I’m doing a little bit of that today, I must say. It started yesterday afternoon. And was caused by riding Blaze bareback for a few miles through the neighborhood Saturday evening. He seemed to be expressing some “hey me, pick me pick me!” attitude when I was riding Desire in the arena in the A.m. and I don’t have a saddle to fit him well at the moment so I said heck, lets go bareback. I told myself that since he is getting all fuzzy in his winter coat it would make his big pointy withers and backbone more comfortable. The things we tell ourselves, right? I actually love riding bareback in all honesty, its just that I prefer the sofa shape of a Desire over the point withered shape of a Blaze. Still, he needed to get out and I was saddle-less.  I had a really fun ride, Blaze is as cool a customer bareback as he is under saddle so we just had a pleasant meander through the neighborhood on a warm but very pleasant fall evening. There were a few snorts and the odd rock got eyeballed but nothing hair raising. I discovered that when riding uphill bareback really wrapping your legs around the horse snugly (without the addition of heels, of course) helps you stay in place quite nicely. No doubt that method is more or less successful depending on the sensitivity of your horse’s sides but Blaze didn’t mind a bit. Downhill wasn’t an issue, I wasn’t going anywhere with that cliff of withers in front of me. I even got ambitious and posted his big bumpy trot for about 1/4 mile! And that was quite enough, I assure you. I love love love to canter bareback, there is no more free and thrilling feeling, to me. Trotting bareback, not so much, especially on Blaze, but we managed. I felt fine when I hopped off of Blaze back in the yard and I rode Desire yesterday morning for 45 minutes in the arena, sans baby. It wasn’t until about 3 pm yesterday when I stood up from sitting at the desk for a while that my inner inner thighs, you know the part you grip with the horse with all you’ve got when trotting bareback, were suddenly feeling tight and screaming a little. Still feeling it this morning. That just means I need to ride bareback more, right?!
  After the arena session with Desire yesterday morning I tried on all 4 of her Easyboots. Of course they didn’t fit quite right, why would they? The 0s on the hind wouldn’t even go on her hooves with the Power straps on (I do remember the barefoot trimmer sort of muttering to herself “hmm, course they’ll be kinda hard to get on back there with the straps..oh well”) so I got the handy dandy drill and took the straps off. Then the 0s went on, but I’m not really confident of the fit. But then, why would I be, I haven’t even ridden her in them yet. I guess sticking them all on and riding in the soft sandy arena is the place to start, yes? She certainly doesn’t need them in the arena but at least I can walk, trot, canter, and see what happens, if she looses a boot no big deal. I didn’t ride her this morning, the alarm clock left on cranking away at 3 am, a yowling cat, and a dying cell phone singing its little “I’m dying” song all combined to make my early morning less than restful and I slept in a bit later than usual, missing the perfect cool of the morning. The horses have been in their new “Weaning positions” in the pastures for four days as of today, I’m thinking either today or tomorrow I may be sliding Desire on over to the next paddock for true weaning to begin. Oo boy.

Desire modeling all 4 boots like a good girl:

Desire’s new kicks, complete with power straps:

What a great, cool fall morning, perfect for taking Desire out for a spin without Sheza for the first stage of the real weaning process. Sheza’s weaning paddock is right in the middle of things: a paddock to the left where Desire will be when I separate them, the big pasture to the right where the arena is and Blaze and the mini are now living (the arena is inside the pasture). The cross ties/grooming area is right next to the big pasture and only maybe 15 feet from Sheza’s paddock. Its an ideal spot as she could easily see and be relatively close to mom throughout. I put Desire in the cross ties closest to Sheza and after a few whinnies filly didn’t seem too worried and just watched while mom got groomed and tacked up. Then down through the big pasture with the boys following like pests and into the arena, just managing to close the gate behind us as Blaze tried to barge in with us. He is so helpful, lol. Sheza whinnied once or twice and was trotting around at first but wasn’t too worried. Things stayed mellow throughout lunging Desire and readjusting tack, then once I was in the saddle everyone got a little nutty. I don’t know if it was Blaze or Sheza who started the galloping phase, but for a while Blaze, Sheza, and the mini were all galloping around their respective spots like total nutters. Desire was quite distracted by this, especially since Blaze was running laps around the outside of the arena blowing like a steam engine and just generally showing off. That lasted for about five minutes and then when things settled and Desire was back on board with me (mostly) I started a little trot work, big circles and changing direction to keep her paying attention to me and her feet instead of Sheza and whatever mischief the boys were up to. She is such a smooth ride, yes yes yes! Love it. I am thinking of trying to find a good, MELLOW riding instructor to take some beginning dressage lessons with as I am quite top heavy (gotta love the familial big boobs) and tend to get my center of balance too far forward. Its more of an  issue with Blaze who is so choppy and difficult to stay centered on but I know it must affect all my riding and my seat and comfort as well as my mount’s. I have zero interest in being yelled at or shamed, I have taken literally 2 riding lessons in my adult life so I am by no means an ace in that way. However I have ridden a ton of horses hundreds of miles, keep my heels down and have soft hands, so I’m sure I can be easily taught if I find the right person.
 Anyhoo, it was a nice mellow ride on Desire but she is so incredibly out of shape its kind of funny. She likes to go however and is pretty responsive, though stiff (she can barely bend to the left, much better on the right) and when I ask her to collect she knows what I’m saying but tends to collect a little and then sort of drop her head and leeannn on my hands which is an irritating habit. She is strong strong strong. Definitely some attitude there, much more than Blaze but then Blaze is the most laid back Arab on earth and, of course, there is the Mare Factor. All in all she is quite nice to ride though and really quiet and calm considering she hasn’t been ridden consistently since last fall and I was taking her away from her baby to ride her. I am still waiting on the Easyboots for her hinds and the Power Straps, I was sure they would be at the mail today but I just called and they said no boxes for me. So sad. Probably Monday. As soon as those boots come I am applying Power Straps and hitting the trail with this girl! Well as soon as my gradual weaning process allows, anyway. I think I’ll do a couple more rides in the arena and then one of the days when I go to put Desire away just put her away in the paddock next to Sheza instead of with her. Then let them adjust to that and then start riding Desire a little longer, a little farther away, etc. I’ll just keep an eye on how things are going and adjust my plan as neccesary. I was surprised and pleased to see that Sheza didn’t immediately go to suckle when I put Desire back with her, she was definitely happy to be close to momma again but wasn’t frantically nursing as she usually does after a training session. I think its definitely a good healthy time to be weaning her off as she still nurses some but mostly is interested in solid foods and is quite independent, plus Desire is definitely over being the milk bar.
 I’m heading off to the mail to send the Free n Easy saddle back. I hate going down into town on the weekend but if I do it early I’ll just be done with it.

Okay, not quite. But in a day or two. I moved all the horses to the west side of the property next to the house this morning. Desire and Sheza are in the weaning paddock and after a day or two of acclimation to the “new” (not really but they haven’t been on this side of the property since spring) spot I will slide Desire to the paddock right next to Sheza and let the weaning madness truly begin. Blaze and his evil mini sidekick are reunited in the biggest pasture next to the girls. No doubt they will start their yeehaw round-up bad habits in no time. This is when they realize what a halter coming at them means and run as fast as they can down the hill and out of sight to the far corner of the pasture. Its a pretty large pasture. I usually end up rounding them up with the Polaris! Little shits. Blaze is Mr. Friendly on his own but quickly turns into Mr. Impossible to Catch when he is with other horses. Oh well, its good entertainment and that’s what off road vehicles are for right?
 I am going to be returning the Free n Easy saddle. There was quite an issue over that but its not fitting me or my horse well and if I did buy it outright I would just turn around and resell it anyway. I have been riding Desire in my western saddle due to her fatness so I will be using that on her for a month or two and hopefully by that time I will have gotten a Specialized to use on her and Blaze.
 It was 50 degrees this morning! So glorious! I’m wearing a sweatshirt and fuzzy boots and am happy as a clam. The little dogs are miserable and shivering, LOL. It drops below 70 degrees and they don’t know what to do with themselves. My mom knit Georgia a new sweater, just has to fit it to her before she sews it together. Wilbur isn’t much of a fan of wearing sweaters as he is under the impression he is a big Lab like our dog Tady, not a little freezing wiener dog. At least he has all his hair, poor little inbred Georgia has a fully bald belly and thin hair and really does need sweaters to survive winter. Of course if you told me even 5 years ago that I would have little dogs and put them in sweaters..well, I wouldn’t have believed it to put it nicely.
 My riding buddy just got me the number of her hay grower who delivers AND stacks hay for a reasonable price!!! I am so grateful she shared the love and will be calling him tonight. It would be amazing to have a barn full of hay and not have to worry about what kind or what price I’ll be getting every few weeks.

Desire’s size 0 Easyboot Gloves and the powerstraps are being shipped today. A perk of being friends with the people you are buying things from–they get mailed quickly! I ordered them from GETC of course, and also asked them if Desire had any feet/feed issues in the past. They were surprised to hear that she had flat feet and thin sole and said she had not been that way with them. Which of course makes me feel even worse…I was inadvertently ruining my horse’s feet!? But they also said pregnancy hormones, the relocation from Utah, and changing feed all would contribute to it and assured me it would be reversible. So the boots and accessories are on the way and I will be moving horses into their respective paddocks for weaning within the next week. I haven’t heard back on the saddle so that’s still to be resolved but the most important thing is Desire’s hoof health and we will be working towards that immediately. I sucked it up and bought some of the INSANELY expensive grass hay at the feed store yesterday, only 10 bales for now. Hay is SO pricey this year and only going to get worse this winter. I’ve been looking on craigslist and wherever I can think of to find a better deal on hay but it doesn’t seem available. The feed store folks said hay is getting exported from Cali overseas and also to the East after the all the floods and storms they had this year, plus the late rainy spring=scarce hay. The prices never even dropped this summer, usually we get down to around $8/bale in summer but its been $12+/bale all year and the grass hay is at $17/bale right now!!! Gahh! The feed store is stocking forage/stable mixes anticipating people not being able to afford the hay and using that as alternative feed. It just seems wrong that you can maintain a working horse on NO hay at all, just these feed mixes, but they do seem to be formulated as replacements of hay. If anyone reading this knows about feeding this kind of stuff I’d be really interested to hear because these hay prices are going to be deadly this winter and if it is a true, acceptable alternative I might check it out. I’ll be reading whatever I can find on it as well.

 Oh yeah, finally got the ride results from Mendocino Magic, we got 3rd place out of 15 completing riders with a ride time of 5 hrs 6 minutes. Pretty interesting considering I got almost the same placing with a ride time 2 hours faster at Patriot’s Day. Just shows you the type of trail really does affect things!

 Non horsey photo, still pulling delicious watermelons out of our garden–love it and the horses love the rinds!

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take Blaze for a test ride in the arena and see how the saddle did on his back with just the numnahs it came with. That’s right, an afternoon ride, as the temperature suddenly dropped from 100+ to the 80s in the last few days, hurray! Blaze was feeling quite mighty and proud of himself on the lunge line and I thought he needed to blow off a little more steam so I let him free in the arena and gave the lunge whip a little POP which was all he needed. He galloped and bucked and had a grand time then gave two big SNORTS and trotted back to me and dropped his head like okay, ho hum, we can work now. Such a funny boy. Sometimes he just has fits of big stallion mojo attitude, and then lapses back into his quiet gelding self. I rode for about half an hour, just enough to work up a sweat as I wasn’t confident in the saddle fit. Turns out I was right to be cautious as when I pulled the Free ‘n Easy it had left two matching dry pressure point spots on his back. Argghh! Its just not distributing my weight well and I can’t get it to fit right. That coupled with the fact that the seat is quite flat and I feel like I might fall off the back after being so used to my deep seat and high cantle..I dunno, I might just be sending the saddle back to the gal instead of buying it. Its all so frustrating!
 Today the new barefoot trimmer came out to work on Desire and it was an eye opening experience. Up to this point my education on hooves has been pretty minimal, I know a bad shoeing job when I see one and have tossed quite a few farriers whose work I didn’t like, but my actual knowledge of what a quality hoof should look like is pretty minimal. Right off the bat the trimmer said Desire’s hooves were so flat to the ground no wonder she was sore, her coffin bone was barely protected. by sole She didn’t trim anything off but just worked the rasp. She said the goal is to protect the sole, get some flare off her front left and prevent the inclination for the toe to curl on the front right. She said the hormones of the baby and the sugars in Desire’s diet were probably also largely contributing factors and recommended I switch Desire off grain hays to grass hay and no grain (she’s getting half of half a scoop of mare and foal grain once a day, so minimal but its still there). So here I am thinking all is well besides Desire being a bit tender footed and apparently she is dangerously flat footed! Everything is a learning experience. The lady is an Easyboot dealer and fit Desire’s Gloves and recommended a power strap for the front right boot then sized her hind hooves as 0’s that will probably need power straps as well.  She said to make sure any riding is done with all four feet protected by the boots due to the very thin sole. All this coupled with the NASTY bite Desire gave Sheza this morning at feeding time (I mean a full mare pinned-ear nasty bite on the face, not a mother’s nip) points to it being weaning time. Once I separate them Desire will be off all grain, switched to grass hay, and start losing some of that gut and hopefully get some good hoof growth. I haven’t been able to reliably buy quality grass hay which is why I’ve stuck with the grain hays, also the horses clean the grain hay up much better. Desire is enough of a pig that I’m not too worried about her eating the grass but I know Blaze isn’t much of a fan. We’ll see what kind of hay I can find. There are rumblings that hay is going to be scarce this winter and prices jacked way up.
 So. Need to figure Desire’s diet out, the saddle situation out..order more Easyboots and a couple of power straps…oy.