A Week Full of Small Things

I had a wonderful week full of small things.  The first small things this week were some baby chicks.  I was teaching a lesson and about halfway through the hour we discovered my client's guinea hen had finally hatched her clutch of chicks as mamma paraded them through the yard honking and squawking.  We aborted the rest of the ride to catch them so the feral cats and wide variety of other predators in the area wouldn't snack on them.

I also took a short video of their capture, which ended up being a non-event as apparently guinea chicks are very slow when they're only an hour or so old.  The adults are incredibly athletic, wily, and difficult to catch, but fortunately the babies were easy to toss a light sheet over then transfer to a basket as transportation to their brooder box.

For those who want to hear the odd noises they make, here is the video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibwvie7Qo0Y

The next fun small thing this week was my hay guy's new puppy.  She's about seven months old and came from a vet clinic in Wyoming.  She is a border collie/heeler, and is refined and small, so my hay guy named her Trinket.  She was a little timid when she first got out of the truck at my place to "help" with the hay delivery, but before long she was digging in the yard setting booby-traps with Miles.  She also had a few episodes of the zoomies, in which she tucked her little dog buns and RACED around the barn, paddocks, and hay piles at top puppy speed.  Forrest and Mahzi thought she was great and we were all a little sad when she had to go home with Lyle.

Small thing number three this week is the new pony to arrive at Bit of Honey.  He came from a colleague and friend of mine who also lives in Wellington.   He is a very forward pony who has been lobbying for a job eventing, but the girl who was leasing him decided not to continue doing so and he needed to find a new home.  I've admired him all season at the saddle club shows.  He is a cute mover, jumps nice, and is very patient.  He also is forward and has a motor that just won't quit.  I picked him up on Friday morning, and in the afternoon I took him for a walk around the property while I rode Tao.

He was very well behaved and marched along nicely with us.  The dogs of course went with us as well to peruse the property in the evening.

I had Jasi, my working student, with me for the weekend, and we rode together in the arena Saturday morning.  I rode the new pony, who is quite stout and has no trouble carrying me, and Jasi rode Darby.  We confused the other folks who came to ride and caused them to debate among themselves as to whether Highboy shrunk in the wash or who else we might be riding!  I rode the pony at the walk, trot, canter, and hopped him through some gymnastic jumping exercises after carefully fitting a saddle, bit and bridle to him.  He said he likes the Bates jumping saddle, the one with a little curve to the tree with the wide gullet.  He also likes the loose ring three piece snaffle.  His face is a good size, and he is wearing a horse-sized bridle.

We're still working on a name for the new guy.  With previous owners he has gone by Taxi or Thunder, but we're brainstorming and waiting to see what he tells us about what he wants to be called.   

The new pony works really well off of my seat, slows down beautifully with just my breathing cues, and is careful and accurate through the jumping questions.  I'm terribly excited about him!  He will be in training with me for a while so he learns to soften and stretch his topline for dressage.  His stadium jumping is already quite nice, he just needs to relax a little for that phase. 

He will also learn about fast trail riding, and his first lesson was this morning.  We went to Soapstone to see how he rides out of the arena and to do a little galloping.  Owen my marathoner husband ran on foot, Jasi rode the new pony after watching him in the arena yesterday, and I rode Highboy.  Mostly we were trotting the first six miles, then we galloped for a mile or so, and we walked and trotted the last three miles back to the trailer.  Highboy is always slower and kind of scuffs his feet when he realizes we are headed back to the trailer, he would stay out all day every day if he could.  The pony was a little rushy at the end when he knew we were headed home, but he did walk nicely on a loose rein for Jasi once he realized she wasn't going to pull on him.  He rides kind of like a retired track horse, you can't hang on his face or he gets heavy and fast, but if you breathe and ride him with your seat and balance he is VERY nice.

We learned quickly on the galloping stretch of two-track trail why Highboy came in last in both of his races at Arapahoe Park when he was a racehorse - the pony was easily much faster than Highboy's lazy hand gallop!  I did turn on the GoPro helmet camera for our run in the good footing.  The video can be seen here:

https://youtu.be/UAkJ7UdcbGk

Eventually the new pony will be integrated into the lesson program.  Part of my updated five year goals for Bit of Honey Training is to begin offering more kids riding lessons, and this pony and Cosmo are significant pieces of that plan.  Both of them are very athletic and game, but they like kids and are very un-intimidating sizes.  Both of them will be solid eventing ponies with a little more training.  Cole will continue as an arena lesson horse (he hates trail riding and cross country jumping), so that will make three for group lessons after school in coming years.