Hearts All Around

Nuzzling Muzzles (I’ve always loved that name by the way) was nice enough to share this blog award with me.  I have to say it’s a delightful way to end the day.  Thanks girl!

Check out my blog roll for most of the blogs I read regularly (sorry if it’s not quite up to date with everyone yet - I know I have some updates to make).  I have a hard time playing favorites, but would like to pass this along to a couple that I don’t *think* have received it yet:

Haffiegirl at Pony Under My Bed:  Between Nico, Medical School & keeping the clandestine pony I’m not sure how she has time to blog!  Nico is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, but then I have a pony obsession myself.

Scary at Scary’s West:  Wow, am I addicted to the photography and great stories from life in Montana.  

Enjoy & thanks for sharing a little ’slice of your life’.  Share the love or keep it all for yourself if you’re having a bad day!

Tomorrow afternoon at Ranchette:  I have the day off from the offices.  Yeah!  Having a horsie friend or two over for a saddle fitting consultation with a local saddle fitter.  Yup, you guessed it; I’ll bring the camera.

 

Mud Mask

The horses continue to delight in covering themselves head to heiny in mud.  

Banderas Walks the Line

Straight lines, circles & figure eights.  These are the things Banderas, the Hackney pony, learned in his first serious ground driving lesson today.  

Our previous attempts had been hampered by my inability to find a bit to fit his petite head.  He’s about a 46″ pony, but his features are very refined.  His pony bridle fits him, mostly now, after the punching some more holes.  The cavesson still needs some work.  But at long last, I found a bit that will work for his basic training: a 4″ eggbutt snaffle.  It’s a mini-me version of a grown-up bit. 

For this first lesson, we worked in the indoor arena.  I laced the lines through the tugs (the parts that normally hold the shafts of the cart) and set out.  We still had a couple of setbacks where Banderas wanted to either circle around me as if he were longeing or turn to face me, but we worked through those more easily than in the halter work.    Having the fine tune control of a bit & bridle made a big difference.  When he turned to face me this time, I was able to get him to move off more quickly to prevent a lines around the neck tangle.

I’m finding it interesting how different the control feels between long lines & riding reins.  The steering is totally different because you are so far back & removed from the horse, but I’m finding I can use much more subtle cueing to perform a turn or yield.  You have to start your moves earlier.   I’ve experienced the same with J, the Arabian / Warmblood cross on the long lines.  Makes me wonder if I can translate some of this “forethought” into my riding hand aids and have some positive results.  

Green Pastures: Pony’s Delight

We Have Hummingbirds!

No pictures to post as it flew away too quickly. While I was relaxing near the patio, I saw the tiniest little movement out of the corner of my eye. A zip zip zoom of a ruby chested throated hummingbird who quickly inspected the gernamiums that currently represent the only blooming thing at Ranchette. Then, he was gone.

I now am inspired to try to set up a hummingbird area. Anyone know what types of flowers they like?

Greyhound: Before & After

Our greyhound is learning to be a “chore dog”.  This means being off the leash when he’s back in the fenced in barnyard.  He’s starting to listen when called.  If he feels like it.  These pictures are from last night:

Freedom!

 

Whew…Tuckered Out:

No, he’s not spoiled at all.

UP’s in the WGC’s

Ugly People in the Whole Grain Cheerios. What can this possibly mean?

This caught my eye in the search engine terms traffic statistics that WordPress automatically generates for this blog. Somehow this google search phrase directed someone here. The topics at Ranchette are fairly predictable. I totally understand how people arrive at my doorstep by searching for things like the following: training hackney pony to pull a cart; eventing safety; even pony walked on my lawn makes perfect sense to me and makes me laugh.

But, Ugly People in the Whole Grain Cheerios? The whole issue of what Ranchette has to do with this topic aside, the whole phrase confuses me.  I’ve looked on my current box of the Whole Grain Cheerios. I didn’t find them. Are they ugly and I don’t realize it? Why would I care if they are ugly? Are there tiny ugly people trapped inside the cheerios box bobbing through the cereal as if through grain filled life buoys? The mind boggles. Any ideas?

Since I was unable to find any photographic evidence of the UP in the WGC, I leave you instead with this nice wild horse family.

Blue Eyed Stallion

www.websterps.com

Tag Sale

 

Brown Eyed Cowgirls tagged me for this history tag.  I had to think pretty hard on that first one.  Thanks for the trip down memory lane girls!

1)What was I doing 10 years ago?

Most likely testing software for Y2K compliance.  Remember the New Millenium?  I was living with a fun girlfriend,  playing the free & single party game at night and breaking code by day.

2)Five things on my “to-do” list?

1. Find a pony cart for Mr. Banderas
2. Unpack more boxes left from the initial move into Ranchette
3. Get out and photograph some new stuff: new foals up the road and Trumpeter Swans at Carver Reserve
4. Finally mail the envelopes I’ve had addressed and ready…and waiting…since before the weekend
5. Figure out where to plant the garden

3)What is a snack you enjoy?

  I really love that Zen Master Rice Cracker mix with Wasabi Peas or Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies.  I have no self control when it comes to the Thin Mints; I eat them full tubes at a time.  Thank god they only arrive once a year.

4)What things would you do if you were a billionaire?

• Crank call my old office mates like ALL THE TIME.  Leave messages on voicemail that say obnoxious things like “Oh me, Drysdale,  again, just popped over to Harry’s Bar for a little Bellini and croque-monsieur.’
• I believe the phrase ‘buying lots of ponies’ goes without saying.  

5)Places I have lived?

I started in North Dakota and now am in Minnesota.  I like to think I am slowly working my way South towards the Tropics.

6)Do you have any bad habits?

Moi?  As a Leo, I can hardly consider arrogance a bad habit; it’s a charming idiosynchracy.  

7)Jobs I have had?

Farm hand on a horse farm, Al Bundy at shoe stores in high school & college, a Kelly Temp one summer, Software Support at a major corporation, Product Manager at same, Photographer, Digital Printmaker, Graphic Designer (of sorts), Software & Controls Consultant.

Book Review: Horseplay

2 out of 3 apples: Will read another book by this author.

Horseplay, a novel by Judy Reene Singer was an entertaining, quick read. While it has neither the meter nor plot of great literature, it has a campier goal in mind. It is a pleasant, light hearted diversion; a spring hack down the road instead of a precision dressage test perhaps.

The novel’s protagonist, Judy Van Brunt leaves her cheating husband and a ho-hum life behind in exchange for a new start as a working student in an Olympic calaber dressage barn. Although the likelihood of a thirty-something who barely knows how to ask for a walk-canter transition being taken in as a student at a barn of that level is slim, Van Brunt’s ignorance in the fancy shmancy world of dressage, the German accented trainers and hoi poloi society provide an amusing juxtaposition and a needed device for explaining horse terms to non horse readers.

At times it is a bit repetitive and spends too much time trying to turn a clever phrase. However, by the middle of the book the author really hits her strike with the banter between the grooms, students and police as they investigate a murder at the barn. Everything from a daily diet of cheese omelets to a knife wielding Swedish chef are held up as prime suspects and I was laughing out loud. Horseplay is worth a stop. Chic lit + dressage barn for the next rainy day.

Buckaroo Banderas & J Goes Back to School

 

This is one of my favorite photographs of J and I together, even though my eyes are closed.  J is looking handsome and dappled; we’d just finished a fun session of jumping at our old stable.

 

Although I called him a pig headed buffalo with a walnut sized brain in the previous post about his bad behavior (Pale Horses), I still just think he’s the bees knees.

Horse and pony alike got worked today.  In the morning, J and DH entered ground school together.  We are still waiting for the Clinton Anderson DVD’s (thanks everyone for the suggestions).  Today we covered the basics of leading, moving away from pressure and free lunging in the indoor arena.  Everybody did really well.  By the time DH was finished and ready to turn both horses out into the pasture, J was already listening better and respecting DH’s boundaries.  It was a very good start.

In the afternoon, I harnessed Banderas to let him get the feel of new things like the breeching (the part that goes behind their rump).   Once out on the lunge line, he turned into a miniature rodeo bucking bronc the first time he felt that breeching on his haunches as he moved.  I’m not too surprised, he is sensitive about having his haunches touched and just needs to get desensitized to it in general.  He quickly settled down to be a sensible gentleman after that.  We walked all through the neighborhood on a lead line so he could get used to the feeling of the harness as he moved.  He was much more confident about “neighborhood things” like mailboxes than he was the first time I walked him outside Ranchette.   Next stop: long lining.