Weaning

I've been really lazy lately which is why there hasn't been a post about Artemis lately.  She was weaned on October 2nd, Sunday.  We were trying to wait until Charlie was weaned as well, but his owner decided to leave him out for another month. On Wednesday we went out and hung with them for a while.  Her and Ebony still hang out a lot and Charlie seems to follow them around.  They both don't seem to like him but he follows them anyway. 

 I don't know if any of you watch Heartland (honestly I'm not sure if it's on any TV station outside of Canada) but we watch it every now and then in my household, mostly because it's filmed in Alberta in a town we go to pretty often.  One of the last episodes was inspired by Cavalia so it introduced the concept of "dancing" with your horse which is basically getting your horse to follow you around.  Personally I feel like Heartland kind of disregarded the years it takes to train a horse to do those kinds of things so well so it's become a joke in our family, all in good fun of course.  Artemis follows you when you go out in the field and so when my mom was walking over to see the dog, Artemis followed her.  My mom began walking in circles and Artemis kept following her, so we were joking how she was dancing just like Amy and Spartan on Heartland. 

 

On Monday we ran into T and E and talked to them about weaning.  They told us about Charlie staying out and we decided to go ahead and wean Artemis anyway.  Socks is beginning to look too skinny and I'm sure we'll get our first snow soon so I want her to have a chance to put some weight back on before that happens.  So we went out to the field and hung out with them, letting them have a few last minutes together.  Artemis nursed one last time and Socks scratched on her daughter one last time.  Then we took Socks out.  My mom saddled up Jimmy while I groomed Socks and gave her some extra feed.  Then while my mom rode I took Socks out in the arena with them (I still can't ride because of my concussion).  Socks and I just walked around the arena until she got tired of that and kept trying to eat the grass along the edges.  After a while I worked on her lunging, something we both suck at and then finally my mom was done riding.  She unsaddled Jimmy out in the arena and we let them roll and eat for a while.  Finally it was time to put Socks out, but not with Artemis.  It was decided that she was going to go in with Shadow, T's horse.  Shadow is in a larger grass paddock in front of the barn owners' house on the opposite end of the property than Artemis.  Socks and Shadow get along and we were hoping being in a grass pen would help distract Socks better than being in a normal paddock, since they are smaller and don't have grass in them.  Also, the distance would make it harder for them to hear each other.

Socks was not happy when we put her in with Shadow.  She started calling for Artemis as soon as we turned down the lane to Shadow's field.  Once we put her in and I took the halter off she took off down the field with Shadow right behind her.  She kept running up and down the fenceline calling.  She'd run, stop in front of us, call and then take off running.  Shadow kept running after her.  I felt bad right away, both for my horses and for T and E.  They were going to have a long, noisy night.  We finally left Socks and went to check on Artemis.  She was near the gate with EB.  She called for her mother a few times but was more concerned with us.  Socks didn't call while we were there, but the second we came in view of her field she began calling agian.  As we were driving away, the driveway goes right by her field, she came running down the fenceline and stood in the corner, calling as we drove away.  

We went out on  Monday to check on them.  We went to Artemis first and as soon as she saw us she called and then came right over with Ebony right behind her.  She was acting fine and completely normal.  I was very glad to see she wasn't still at the gate.  EB came over as well, she's been hanging pretty close to Artemis for a few weeks now.  We gave them attention and then went to catch Socks and Jimmy.  Jimmy came right over and Socks was waiting at the gate, although with Socks I know it wasn't because she was that happy to see me.  She was still waiting to be taken back to her baby.  My mom didn't ride Jimmy, we just groomed him and then put him out on the grass.  Instead my mom rode Socks.  Rarely anyone rides Socks besides me.  She listens very well but is still a spirited horse that likes to test her riders, so not too many of my family memebers like to ride her.  However, she hadn't been ridden since I got the concussion so my mom took pity on us and rode her.  They mostly just walked but at least Socks got some exercise.  She was really good.  Once again she was not happy when we put her out with Shadow.  She started pacing again but at least she was just walking not running.  Shadow followed her again.  Artemis is taking the weaning much better than Socks is which is very strange.  When Cas was weaned, Socks took it much better than Cas did.  I kind of expected it to be like that again.  We're going out on Wednesday and hopefully Socks will have calmed down some more by then.

Btw has Blogger been difficult for anyone else lately?  I'm having trouble commenting on blogs and everytime I post something with pictures the pictures get messed up.  Only half of them ever end up formatted how I want them.