The Confidence Booster

I didn't write about my second fall this summer, but it wasn't fun. I only wound up riding maybe about 10 times this summer, and was left on the ground twice (one of those two being a pretty bad fall). That never makes you feel very good about getting back on again.

So last weekend I went to ride Hank again, but I was just dreading getting back on again. Before I got on him, I lunged him for the first time since the summer I got him. I was impressed with how well he actually did for not being lunged in almost two years. (Aside from me tripping over a feeder in the middle of the field and him proceeding to gallop around the field himself as fast as he could for several minutes.)

Finally, after having to tell myself several times that getting back on wouldn't be a big deal, I finally did. We had a good few gallops across the field and it was a nice "confidence booster". I'm more than ready to get on the next time I have time, but I feel like that is never!

Blackie: Part II

Today my friend Katie and I decided to see what else we could find out about this horse someone just seems to have left out with my horses. We both thought she had probably been ridden at some time but didn't know anything about her...

After detangling all the crazy dreadlocks shes had for months we decided to put a saddle on her to see how she would react. At first she was very jumpy about it but then she calmed down after we cinched her up and started walking around; she was calm to put a bridle on.

We decided to ride her in a small pen, as I don't actually have an arena or round pen to ride in. After putting weight on her I got on her first while Katie held the bridle. We walked in a few circles and then Katie got on and walked/trotted her. She was very nervous but good natured and responded to a bridle.

Later, after we had ridden her, we decided to lunge her for a while. She was not as smooth when we were riding her with a little work she could be a nice horse.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like anyone really wants to put any work into her; which is very sad. But she seems like a nice horse aside from being a little skiddish.

Katie and Blackie

Blackie: Who Just Leaves Thier Horse?

Around Christmas time my brothers friend asked if she could keep her horse at our house for a week while she went on vacation somewhere.

Six months later and the girl has not been out to see her horse once or come to get it. She is supposed to be paying board for it to run out in the hills with my four, but that has not come in either.

Did she just forget she owned a horse?

That's the start of my story with Blackie. I don't know much about her other than that she seems gentle, and being some girls horse she was probably ridden at some point, but I don't want to volunteer to be the one to test that. Shes black and some cross bred maybe with some arab but I'm not great at horse breeds.

 

Any thoughts on a breed? 

Old Horses: We Love Them

Fun Fact: It seems there are a lot of rumors on the internet about a horse that lived to be 62 years old and died in 1822. Wow! Officially the oldest horse ever recorded by Guinness World Records is 51 years old. Still, that's pretty old!

Recently I was digging through my dad's hard drive off his old computer, looking at old pictures and other miscellaneous stuff on it. (Pretty funny stuff!)

I came across a video I had taken when I was about 10 with my first camera of my horses. I had three horses then: Lucy, Dori, and Rebel. Dori and Rebel themselves were ancient, although definitely not 51. I was narrating the two minute video talking about my horses as if they were my best friends; it was super sweet (and I'm generally not the kind of person that thinks things are sweet). Not that that means I ever intend to show anyone my video!  

Its amazing how much technology has improved since I owned that camera. Back then I had blurry pictures and very very shaky videos with crackling sound quality. Now you can get all of those crystal clear.

This is Dori (photo out of the video). She was my first horse although not the first horse I had been riding. Nice horse for a little girl to ride around by herself but not much else. Of course, when I was 7 or 8 it didn't matter if the horse was ugly and old, she was a nice horse and safe to ride and that was really all that mattered back then. 

This is Rebel. Talk about old horses! He looks like a woolly mammoth from the ice age. I have no idea how old he really was but I can't believe this poor guy lived as long as he did with all the health issues he had.

Old horses, they tend to be stubborn and head strong, but we love them none the less. 

Have you had any horses you watched grow old?

A Cow Not Much Bigger Than A Cat

The baby calf on the left is Spencer when she was about 3 days old. She is lying next to our cat Jack. They are almost the same size! Spencer was born 6 days ago on Saturday, she was also born two months early. Cows gave the same gestation as people (nine months) and Spencer was born at only nine. The cows last baby was still nursing on her when this little girl was born.

Born at 18 lbs instead of about 70 it is a miracle she is alive! She's doing good and her mom is very sweet and putting up with everything. Spencer is nursing on the cow (with help) twice a day but the vet still has to put a tube down her throat into her stomach once a day as she is not yet strong enough to nurse by herself.

The vet says he's only ever seen one calf younger than this survive in all the years he's been working as a vet. We are very hopeful and she is doing good - talk about a success story!

Emergency Dismount

I haven't written in a while, but I finally have a good story and time to write!

My friend Shelbi and I were riding and after we ran out of sticks to jump over we still wanted to ride more so I decided to ride Hank bareback. Bad idea of course, I've now ridden him three times seriously bare back and been dumped three times! Yay! (I wrote horses bareback all the time when I was younger but I seem to have an unlucky streak with Hank!)
So he was being fine and I was galloping around the field by and all of a sudden he started bucking. Since he'd been acting good I wasnt really paying the best attention and by the time I'd realized what was happening he was galloping, well pretty fast! Shelbi was standing in the field holding her horse and I managed to get him to turn enough to head towards her horse thinking he'd get to him and stop. Wrong! Prepared for him to jump to a complete stop when we got to her I was so not ready for what happened next. Instead of stopping he slammed right into her horse and spun around and kept going. I'm just claiming that I pretty much did and emergency dismount when we hit her horse but who is really prepared to smash into another horse?! And the best is I was riding in short shorts (don't ask why!) so my bare sweaty legs stuck to his sweaty skin and half of me catapulted off and the other half stuck. Oww what a stretch! This was sunday and now 5 days later I can still feel it when I walk. Then I had to spend another 30 minutes riding the bucks out of him, but I think we were successful in the end. Now to try again when my legs recover!

Hank got a snazzy new halter. I think he needs to be a halter model; you know you think so to!

Its 5:56 am, what do you need?

I might have already been awake, but that doesn't warrant that I want to talk before the sun comes up when I have class then does it? I guess sometimes you just have to be a good friend sometime.

I woke up this morning to this...

I must have already been awake because my phone was on silent and it won't wake me up if it vibrates once, unless I know I need to get up. I look over and have other text that hadn't woken me up but I also have one from Clint (Amanda's boyfriend). I thought this was more than odd because I don't know why he would text me to start with.  I figured that he was going to tell me to stop making so much noise or something (he lives in the apartment below in the bedroom beneath mine) similar so I snapped back.

Turns out he really just did want to talk. He said his back was bothering him and he couldn't sleep. I guess he didn't want to wake anyone up so he decided to text me instead, thanks! Good choice though, while I'm not the most sympathetic person I am the person that would always talk to their friend in the middle of the night if they needed it.

Since it was 6am and I planned on getting up in just a little over an hour, to do homework that I'd procrastinated a lot on, I thought about just telling him to come up and talk. But I hesitated and didn't, would it have been odd to invite him up and have Amanda wake up to her best friend and boyfriend talking in the living room when I shouldn't have even been awake? I casually brought it up in the morning and she said I should have, but then again everything is always better said than done. With my past history of telling him how much I loved him (so I had a few to many drinks!) I didn't want anyone to have the wrong idea, and decided against it. Still, I feel like I took the easy way out and the bad friend approach. What would you have done?

P.S. I wrote this a few days ago and it somehow didn't get published. Oops!