September 2008

September 1:

We painted on the house and worked on some wiring yesterday and today, a fun Labor Day's labor. This evening I did tack up and ride Ivan. He did really good, even opened his mouth wide to put the bit in. He doesn't have a clue about going forward, so Donnie would walk to the end of the arena and call him and then he knew which direction I was asking him to go. We have now ridden up and back across the arena several times, exceeding our former endurance record of 300 feet! The only negative thing came when I dismounted. He backed up a step and squashed my foot.
Amazingly, he didn't move an inch while I shrieked in his
ear.....I have a monster bruised toe and foot. I will probably live, but probably in a more colorful way for awhile.

Donnie worked some with Daisy and their Daisy Dance. He is trying new moves with her. They are so cute. They are going to have an entire dance routine before too long.

Sept.2:

My foot is quite colorful today, but not broken and only sore. I am not quite sure which I am happiest about with Ivan's performance last night: His letting me ride him back and forth in the arena, or the fact that he didn't have a heart attack when I screamed in his ear as he stood on my foot. He just stood there (calmly) wondering if he would get treats for not reacting to my shrieks. He did. Then he let Donnie un-tack him and I hobbled back to the house. That was good, too! He LET Donnie do something to him without getting upset that it wasn't me doing it! There is hope for that horse yet.


Sept. 3:

My foot has a hoofprint on top of it, but feels okay today. I am hoping Donnie gets home at a reasonable time so I can work with Ivan this evening. I may get him to lead Daisy around, his knee keeps him from riding, and have Ivan follow her. We have to be careful about that, though, Daisy likes to take aim at Ivan. She backs up better all the time in her quest to kill Ivan with a double barrel shot.
The foot is better than I thought it would be. While colorful, it is only sore. The good thing is that the arena had just been scraped and was softer than normal. I can't imagine a draft horse standing on my poor foot on any kind of ground! A little 800 pound Arab was quite sufficient. I bet the neighbors wondered what that yowling was about last night...they probably thought it was a tomcat....

Donnie's class was this evening so I didn't get to ride Ivan. He looked disappointed. We really need lights in that arena so we can ride after dark. I hate that we are already getting dark earlier. I don't like doing potentially hazardous things with Ivan without Donnie around, even just getting off got me squashed last night. Lights would be very helpful.

I finally got around to ground driving Ivan this evening. He has problems knowing where to go when I ride him and this was the missing bit of training. I think he read the instruction manual! It was the first time I attached reins to his bit for some directional hints (I've had the bit and bridle on him several times, but always attached to the halter part),and the first time I walked behind him to get him to move forward. I had a surcingle on him, his bridle, and two 12 foot lines. After a moment of confusion, he did great! We walked all over the arena, going thru barrels and back to spots I wanted us to go and making turns all over the place.

Donnie was amazed . He expected Ivan to put up a struggle. I have been saying 'walk' and 'whoa' when we go to give him his grain in the arena, so it wasn't all totally new. I really think Ivan enjoys these training sessions.


Sept. 4:

Ivan really picked up on being ground driven quickly. He really amazes me sometimes, I keep telling him what a horse genius he is! Daisy and Donnie never did catch on to ground driving very well, but Donnie never really bitted her up much beforehand either. I think driving Zippy in his cart has helped me with knowing how to handle long lines, Donnie never drives Zippy. Kazi did pretty good with ground driving, too, but didn't catch on nearly as fast as Ivan has. I have put out more barrels this morning so that Ivan can go around things more this evening.

Sept.6:

I rode Ivan today for the first time since we started ground driving. It was the first time I rode with reins attached to his bit. Donnie and I were so amazed at how well he did!! He is turning really well, going forward with little effort on my part, and trying to please me so hard. I think he is going to make a good trail horse. We rode all over that arena, turned around barrels several times and he is getting so much better at turning. He broke into a little trot for about three steps and I stopped him easily with one rein. I am not ready for trotting yet until we do it on the ground. I rode him about a half hour and stopped before he did anything negative. Ivan was GREAT!!

Donnie took pix, of course:




Riding Ivan with reins for the first time....


Sept.7:

This is the same horse I spent 45 minutes one day running around the arena until he decided that having a halter on wasn't nearly as much work . He has been a different horse since that day. The path to Ivan's love, though, has been thru his stomach. He will do just about anything for snacks. (Probably like a lot of men.... ) The nice thing about him is that he is polite about taking reward snacks, unlike a certain Daisy who goes out of her mind at the sniff of a mint. Ivan takes the reward gently from my hand like Kazi does.
I actually had fun riding Ivan yesterday. He was so calm and happy about what he was doing, he was a pure pleasure. Now if I can just get him into a creek.....


Later:
We had another riding session this evening. He really amazes me. Today we went around cones and barrels, walked up and stood on our little wooden bridge, went all over the arena for 35 minutes, and learned to back up a step or two while mounted. Not bad! He also crossed the tarp and over the drain tile.




Sept. 8:

Donnie was outside of the arena last night. Ivan kept looking for him because the day before we got him to move by having Donnie give him a mint from the rail in different areas of the arena. We could use an older horse to have Ivan follow, but it is hard for me to ride Kazi and Ivan at the same time and Donnie's knee is still too gimpy to ride Daisy. Last night, he didn't get Donnie mints except once. Here he is chewing on a mint after being really good for quite a long time:


I hope to get another ride in on Ivan this afternoon. I feel like winter is sneaking up on us quicker than I want.

Later:

Whew, it has been a hot muggy day. Kazi and Zippy were sweaty and I wasn't far behind. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so I brought the saddle up from the barn so I could clean it while the weather is wet.

I rode Ivan for just a few minutes this evening, it was getting pretty dark before I started. He did pretty well, remembered the backing up steps and turned a few circles nicely.

Sept. 9:

It has rained pretty hard here this morning. I just spent the past hour wondering when the power would come back on. Nothing in the house was working except this computer! Donnie has this laptop, modem, and monitor connected to a battery that activates when the power goes off. It worked! Amazing. I had internet, but nothing else.

The ponies are put up in the large mare stall, Ivan is in the ponies' run-in, the mares are in the main run-in, and I am soaked getting them all comfy. After getting the barn and barnlot all nicely cleaned, bedded in the stall, hay put out and horses rounded up, I walked back up to the house to discover no power to dry my soaked hair. Then it immediately stopped raining .


Sept. 10:

It has been a cool, cloudy, dreary day here. I got soaked again this morning, naturally. It didn't start raining until after I was busy working at the barn, so decided I wouldn't melt and just kept on working. I was right. I didn't melt. I did drip a lot, though....


Sept. 13:

Yesterday morning I was finishing up cleaning the barnlot while the horses had pasture time in the upper field. They were about as far as they could get from me and I wasn't looking forward to walking up and chasing them in. So I got a rattly cup of grain and shook it and called Daisy, our major snack hound. She came RUNNING as fast as she could bringing Kazi and Ivan along with her. I gave them all handfuls of their low-carb grain telling them how good they were for coming so fast. But Zippy and Cactus Jack were still up there in the field, so I yelled to Zippy to come and clapped my hands. This caused Daisy, Ivan and Kazi to go galloping straight back up the hill, bucking and laughing at me for giving them snacks and forgetting to shut the gate. They ran straight back up to where they started, circled around Zippy and Cactus, and all 5 galloped right back into the barnlot where I was standing amazed. Horses are funny people.

Sept. 14:

Donnie and I have been out making mini-movies with a borrowed movie camera. It's kind of fun, but we have discovered it takes talent . We don't have much of that! For some reason, our horses don't understand the word "Action!"....unless it is an action in the wrong direction. We may have to get one of these cameras, though. It is fun to play around with.

We spent it doing fun things with the borrowed video camera, had lunch out, cleaned the barn area twice, moved some hay, trimmed pony and donkey feet, and played with Daisy quite a bit today. She enjoyed the attention. Donnie stays so busy during the week that she gets only minimal attention from him then. Oh, and I rode Ivan a bit this evening, too. He did really well!

Yesterday when we were learning how to use that camera, Donnie taped me playing around with Ivan. What he didn't tell me was that my mowing shirt that I had put on to mow wasn't buttoned up straight, and with my hair was tied in a knot, I made a very glamorous video presentation . Here is a still shot from that....Dressed for success:



Yes, I am a fashion bug. Or some kind of bug anyway...

Sept. 21:

Our leaves haven't started turning yet, although some are drying up and dropping off probably due to needing rain. It is pretty dry here again. I rode Ivan last night while Donnie worked on Daisy's front feet. He did really well! He has caught on to backing while being ridden and turning is getting easier. He is such a love bug. He wuvs me. He didn't want Donnie to feed him last night, he wanted me to.


We have been busy trimming Daisy rear feet today. We are actually caught up on horsey and donkey feet for a couple of weeks!!


Sept. 23:

Ivan got his first trailer loading lesson yesterday afternoon. I wish I could say he walked right on like Daisy did. He is more like Kazi. It took me a week to train Kazi to get on a trailer and I suspect that it will be the same with Ivan. I did get his front feet into the trailer and called the game on account of darkness. I haven't stressed him with it, it has been a very easy going lesson so far. If this doesn't work, I will have to get a bit more organized and use Clinton's techniques. So far I am using John Lyons' tap, tap, tapping that I used with Kazi.

The trailer is sitting in the barnlot with the ramp down. This morning when I was gathering up ponies after their morning munch, Cactus Jack RAN into the trailer to hide from me . Now if I wanted him in there, it would be a different story.....

Sept. 25:

I haven't ridden Ivan since the weekend, but have done trailer loading lessons every evening. This morning I turned the horses loose, the mares went on up to the pasture. Ivan followed me and walked right into the trailer after me with no leadline on! I can't say he is 'trained' to get on whenever I want, yet, but he is definitely getting more comfortable with the idea. I am looking forward to hauling him to a friend's place to see if he can get over his excitement and behave for me at a new place.

Sept. 30:

I didn't get my computer back online over the weekend... ....However, we did get the new microwave installed, the wiring for the air circulation system installed in the attic, the stove's burned out heating element fixed, and Donnie's class presentation ready for today's class. It was a busy weekend. I didn't have a chance to work with Ivan over the weekend, but did yesterday. He is getting completely on the trailer now! The next trick is to get him to stay on it until I can get the buttbar hooked in place and the ramp/door closed.