the sun just seemed to be sitting there right next to the mountain.

I've really been enjoying the nice weather and so have all of the animals on our small ranch. The crazy horse seems to be settling in quite nicely, at least he hasn't done anything completely stupid just lately.