My Horse is a Ninja

I think Artemis has a double life as a ninja.  She's doing everything in her power to convince us of it.  More on that later though.  First, I got photoshop and it's amazing thing in the world.  I'm having way too much fun playing with its effects. 

Sommer came down last weekend.  It's the first time I've seen her since Christmas.  I honestly cannot believe how tall she's gotten.  I miss the days when twelve-year-olds were short.  We had a very busy weekend but we managed to get out to the ponies twice.  It was the first time she'd met Artemis and I'm 99.9% sure she loved her.  She wanted to do a lot with her, which was ha65rd because two days before she came up, Sev bucked Sommer off and she cracked her shoulder.  So she was in a sling.  We matched, two blond girls in matching slings.  If I hear one more joke about it I'm going to go insane.

She was very excited to see Socks and Jimmy, she hasn't seen them since they came down almost two years ago.  (I cannot believe it's already been that long!).  I think she was most excited to see Jimmy, which was strange and refreshing.  Family members (okay she's not technically family but she's close enough!) usually only spend their time criticising and making fun of him.  It was nice for someone to be happy to see him.  And he was the perfect gentlemen.  He stood for all the hugs she wanted to give him.

Training wise everything is going as well as I could hope.  Socks has finally accepted the fact that she cannot run everywhere like she'd love to with my mom riding her.  Artemis has had the saddle and bridle on twice, working on leading, standing at the mounting block and neck reining from the ground.  She's getting a vacation from the saddle for  awhile now.  

Jimmy is being amazing with his training.  We're mostly focusing on him standing next to the mounting block quietly and calmly.  He's been spending a lot of time in the round pen.  First we started by just doing the motion of getting on him, lifting your leg.  Well yesterday we brought in the stool to the round pen to work with that.  We didn't even have to round pen him.  He stood beside it for as long as we wanted him to.  So we took him to the outdoor arena and the mounting block in there.  He stood perfectly.  To really test him we brought him in the indoor arena.  He moved away from it there but seriously after two minutes, he was standing beside it perfectly.  Now the question is, will he do it again?  I guess we'll find out.

In the round pen.

In the outdoor arena.

In the indoor arena.

Okay now about Artemis being a ninja.  As I said in my last post, Artemis escaped while they were moving the pasture horses.  They're not entirely sure how, since she can't fit under the fence but we're 90% sure she didn't jump it.  Well, she got out again yesterday.  And apparently taught Jimmy how to as well.  Her and Socks were in the grass pens while we worked with Jimmy.  My mom went out to get the stool from the round pen and finds little Miss Artemis outside the pen.  She let my mom grab her halter but there was a lesson going on in the outdoor and the trainer had her dog, a giant Great Dane.  Well as soon as Artemis saw the door she was terrified.  Luckily my mom caught her and brought her in the barn.  We put Jimmy in the pen with Socks while we put Artemis away.  When we got back, there was Jimmy, outside the pen, eating. 

We have no idea how they did it.  We checked the pens, there's no broken boards, no holes.  We even tried to get Jimmy to walk under it but he pulled the "No way, I am not doing that!"  He's taller than the boards anyway though, I can't see him being able to walk underneath it.  My only guess is they're somehow managing to crawl, in some weird horse way.  I might never know, but they lost the privilege to be out there if we can't sit with them.

To end this post, Artemis is finally over 14 hands.  She's just below 14.1 hands and is exactly one had shorter than her mother.  Two more inches and she's the same size as Jimmy.  I was ridiculously excited.