Trailer trials

Happy Easter!!!! 

Ray was my Guinea pig this morning. We had to see if he'd fit in a certain trailer.. 

So I walked him to the house and loaded him up with no problems. His FIRST TIME in a straight load like this, and we had NO CLUE if he was going to fit or not. He loaded better than he loads in the stock trailers! 

But he was a little scared at how dark and noisy it was in there.. Poor baby. 

He got so scared, he actually pooped as soon as we shut the back bars and tied him up. He was shaking until I let him unload, but I did make him sit in there a while with me petting him to calm him some. But he fits! And actually has a little room to spare! 

After I unloaded him, I let him eat around our yard a bit since I knew I had to mow anyway. I pulled as much shed fur off as I could and my yard was white.

And then I tied him, let him sit while I mucked out the trailer, and then rode him bareback to the barn.

When I got home, the cleaning process began! 

The trailer is all sparkly and clean now and ready for a few things to get fixed before Jesse and I get let loose with paint. Which is going to be REALLY fun. Ray can't wait!!! 

Jinxed myself again

You know how I say my horses never get out, and when they do, try just walk to my house? 

Jinxed it. Drift got in the neighbor's empty pasture to eat his grass. He apparently was easy to catch because they got him back on our place before I got out of school so I dunno. We are going to play it safe, though. Ray and drift will be locked in the small pasture by the barn until we can find and fix the break in the fence. 

Thanks for choosing a rainy, muddy day. Butt munches. 

Horse escape

Well I woke up early on a Sunday against my will. Dad burst into my room and woke me up saying that there was a palomino and a darker horse in our yard and the neighbor thought it was mine. He timed me and I ended up getting out of bed and out the door in less than 40 seconds. They weren't mine, luckily. These horses have been the cause of 90% of the 911 calls made on our road since I was born. There was a huge thing about the lady not feeding them and stuff. I dunno. 

Well Callie had apparently caught the Appaloosa gelding earlier that morning, but the palomino stallion had attacked her so she had to drop the leadrope, then he chased the gelding off. We tracked them for around 3 hours before finally catching them. The lady wanted us to use a soft, flimsy rope halter on the stud until I said nobody would be touching that horse without a nylon halter and stud chain on it. So I won my arguement and was the lucky one that got to walk him home. About halfway there, some mares were by the fence and he started his rearing and going crazy. I threw all my weight against him and had the stud chain on him and he was still ignoring me. As soon as I could, I handed him off to the owner and doc got the mares to the other side of the field. 

When we finally got them home, the gelding could hardly walk and she threw him in a small corral with sharp twisted metal everywhere and threw the stud in with her mares in hopes that he would pasture breed them. 

I'll post more pictures of the place and some of her dogs that were awful. Hopefully something changes soon because these guys are in really bad shape.

The black and white dog hasn't been there very long. Check out how skinny the 'red dogs' are though.. 

Back to basics

Alright, so those of you that know me personally probably already know that for like a year straight when ray was younger, I did absolutely nothing in the saddle. No bareback pad, no saddle, very rarely did I even use a bridle! It really helped me with how I grip and ride and react to different things, the boys have always been happier going tackless, etc. it was basically the golden days for us. I've never been able to trot or canter more than a step or two though. One of my riding goals for this year was to get to where I can canter bareback. (Fun fact: another goal was to remember to keep this blog going) 

So for some reason I had another one of those amazing ideas that very rarely ever turn out right today. I was going to take Drift on his third ride since fall. 

That picture is of Drift playing hard to get. It's not the attractive version either and actually kind of made me mad. But he hasn't been caught since February so my fault and I can't be mad at or blame him. Luckily my fat little golden boy will do anything for a bucket of clover and Drift follows him like a puppy. 

So I caught Drift and got him to the barn. Lunged him at a walk because for some reason he has never really learned how to lunge right so I dunno. Put the bridle on over his halter and led him around with the leadrope until he got his antsy-ness out and got calm. Basically one of those set him up for success things. He's a good boy. I had him stand and gave him a tiring (for me) refresher course on humans jumping near him and pressure on his back because I was just going to work on the bareback trotting thing at the barn before our ride some. 

Well he did really good standing and walking around the barn and was actually really calm, so GENIUS me decides to take the horse that is KNOWN for being an idiot at really bad times and hasn't been ridden in months out around the property bareback. I really need to have an intervention about these dumb ideas of mine...

Well, things started out bad. He ignored me so he could talk to his buddies across the road and I had to get onto him about it to get him going the right way. But then he was actually REALLY good! He was doing a really slow, smooth jog at first when I would ask for more speed and as I got used to trotting and wasn't bouncing as much, he would slowly increase speed unless I got onto him about it. By the time we got to Callie's, I was sitting an extended trot without bouncing at all! He spooked some around her house but it was kinda a mess since their barn collapsed so I don't blame him. Came back and let him loose so I could get rolling videos. 

Basically he's still a really great guy! I'm so blessed to have such absolutely amazing horses that really honestly do take care of me, and I'm really happy about how good I got at trotting bareback, even in just one day! 

So basically I'm super happy even though I got sunburned and weird tan lines again. Eh whatever. I'll post some pictures I took yesterday and today of the cool weather and my pathetic dog getting a bath. Enjoy!