Ranch Things

Highboy says that no human injury will prevent him from preparing for his horse trial, he'll just jump himself around the round pen in anticipation of next weekend.

While I'm still struggling with a pinched nerve in my left shoulder,  I have high hopes that acupuncture appointments this week will resolve the issue sufficiently that I can still take Highboy to Cheyenne next weekend for his first horse trial of the season at The Event at Archer.  Since I can't ride at the moment, I gave Highboy a chance to play in the round pen.  He was sedate and quiet walking to the round pen (possibly the result of being roommates with Note for a week while I have all the fencing around the barn redone, more on that later).  Once I set up the barrels and his favorite jump he proceeded to lope around like a quite civilized animal and hop over the barrels with real grace and beautiful bascule. 

I thought this still was interesting, and an excellent illustration of why horses need to be very sound to do jumping.  Check out the hyperextension on his right front fetlock as he lands from this 3' vertical jump.  Horses are designed to have this joint do this, but it shows how important it is to take good care of horse's legs, particularly tendons and ligaments, as they are the structures the body uses to absorb this kind of impact.

In other news, one of my client's horses, Cimmaron, is happily regrowing his summer mustache.  It disappears every winter as he rubs it off searching for the last bits of hay in his paddock, but reappears every spring when he gets to go out to pasture to graze.

The other big news on the ranch this week is the fencing project.  The wooden posts that were supporting my continuous metal panel fencing were rotting out and needed replacement.  Not wanting to rent an auger to do the whole thing myself, I contacted at least four different fencing companies to come out and look at the job, who then proceeded to not return any calls, texts, or emails.  It made no sense to me as I was perfectly clear in saying, "If this isn't a job you want to do, please just tell me so I don't waste time waiting on an estimate that may never arrive.  But if this is something you're interested in I'm happy to schedule the work."

I disassembled the fencing that was on the east side, laying the metal panels on their sides and leaving room for the bobcat to remove the rotten wood posts.  To our surprise, the posts ended up not being rotten, and they were in the ground quite a ways.  However, the holes they had been placed in were too large, which is why they were so wiggly and not secure for holding horses.  I was able to pull one out by hand, and the bobcat plucked the rest out of the ground like candles from a birthday cake.

I finally got in touch and got the job scheduled with Altitude Fence and Deck.  Not only did he give me an easy to understand estimate on the phone, but after some initial arrival time confusion he actually showed up to do the job.  He has a bobcat (can I tell you how much I now want to buy a bobcat??) that has a fence pounder attachment for the front.  The wooden posts are sharpened on one end like a pencil, and the bobcat merely drives them into the ground.  No auger, no holes, no tedious dirt-packing around every post.  It was awesome, efficient, and fast.

This photo is of the bobcat driving a pointed wooden post into the ground.

He also offered to clear out the paddocks around the barn, using a bucket attachment on the bobcat to scrape to the hard dirt base .  This removed years of cow manure from the time prior to us moving here, as well as anything my horses have left.  Now we have a giant manure mountain in the middle of the large paddock, but that will be removed later this weekend to the manure pile. 

This photo is of manure mountain, currently located inside the largest paddock, soon to be relocated to the manure pile.

I should have some help this weekend with reassembling the metal panels and fixing them to the new wooden posts, and then things will be looking dapper around here.  A big project, but one that needed to be done.

2018 Centered Riding Clinic at Bit of Honey Training

Our clinic with Regina Liberatore was a great success!  We braved some chilly and soggy weather but all the riders did a great job and left the clinic with new things to work on at home.

This was the whole group, Miles herded everyone into place and Alice's husband took the photo.  From left to right we have Miles, me, Miss Pea, Jasi, Joyce, Sara, Alice, Rebecca, Kim H., Trish, and Regina.

The clinic included some unmounted work and theory discussion.  My two favorite skeletons were on hand to illustrate the various concepts. 

We had lecture as well as exercises.  We gathered in a circle for discussion,

And we did an exercise called "swing your partner".  This is an interesting one as one person acts as the "horse" and the other partner acts as the "rider".  The rider is to guide the horse (no talking!), and the horse is to notice what it feels like when the rider loses one of their basics, like switching to hard eyes, tilting the head off center, walking on tiptoes, etc.  It's a dramatic exercise and there are many things that can be experienced this way, which saves our horses but teaches us a lot about what the horses experience from us.

The rides themselves went well too, though I have yet to go through the (estimated) 2,000 photos taken over the course of the clinic.  It was a super fun experience to host, despite me not being able to ride due to a cold and a pinched nerve in my shoulder.  It was an ideal situation with riders who all knew each other already, horses who were very familiar with Centered Riding techniques, and an incredibly supportive group of women helping one another and giving each other positive reinforcement at every opportunity. 

Camping at Mueller State Park

Last weekend Highboy, Miles, and I went with Carol, her dog Shiloh, and Shambhu camping near Pikes Peak outside of Colorado Springs, CO at Mueller State Park.  We had been planning to return to Fort Robinson, but the weather looked awful and we didn't want to spend our weekend hanging out in the trailer waiting for the rain to stop.  So we headed South and enjoyed beautiful weather on our long weekend.

 
 We were able to keep the horses in corrals near the barn and our campsite.

Our first ride we headed out and up a hill to what we thought was the easier trail.  It was incredibly hilly, expected for the 9500' elevation we were experiencing.  We ended up going a little over nine and a half miles on that ride, and all of us were tired by the end!  To ride my horse in such a scenic place with views of the back side of Pikes Peak was incredible.  It was steep enough that we wondered how this was referred to as the less hilly ride by the ranger. 

Miles and Shiloh supervised camp while we were out.  Shiloh napped on his dog bed and Miles chilled in the gooseneck of the trailer.

On the second ride we left camp from the other direction to the more advanced trail according to the ranger.  It certainly was steep, but also very pretty.  We walked through more woods on that side, and found a couple pretty ponds (lakes by some standards!)

Approaching Geer pond on our second ride.  The frogs were so loud at this pond that we almost had to shout to hear each other talk.

This innocent looking pond was our first water stop for the horses to have a drink.  Highboy walked straight in from the brown path, and had a sip.  The pond appeared very shallow, so Highboy turned to the right.  Before either of us had registered anything suspicious, he had sunk up to the bottom of his chest, deep enough that my feet were entirely in the water!

My quick thinking horse was a hero.  With no drama he rocked way back on his haunches, launched himself jumping out of the water, clearing the logs and landing on the solid ground again just like it was a bank jump out of water on a cross country course.  He wasn't rattled at all, though I did belt out a few choice four letter words in surprise.  Without further ado Highboy went to grazing while Carol and I marveled at how quickly that pond floor had disappeared.  We absolutely could not see it, even after knowing that it dropped off.  Highboy wasn't upset, and he even went back into the pond just a little ways to get another drink of water.  Apparently he's been taught well how to deal with surprises, going for an impromptu swim didn't concern him in the least.

When we returned to civilization we discovered that it had absolutely poured rain while we were gone.  I had a small lake in  the outdoor arena, and a good portion of the ranch where Carol keeps her horse was also underwater.  We had been lucky to have gone south.  Except for a little wind on Friday, we had perfect weather and enjoyed some great rides.

This selfie of me and Carol came out cute...

And this shot of my bent knees shows how much I have to crouch down to get our heads level!

This was the tidiest and best kept park I'd ever camped at.  The restrooms were labeled "Comfort Stations" on the maps, and were absolutely spotless.  There were tons of volunteers and workers around the place, and all of them were super friendly and helpful.  We probably saw more of them than we would have without horses since the stables were near the on site living quarters for people working at the park.  The fire pits had cement bases and metal rounds with a grate over the top, and there was plenty of already down and dried firewood to use.

Such a great weekend.  Although the horses and dogs were tired and ready to go home by the end of our long weekend, Carol and I both felt rejuvenated.  Sometimes a weekend away is just what you need for re-centering yourself and making regular life good again.