Three Strikes and We Won

Yesterday I took Bombay out to keep me company on my exercise mission.  All I had with me was a halter, a lead rope, and a horse, and I felt naked.  Something was missing.  Halfway up the drive I realized that I forget my cell phone.  I contemplated walking all the way back, tying Bombay to a railing or the trailer, walking all the way to the house to get my cell phone, and trying again.  However

Celebrating

I am celebrating all four of my horses today.  I'm taking a couple of horses to a gymkhana and a poker ride in the near future, so I have to make sure they will all get into a horse trailer for transport ahead of time.  The three Arabs haven't been in a trailer in over two years.  I've had no need to take them anywhere because I am fortunate to have riding trails right across the street and a vet

Walking and Jogging and Walking and Jogging

When the weather is blustery, the horses get uppity, so I don't care to ride them, but they make for great jogging partners.  Yesterday Bombay accompanied me and today Lostine was my running partner.  Bombay is the only horse who understands how to stay at my side and keep the same pace as I do.  Lostine would walk until she hit the end of the rope behind me and then trot, but she's such a fast

Company on the Trails

Trail riders are starting to come out of the woodwork now that it is cooling down.  I've had a few riders check out my back lot to see if they can ride through, and have been seeing more of them out in the desert and crossing roads.  P.S. and I went out for a ride this morning and saw six horseback riders.  One group seemed to be avoiding us, as they pulled a U-turn in an odd spot.  They waved,

Forrest is a Genius

You may recall that when we first brought Rock home, I equated him to Forrest Gump.  He moved slow, was very sweet, but he could run when he needed to.  He seemed to be missing a few screws, but now I know he was just taking it all in, learning the layout of the land, and figuring out his place in an already established herd with new humans who have different behaviors and expectations from where

Rock Will Be a Certified Horse Trainer Soon

It's time to desensitize Gabbrielle again.  She flipped out when I handed her rider a helmet, so we've been desensitizing her to the helmet, even though she's seen it a hundred times before.  It turns out that she doesn't want it near the side of her head.  I sacked her out with the new saddle bags.  She didn't care about that.  I swung the helmet around and she tensed up, but didn't go berserk.

It's Official

All four horses have now crossed busy roads on the lead rope.  My husband and I took Bombay and Gabbrielle across one road this weekend, then P.S. and I took Rock and Gabbrielle across yesterday, and I took Lostine out today.  Guess who didn't handle it as well as the others?  My 25-year-old ex-alpha mare.

In Lostine's defense, I took her out without a buddy, she hasn't been out for a walk in

Making Up Time

I usually reserve Mondays for the horses, but since yesterday got monopolized by the dogs' health care, I made Tuesday horse day.  Of course, as soon as Bombay and I got out on the trails, the vet's office called to see how Midge is doing.  I've always wondered how the horses would react the first time my mobile phone started ringing on my hip while I'm in the saddle, but Bombay acted like he

Just Nuts

No sooner did Scrappy recover from his food poisoning after opening a jar of trail mix and cleaning it out, and knocking over the trash can and feasting on bacterial laden leftovers, and Midge started taking an even deeper dive down on her roller coaster of health.  She stopped eating, started vomiting, and got diarrhea.  Scrappy never stopped eating, he just soiled the carpet.  But Midge is a

Gone Exploring

I talked my husband into helping me lead a couple of horses across a main road into new territory to see how they would react.  I chose Bombay because he is the spookiest and Gabbrielle because she is the least experienced in leaving home.  While we were approaching the gate, I saw a man out for a joy ride on his motorcycle.  He went past us twice, and was gone by the time we got through the gate

Recommendations

I have had some good luck with trying out new products and would like to recommend them.  I wanted a second horn bag, because I ride in two different saddles and my old horn bag's water bottle holder was more like a Dixie cup holder.  If I rode at any pace faster than a walk, the water bottle would bounce out.  I got a deep water bottle pouch that I can clip on to a saddle ring to make up for it,

Practice

My husband felt well enough to ride Rock today.  He's been experiencing leg cramps over the past few weeks in addition to working round the clock, which didn't allow for any horseback riding.  I left him alone and let him tack up Rock by himself, and I kept my mouth shut for the most part while he rode.  He just needs practice.  We can work out the details later.  When I first took riding lessons

Tools

What do these three tools have in common?



Four other tools...



and a blue feed barrel.

So, last night we were woken multiple times by a horse banging on a feed barrel.  Usually, we can just open a window or shine a flashlight in the general direction of the barn, and the noise stops, but someone was on a mission last night.  My husband thought a horse was trapped in the fence panels, so we

Rock Finds His Stride While Scrappy Finds Some Chicken Bones

My muscles recovered enough from the mountain climb that I decided to ride Rock on the trails this morning.  Bombay's nose injury is almost healed, but now he has a big bite mark where the saddle would sit, so I left him at home.  About 1/3rd of the way through the ride, Rock picked up speed and actually walked with a purpose with his head held high, or at least as high as a Quarter Horse gets.  

Double Trouble

I wasn't able to ride this past weekend, because I thrashed my body so thoroughly on that hike.  My calves felt like they were going to explode, and when I woke up each morning, I felt like a hard pretzel.  My attention was directed at the dogs, because they both had health problems this weekend.  When Midge tore her knee ligament, the vet put her on four different medications on top of the two I

A Hike Through Peralta Canyon

My daughter suggested we go on a hike today.  We deliberated between seeing hieroglyphics, hiking to a cave, or seeing Weaver's Needle.  We settled on taking the Peralta Trail through the canyon up to Freemont Saddle to see Weaver's Needle.  If there's one thing I've learned about the book Superstition Wilderness Trails West - Hikes, Horse Rides, and History by Jack Carlson and Elizabeth Stewart,

A Short Arctic Blast

I've been too busy to be following the weather as closely as I normally do, so I was taken by surprise by this very cold rain that began last night and continued throughout the morning.  Bombay let it be known that he prefers cold weather, because he was racing around the arena bucking, jumping and rearing.  It brought back memories of his rambunctious behavior whenever I let him out of the barn

Bombay on a Quiet Day

This is how awesome my new laptop computer is:  I hooked up a very old digital camera to it, forgetting that I still hadn't installed the camera drivers and software programs that transfer images from the camera to the computer, and the laptop immediately detected the model of my camera and uploaded the photos with whatever existing software came with the computer!  The reason why that is so

Guard Dog and Happy Horses

Another dog story... I had taken Midge out to do her business multiple times, but she was still running around looking nervously at me.  I had to get something done other than taking the dogs outside, so I figured I'd just clean up the mess on the carpet later if she really needed to go.  Most of the time she insists that she has to go to the bathroom, and then when I get her outside, she doesn't

Another Way to Travel

Guess what I did this morning? Here's a hint...





No, I didn't ride a horse, but I rode something else. Here's another hint...



I went mountain biking in the desert with my husband.



I have never bicycled over dirt, sand and rocks before, so it was a challenge, but I made it all the way without falling down.  It was a great workout, especially for my lungs and legs.  I think I'll try to

Selective Hearing

Bombay has been a total pest lately.  He seems to be misbehaving to get attention, so I reserved this morning to take him out on the trails.  He's been doing everything from using me as a scratching post to refusing to go in his stall to blocking me from being able to clean up manure.  He thinks it is funny to run over to the next pile and stand on top of it.  When I spank him to get him out of

Scrappy Has a Secret

Now that the evenings are cooling down, we like to open the windows and doors to let the cool air in for a few minutes before the sun rises.  The timing of that correlates with the time period between when I wake up and while I am outside feeding the horses.  The problem is that each time I go outside, Scrappy starts barking for me to come back.  I usually don't hear it, because the windows and

My First Trail Ride on Rock

But first, here's a blurry picture I caught of a hawk the other day when two of them were working together to try to catch rabbits in our back yard:



 Awesome bird.

The side pull bridle and the low port Myler snaffle bit I ordered to offer relief on Rock's tongue arrived this week and I finally woke up this morning headache and nausea free, so I got a chance to test them out.  I started with