Pictures

I'm still too sore to type a lot, so have a small update and then some pictures.  The horses are pretty good, there's a nasty cold that's going through the barn.  Artemis has it but seems to be doing better now.  Her issue is the other pasture horses have been using her as their kleenix and she's a little...disgusting...right now.  The first warm day we get, she's getting a bath.

Socks and Jimmy are good, they have a lot of time off except for when K rides them.  Socks is in a snaffle for now because K does a lot of direct reining with her, and her usual bit, a curb bit, isn't the greatest for direct reining.  And since Socks goes fine in either bit, we figured it wouldn't hurt to switch for a while.

I'm too sore to do much, but I made sure I got to hang out with the horses a lot the day before my surgery.  I took my camera out so enjoy some of the pictures!

 

I hope you guys are all warmer than we are!

Bleh, Winter.

I figured I should get in one last post before my surgery on Wednesday and I can't type for a while.  For the past few weeks I've been out at the stable almost every second day it feels like.  I've been trying to get in as much riding as I could because I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back on.

To make it easier, I'll split this post by horse.

Jimmy

I've ridden Jimmy twice in the past few weeks.  I really should have ridden him more and I have no good reason for not riding him, other than I just honestly prefer riding Socks.  It's bad, I know. 

He's had a lot of time off since my mom fell off.  She hurt her back and hasn't been able to ride much. 

He was...difficult...during our rides but he always started listening by the end of them.  I ask for more from him than my mom does and he doesn't always like that.  A big thing we were working on was that I choose the speed we go at, not him.  He has a bad habit of the second he gets to trot or lope, he tries to go as fast as he possibly can.  I spent a good hour and a half working on him trotting at a nice, slow, steady speed I chose.  (Of course he wasn't trotting straight for the whole ride, that would have killed the poor boy).  It wasn't perfect at the end of the ride but he was doing much better.

Socks

Here, finally a picture of Socks in her blanket.  Her very dirty blanket.  You have to love Alberta weather, last week was so warm, the snow was all melting and the stable was one big mudpit.  A day later, we were all buried underneath a massive blanket of snow.  Lovely.

Socks has been great lately.  Her and I haven't been doing much other than getting on and messing around in the arena.  The more exciting news is that K has ridden her a few times for me.  She offered to ride Socks for me while I'm recovering (which is great, seriously, I can't describe how grateful I am).  I love when someone else rides my horse because I think it's great for Socks.  There's a lot I don't know that other riders can help us with.  It's still strange watching someone else ride my horse though.

Artemis

Okay, I've been slacking off in this department majorly.  I haven't done any real work with her in a while.  Just the usual leading, barn manners and that stuff.  She's had it pretty easy for a while now.  And she'll keep having it easy for a while longer.  I don't think she minds too much, she still comes in at least once a week. 

The horses' had their feet done last week and, surprisingly, she was the best behaved of the three of them.  She's usually pretty good but tends to get impatient by the time her feet are almost done.  Not this time, she stood quietly the entire time.

One more inch and she'll be fifteen hands.  I keep hoping she'll reach it by her birthday at the end of April. 

That's all from me.  I'll be back, eventually. 

Artemis Updates

Guess what I finally did!  Take pictures!  Guess what this is not!  One of those pictures.  No seriously, I took pictures but they all turned out horrible and blurry.  Luckily I had some older pictures on my camera and they were better.  She looks basically like this but a little taller. 

Okay, so onto what she's been doing lately.  She's been a busy pony.  She is completely used to the saddle now.  That wasn't hard to do, she gets it put on about once a month, sometimes a little more, to get her used to it.  Then we set her and Jimmy loose in the arena and let them run around and have fun.  She stayed calm since she wasn't alone but she got used to the stirrups banging around her sides and the feeling of the saddle through her different gaits.  The only problem we have now is she keeps trying to eat the saddle.

This is an old picture (you can tell by the halters, her current one is silver) from one of her pony lessons.  It's not her favourite thing, she's kind of lazy and would like to mosey along but that's the only problem she has with it.  She acts like a proper riding horse, just minus the rider of course.

We work at the mounting block at lot, getting her used to both standing next to it, and having someone stand on it.  I usually keep the lead rope over her neck and lean over and just stay there for as long as I want.  She's usually pretty good, although she does have her distracted days. 

She has even managed to carry me a few steps.  I haven't sat in the saddle, but I've leaned over her, both with the saddle on and when she's bareback (I'd like her to be used to both from the start).  I was leaning over her back and my mom led her a few steps.  She was much better than I could have hoped.  I could feel she was tense and she wasn't sure about it but she never went to buck or run, she just followed behind my mom.  Even when I'd jump off she'd just stop and stand.

We did get a reaction out of her one night.  I was working on getting her used to pressure in the stirrups.  The weight on one side throws her off, so she tends to sidestep away from it.  There was another girl riding in the arena and she was great.  She was very concerned about spooking Artemis but I told her not to worry about us.  I want Artemis to get used to having other horses in the arena and the best way to do that is for the riders to do what they would normally do.

The girl was behind us in the arena, and I had just put all my weight in the stirrup when she asked her horse to canter.  The combination freaked Artemis and she bolted forward and I jumped off.  The girl felt really bad but I couldn't have been happier.  Does that make me crazy?  It just meant we had to try again, and we did.  The girl cantered some more, I put my weight in the stirrup and Artemis didn't move.  It wasn't scary anymore.  I'd rather her have more of these moments when I'm on the ground then when I'm eventually in the saddle.

We've also worked a lot with the stool.  The first time I get on her will probably be in the round pen so I'll be using the stool to get on her.  It's great to get her used to the mounting block, but it's pointless if I don't get used to the stool as well.  The stool was...tough.  She wasn't really afraid of it, but she didn't like it.  She would not stand next to it for anything in the world.  She'd sidestep away if I brought her up to it, and if I brought it over to her she'd try to trot away. 

So I figured, if she's afraid of it on the ground, why not put it on her back?  Yeah, I'm weird, I know.  But my logic is if she can get over it being on her back, then it won't be so scary on the ground.  It worked.  She went into circles when I first put it on but she stopped quickly and just stood there.  After that she didn't move when I put her beside it on the ground.  With that problem solved, she then decided she didn't like me to stand on it.  That was easy enough to solve though.  All I did was grab a brush, stand on it and groom her.  She'll now stand beside it, no problem at all.

I also did the same thing with the chair.  They have these metal wire chairs at the stable that are pretty light.  I had dragged one into the arena the other day while my sister and her friend rode, and Artemis was obsessed with it.  She thought it was the greatest toy in the world and kept trying to lick and chew it.  So I decided since she loved it so much we could use it to be productive.  Since it's so light, I was able to pick it up and rub it all over her.  Over her shoulders, her back, her tail. 

She didn't like that at first but it made me realize something.  Like usually I just had the lead rope tossed over her neck and I had two hands on the chair, so she was technically free.  She was going in circles around me and it occurred to me that she wasn't trying to get away.  She could have easily ran off across the arena but even though she didn't like the chair, she had no inclination to run away.  At least ,that's what I hope it was.  Maybe she thought I was holding onto her so that's why she didn't try.  Anyway, it only took a few minutes and then she was fine with the chair.

I think that's everything she's been doing.  Besides the normal lessons anyway, such as leading and feet.  Keep in mind, all of this has been spread over months, since before Christmas.  Her work schedule is light.  She'll have to work for maybe ten, fifteen minutes and then she has the next week off.  She only gets "tougher work" (getting saddle, working with the mounting block) at most, twice a month.  Every other time she just comes in, gets groomed and cleaned up, maybe walks around the arena a bit.  She only ever comes in on Sundays, because it's too dark to find her in the pasture by the time we get there on weeknights.  Also, any serious work I do, or any work where I'm standing above her, I always wear my helmet.  She's very calm for her age...but I'm not that stupid.

Also, we've come to the conclusion that her snip looks like a stroller.

She could have gotten so many cool things...and she got a stroller...Oh well, I still think she's adorable.

And now to finally end this long post.  So thanks if you're still with me and read through the whole thing.  I don't know how much more horse things I'll have to report in another month.  I have a third surgery coming up at the beginning of March.  This surgery is just on my wrist and I'm not sure how long I'll be out of commission for.  The recovery time is six months but I'm hoping that I can return to riding before that.

Tis The Season to Be Falling

So once again, I did not take pictures.  I remembered this time, Saturday I dug out my camera and got it all ready.  All I had to do was charge it, and I've apparently lost the chord to do that. 

So the Sunday before last, we went out to help clean the stable, like usual, and then we brought Artemis in to work with her.  I'll have another post just about Artemis because I think this one might get long enough as it is.  Anyway, as we were working with her, a bunch of people showed up to ride.  We decided to ride outside because having eight riders trying to work around each other in the indoor arena isn't fun for anyone.

We decided to go into the little field behind T and E's house and right away the horses were a little crazy.  I won't lie, Socks' hyperness probably had a little to do with me.  It was my first time riding outside since I broke my arm and I was stressed out. 

Jimmy was even worse though.  He thought being in the snow was the coolest thing in the world.  All he wanted to do was prance and play in the snow, but he kept getting stupid about it so my mom wasn't letting him do what he wanted.  By this point, K had decided the arena was too full and came out to join us.  It was good for about ten minutes.

We were all riding in a group and Jimmy just took off bucking all of a sudden.  Socks and Tango bolted in the other direction so K and I were too busy trying to stop our horses to pay attention to what my mom and Jimmy were doing.  We managed to get our horses under control quickly, and then we turned around just in time to see my mom land in the snow.  Jimmy didn't even hesitated, he took off running across the field, back towards T's house.

We made sure my mom was okay and then went to attempt to get Jimmy.  I knew right away that wasn't going to happen.  The calm, level-headed guy he's turned into was gone and in his place was some crazy, full of himself mental-case.  His tail was up in the air like an Arabian (I've never seen him do that before) and he was staring at Socks and Tango like they were monsters coming to eat him.

K and I both got off to try and get him, which set Socks and Tango off again.  Jimmy took one look at them jumping around, and took off back towards the stable.  We calmed down our horses and then K jumped on Tango to go get him.  I tried to get on Socks, but with my arm I just can't pull myself up from the ground yet.  So instead I tried to walk over to my mom, who was going the opposite way as K, to cut Jimmy off from going onto the road.  Note to self, walking through knee-deep snow with a horse whose convinced she can just drag you through it, is a bad idea. 

I had to take a moment to get my breath back, and K managed to catch Jimmy.  She brought him back over to us and then the three of us decided to continue our ride in the outdoor arena.  We'd be closed in so if our horses kept acting stupid, we wouldn't have anymore runaways, but the horses would have to deal with their excitement over the snow.

Jimmy calmed down a little, and K and I had fun trotting our horse in the snow.  We didn't ride for much longer, but now we know what we have to work on with Jimmy next.

Okay, fast foward to just this past Sunday.  We were riding in the indoor arena and some girls had set up five jumps.  They set them up kind of goofy and they were difficult to get around.  There were four in a long row and they were too close to the wall so they were difficult to get by.  They had another one, a pretty tall one (to me at least) set up closer to the arena door.  They weren't in the arena yet so it was just my mom and I.

I was letting Socks run around as she pleased.  She was pretty full of energy so I figured I'd let her blow it off.  It was going well, but then as we were coming up to the arena door, L just happened to walk up right as we got to it, and it scared poor Socks.  She went straight up in the air, and then ducked to the right.  Then she saw the four jumps so she ducked to the left again.  Well this put us right in the path for the fifth jump and Socks was still running.  I could feel her thinking about going over it because we didn't really have enough time to go around it, and I was sure if she tried to jump that high, she could do it but I'd go off.  Just as her nose got to it, she slammed on the brakes, which was probably the best option for the both of us. 

I kind of suck at explaining things, so here, have a bad picture I drew quickly.  It looks so much less bad when it's drawn with a dotted line...but trust me...it was a bad spook.  About ten times worse than the spook Thor had that caused me to break my arm.  And yes, I feel so stupid that I stayed on this time and fell of then.

I have no idea how I stayed on.  From the first moment she spooked to when she stopped, I don't think I was actually in the saddle at all.  All I can remember thinking is that I was going to break my other arm and then praying she didn't try to go over the jump.  I was so far over the saddle that my right knee was over the left side of the horn.  I think the only reason I managed to stay on sheer willpower. 

For the next ten minutes after that while we both tried to calm down (my heart was pounding just as loudly as her's was) all I could think of was how insane I was for getting back on a horse.  That was a new experience, I've never had thoughts like that before, but it made me realize how terrified I am of getting hurt again.  Luckily those thoughts didn't last long and just last night Socks and I were back to runnng around the arena.  She did keep spooking at people at the arena door, but nothing big and we'll just keep doing it until she stops.

Like I promised, I'll have an Artemis post soon, we've been doing a lot with her lately and she's been doing awesome.  For now I have to go catch up on other blogs.

Stress Sweat

I am pretty awful.  I completely forgot about my camera again on Sunday.  I had a (semi) legit reason.  Okay, it was pretty stupid in hindsight.  Saturday night T tried to call my mom but we missed the call and it was much too late to call back when we noticed she called.  Because there wasn't any message saying the horses were injured or anything, my mom wouldn't let me call.  So being the crazy horse owner I am, I spent the entire night stessing out about it(my poor best friend had to listen to me ramble on about all the worst case scenarios) and only got about two hours of sleep.  So needless to say when I woke up, my camera was the last thing on my mind.

Of course when we did get to the stable (Sunday morning- we help out on sunday mornings) I found out that T called for a reason completely horse unrelated reason and all my freaking out had been for nothing.  I need to relax, I start panicking when I get an email from her even though I know she'd never tell me bad news in an email.

Anway, moving on.  Sunday was cold but not freezing as it's been lately.  We brought Artemis in and then saddled up the big guys.  Like we usually do on Sundays when no one's around, we let Artemis free in the arena while we rode.  That was our first mistake.  The little princess was definitly feeling her oats that day.  She kept racing around the arena, bucking and rearing as high as she could go.  My mom was riding Jimmy along the railing and Artemis came running up, slid to a stop in front of them and started rearing like some wild stallion.  Jimmy thankfully didn't react. 

Artemis did spook Socks and Jimmy pretty badly later on.  She was rolling when we rode past and once our backs were to her, she jumped up, bucked and came galloping at us, completely terrifying Socks and Jimmy.  We ended our ride shortly after that before anyone got hurt. 

Artemis was still full of energy so we figured to help her get rid of it, we'd get her to run around the arena.  That was our second mistake.  I swear she was convinced we were angry at her.  She got so upset that she was a gross, sweaty mess in about a minute.  And just our luck, we had to leave pretty quickly because we were meeting people for lunch.

We put the cooler on her (she was actually great about that, it was the first time she's ever had it on and I literally just threw it on her) and walked her around but when we had to go she was still pretty sweaty.  We decided to put her in a stall and come back later that night to put her back out.  First we put her in D's stall, in the back of the barn out of the way.  That was our third mistake.  She threw a major fit.  She's been great about being in a stall for a while now but something about being in the back set her off.  Usually I let her go through her tanturm and settle down, but we had to go and I didn't want her breaking something or hurting herself.  So we ended up moving her into the main part of the barn where she could see another stalled horse.

All sweaty and gross.  Notice the tongue, she is definitly her mother's daughter.

The monster in prison.

We came back later that night and got there literally a minute after E had put her back in the pasture.  I was disappointed that I missed seeing her, but at the same time I was happy someone, especially someone male, had led her.  She's pretty much only been handled by women since she was born.  E said she was great to lead and he had no problems with her.  Her stall wasn't a mess either so we're pretty confident she wasn't too stressed out about being inside.  T told us she didn't even realize that Artemis was in the barn for the first bit of their ride because she was so quiet. 


We were out Thursday night as well and rode the big guys.  Socks was Miss Sociable.  I couldn't get her to focus on anything, especially her own feet.  She wanted to go visit with every horse in the arena.  I ended up putting her blanket on her because the windy was nasty and although she wasn't warm anymore, I had made her work hard and I felt bad about putting her out in the cold. 

That's all for now.  I'm not promising I'll get pictures this Sunday.  I'll try but I suck at remembering.

Arena Fun

So I don't have any new pictures of the horses.  I was going to bring my camera but I forgot to charge it and the battery is deader than dead.  I'll try to remember for this Sunday.

Things have been going well.  We go out three times a week now and the ponies are happy to be getting worked more.  Our three guys are happiest when they're getting worked.  We've taken off Socks' blanket for now because it's been pretty warm out and is supposed to stay warm for the next while. 

Tonight we got out to the stable just before seven.  While my mom messed around with our locker, I went out to catch Artemis.  It was dark, but the sky was clear and with the lights from the stable and the neighbours, it really wasn't that difficult to see.  It was actually pretty exciting that I was able to go get her for two reasons.  First, I haven't done much with her on my own since I broke my arm, since she's young and unpredictable, I haven't wanted to take the risk of getting re-injured.  Second, it was night and she's not usually that good at night, and she was perfect.  I had no problems with her despite the dark or the ice.

My ride on Socks tonight was short but good.  We mostly worked on loping on a loose rein.  She was perfect, we didn't have any issues so we ended on that good note. 

I brought Artemis in after unsaddling Socks, just to lead her around and make sure she remembered everything.  My mom was still riding and another woman, D, was walking her horse around to cool off.  The three of us stopped to talk, and Miss Artemis decided that would be a good time to roll.  No joke, she was rolling for close to ten minutes.  She'd roll for a bit, then just lie there, and then start rolling again.  Only when my mom and D left did she finally decide to get up.  Between rolling, she let me scratch her head and ears.  It was the first time since she was a baby that I've been near her when she was lying down. 

As I said, I'll try to remember to charge my camera for sunday.  I went from taking pictures of them everytime we went out to never taking any pictures of them...

I'm Back

I am alive!  It's been over a month since I last blogged.  To be honest, I've had to face the fact that because of my arm, I can't ride like I used to, and it was a lot more upsetting than I expected.  On top of that, there are more problems with my wrist so I find out in February if I need a thrid surgery, and then add family issues on top of that, I've been hiding in my room for the past month and a bit.

I've finally crawled out of my hole and I think, or hope, that things are looking up.  For the riding thing, I've just had to re-learn how to ride, taking into account what my arm can and cannot do.  It's not pretty but it's working.  Socks has been great, when I ride with my right hand it just takes the slightest touch to get her to do what I want.  And Socks is now sporting some new clothes.

It's a really bad picture but I wasn't expecting to get her a blanket yesterday so I didn't bring my camera.  We went out to the tack store to pick up some sweet feed and figured that we might as well check out the price on winter blankets.  We decided this year that we wouldn't mind having winter blankets on them, not really to keep them warm, they do that well enough on their own, but because we ride them more and it'd be nice to keep the snow off their backs so it doesn't melt and get them soaked when we bring them in.

Well the price of the blankets at the tack store last night was a good hundred dollars cheaper than anywhere else we've looked, and better quality.  T had previously tried blankets on Socks to find out what size she was, so we ended up walking away with a blanket for her.  Jimmy will have to wait until next month to get his blanket.

It's a Goliath blanket with 1200 Denier count.  T really stressed getting a decent Denier count to us.  Socks took to wearing it a lot better than I expected, considering she's never really worn a blanket before.  That said, the test will be on Thursday when I see her next, to see if she still likes it after wearing it for a few days.

Artemis has been great.  She's been ponied while wearing the saddle and we've been working a lot on standing at the mounting block with the saddle on.  We've also been working a lot on respect because we've run into a few issues.  One helpful exercise we've done is put her in a stall and work with her in there.  She's not supposed to move until she get's the okay from us, this includes if there's food in the stall.  She's a quick learner, I can leave the stall door open and start to walk away and 9 times out of 10 she'll stand (this is not something I do when there's other people in the barn, just in case she does walk out of the stall). 

She's also very talented at backing up.  When I'm leading her I don't need to tug on the lead rope or poke her in the chest to back her up, all I need to do is back up myself and she'll keep going until I stop.

I'll try to take pictures of them on Sunday, when it's light outside, since it's been a while since I posted good, recent pictures of them.