I moved Desire to the paddock next to Sheza this morning. Sheza whinnied twice then saw how close mom was and they both went to grazing without further commotion, haven’t heard a peep since. I’m sure there will be a ruckus when I pull one or the other to work with them but I won’t do that for a few days yet. I spoke to my vet this morning about shots for Sheza etc now that is becoming a big girl and won’t be nursing. She will probably come end of this week or maybe next to do Sheza’s 6 month shots.

Time flies!! Didn’t she just look like this a minute ago?

50 degrees this morning! Right now its just made it to 60 degrees and its been raining lightly but steadily for a half hour. I’m wearing a sweatshirt and my fuzzy boots, after spending all morning riding both my horses, cleaning paddocks, and the house. Basically, I’m in heaven!

Today was my first ride on Desire with her 4 Easyboot Gloves on. I lunged her walk, trot, canter in the arena, then rode her w/t/c in the arena. We headed outside the arena into the pasture itself and had some fun trotting and cantering up and down the hill with Blaze and the mini running behind us. I was a little wary how they would behave with us riding out amongst them for longer than the quick route from gate to gate we usually take. Blaze seemed quite into it and was trotting along behind us like I was ponying him. No shenanigans, though I was watching for them. I love watching Napoleon the mini run, its HILARIOUS. He is SO tiny, he has to be like 32″ tops, but he gives ‘er hell up the hill bucking and kicking and having a ball. Plus he is getting all hairy for winter and with his pig-esque markings and woolly fatness…he is just so ridiculous looking! The Gloves stayed on fine, though I know that wasn’t much of a test of them. I figured I had to take one small test run from home before I ventured out– and all seemed well. The gaiters are full of stickers from running around in the field..ugghhhh I am so sick of all the crazy thistles and prickers we have here. We HAVE to make sure we keep some money in our spring budget to get our pastures fully mowed by a big tractor or something. And sprayed.

 After riding Desire I snagged Blaze out (so far no sign of his past tendency to run like hell from the halter when living in the big field) and went for a bareback ride. Just a couple miles out one of the dirt roads and back. I used the bareback pad this time and it was actually really perfect. Since Blaze has prominent withers and an uncomfortably pokey backbone the thick suede-ish seat of the pad was just enough to make it comfortable while still obviously bareback. Last time I rode with it I felt like it was harder to hold on with the pad on but this time it was nice and I did as much trotting as I could safely. Just on straightaways where I can easily stop him if a car comes, since I’m not a total ninja when bareback riding. Yet. This no saddle thing is turning into the thighmaster supreme workout. Posting Blaze’s trot bareback for 2 miles makes me a hundred times more sore than riding a 30 mile endurance ride does!! I’m going to be walking crooked for four days after this morning’s rides lol.

I got 3 heaped wheel barrow loads of manure and dead weeds out of the weaning paddock. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I clean it pretty regularly but the dead weeds were the majority of what I took out today. We sprayed and killed all the weeds in the two smaller paddocks and there’s still some remnants of that to be scooped up and taken out. Luckily it heaps right onto the poo fork nicely and the paddock looks much better. Shhhh don’t tell the horses but I’m separating them tomorrow.

I took a couple of photos. I think Desire is so pretty!

After the last week of temperatures once again nearing the 100 mark, we suddenly have a cool cloudy day today and a forecast of 73 DEGREES AND 30% RAIN TOMORROW! What what! Maybe people are starting to think I am just a *tad* obsessed with the weather and weather forecast, but as a redhead I just don’t cope with the heat well and am always looking forward to comfortable days where things can get done, i.e. 80 degrees and lower. And fall is my absolute favorite time of year, with Christmas closely following! While I’m not ready for the full deluge, the winter onslaught, I wouldn’t mind 73 degrees and a little rain to take the edge off our serious summer dustiness. Its bizarre when the horses are getting thick coats–well Blaze and Sheza anyway, Desire doesn’t seem to be much of a winter coat grower–but when you brush them out you are still getting clouds of dust. Of course dust+water=mud sooo.. Nah, I really don’t mind fall and winter conditions, or spring of course. I’d rather be wearing muck boots scraping my muddy horse off than sweating just sitting still in the heat of summer. You can always add or remove layers for cooler weather comfort. You can only remove so much in summer before the place becomes a nudist colony and then guess what–you’ll still be too hot!
 My obsessive compulsive blanket shopping must go into swing again, I started it a few weeks ago when the first cool spell hit but hey, there’s even a little chance of rain coming so I really should be finding Desire and Sheza blankets, right?!

 Just realized this is my fourth post without a photo. My wordiness is overwhelming my drive for photography. Better take some new filly pictures tonight I guess!

Its pretty genius, this plan I have going. See I ride one horse and in so doing end up exercising all 4 of my horses at once! I rode Desire in the arena again this evening and Blaze, mini Napoleon, and Sheza trotted and cantered and bucked HARD. Til every last one of them was dripping sweat. Meanwhile Desire and I were doing endless circles and direction reversals and anything else to keep her paying attention to me and her feet and not the insane rodeo happening outside the arena. Blaze was absolutely ripping around the outside perimeter of the arena, tail to the sky, blowing like a steam engine. He actually pinned his ears and did his Elvis lip curl at Desire over the fence after he tired of galloping up and down the hill. Every time we trotted past him he looked up with a dry sticker bush branch in his mouth and gave her a little snarly face. LOL LOL LOL. I can only guess he is expressing some sort of jealousy that she is getting ridden, or why get so fired up and then so snotty? They are a pretty hilarious little herd I must say. The mini gives it hell up and down that hill as fast as his little stubby legs can go. I actually pulled Sheza out when I was done riding and cleaned and hosed her down as she had run through the few sticker bushes in her paddock and was dripping sweat with little stickery spines sticking out of her. Good grief! Its just amazing I can ride Desire at all with all that nonsense going on, kudos to her for keeping most of her brain intact. I know mine barely is.

I absolutely love reading and I’ve noticed that some of the other folks on horse blogs I follow enjoy reading as well. So I have to recommend two books I’ve just read that I really enjoyed. The first was given to me by my granny for my birthday this year and is called The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. I am not a previous fan of her work but I really enjoyed the vivid color of this book, in all senses of the word and phrase. The second book I just finished half an hour ago and am probably going to be mailing to my granny to read, as I think she’ll rip through it as fast as I did. A real page turner and eerie mystery. Its called The Thirteenth Tale and is by Diane Setterfield. From what I can tell its a first time effort by this author and a good one, in my opinion. I will need to reread this one in about six months to pick up on more of the finer nuances that I’m sure I missed tearing through it for purely for the next plot reveal. I found the book on one of my extremely random choosing sprees in Barnes & Noble a few months ago. I choose books by a sentence or two I read in the beginning, and usually by an author I haven’t read before. It usually works out well, I’ve only really disliked one or two of the books I chose in that manner.

 Anyhoo, check out The Lacuna and/or The Thirteenth Tale if you’re in need of a good read!

Yep, spoke too soon, summer wasn’t quite ready to give its last gasp and quietly retire. After a deliciously cool tease of 50 degree mornings and daytime highs in the 80s, today’s foothill forecast calls for 99 degrees. Oh yeah, and 99 is also the forecast high for tomorrow and the next day. I wore jeans down to town to run errands yesterday and was absolutely boiling–I got so excited for fall that I broke out some real clothing prematurely. Its back to tank top and shorts today, that’s for sure.

I’ve delayed separating Desire and Sheza since I needed to de-worm everybody and didn’t want to introduce too many stressful variants at once. Sheza is a little spooky since moving over to the new paddocks. I had to really talk to her and convince her to let me put her fly mask on in the paddock this morning, after she had been marching right up to me ready for it the last week or two before I moved her. Still, she allowed it and is coming along quite nicely. Last night she took her de-worming well, she was a little spooky about it around her face at first as she tends to be but I just rubbed it all over her face and neck and talked to her, then popped the sauce in her mouth, gave her a congratulatory rub and moved on to having her pick up her hooves right away. I figured rewarding her good  behavior at taking the de-wormer and then moving her brain right along to something else is better than making a big scene over the de-worming. I’d rather have her take things in stride and be ready for what’s next than spend a lot of energy and fuss over any medicating/cleaning things she may take a disliking too. Of course I’m talking about moving on and challenging her mind as long as she is taking things well, otherwise I am ready and willing to put more time and patience into it. Since she took the actual de-wormer quietly and just sort of chewed at it without any fuss or drama I figured a word and a quick neck rub was reward in itself. She then picked up all four feet quietly. I am working on her letting me hold each of her hooves a little longer each time. I don’t let her pull her foot away or be snotty but I’m trying not to get into a struggling match over it as again, I want things to remain calm and easily doable in the basic grooming/ground work phase. She is so smart and has such a stubborn streak that I feel like I should do things as smoothly and easily as possible without exciting her to a battle of wills. We’ve already had a few of those in her short life and I know she can hold her own long enough for it to not be worth doing if its avoidable. As an example, when she starts to pull a hoof away, I give her the “EH EH” no-no noise and don’t let her do it, but as soon as I feel her stop and resign herself to holding it quietly, I mean the very moment AFTER I feel it her give in and stand nicely, I release the foot. See that’s all I want, good job, we’re done. So far this method seems to work with her. She has her mom’s tendency to look at things with wide eyes like you are totally nuts to be bringing that hose/brush/fly mask toward her, but they both then give the object a hearty sniff and allow you to do whatever you were planning to. Its like they just have to make sure you SEE how dramatic and Arab-y they can be, if necessary. Lol. Girls, girls, girls. That extra spunk and attitude it quite entertaining to me and I am enjoying having it around again. That said I do love Blaze who comes out of his pasture to eat mash on command, then mosies back over and through his gate to go home again when I call him. No fuss, no drama. Love it. Having that variety of horses and attitudes all at once is pretty fun. I have the option of easy, medium, or spunky baby when wanting to have horse time. Or all of them at once for a big ole carrot session. My husband has been bringing home bulk bags of giant carrots reliably so there is rather a lot of spoiling going on.

Oh, Sheza’s baby halter is officially too small! I just barely got it to the last hole last night when pulling her for de-worming. I think the mini’s halter, which is much too big for him, should fit her at this point. For a while anyway! Wasn’t it just the other day I was punching extra holes to make it go smaller to fit baby Sheza??

If the forecast does what it says its going to, Sunday should be a beautiful cooler day and is my new planned day for mom and baby separation. Of course I’ve set the day about four different times now but its good to be flexible, right? I just don’t want Sheza having a fit about mom being moved and running around like a nutter when its 100 degrees out. Of course the horses all get buck wild when cool weather comes suddenly so Sunday will probably be quite a rodeo all the way around!