firsts

After spending the last couple of days round penning Lyra and getting her to hook up, as well as having had a saddle and surcingle on her , Shaylise (Lyra's co-owner and my 9 yr old niece) rode Lyra for the first time today!! Very exciting, Lyra was very quite and calm about the whole situation. Was a lot of fun!! Plan to have Shaylise ride Lyra again tomorrow, will see how she feels.
Shaylise and I rode double on Epona afterwards. She was a little curious as to what we were doing while trying to get Shaylise up behind me, but all in all was rather chill about the whole thing. We just did a small ride, a little trotting too. However the neighbor was going about saddle training her mare, in a rather aggressive fashion, so decided to curtail the ride early before Epona decided to go to this horse's rescue.
Also trimmed Xandr'a hooves today. They are looking better in some regards, not as great in others, will keep at it. Is great being able to start to know what it is I'm seeing.
Fantastic day!! Looking forward to tomorrow's adventures!!

ground work

First off, Xandra is FINALLY shedding!!! Wahoo!!!
I worked with all three in the round pen. Went pretty well. Lyra did not want to hook up, understandable, she's newer and very hard headed (much like me in that regard) :-) gotta love her, she did finally hook up in the end, after about 2 minutes. I actually progressed with Xandra to starting to sack her out with different things, she is so completely comfortable with me that nothing phased her. She was actually walking around with a plastic shavings bag on her head, just because, wish I'd gotten a picture! Massaged her ears also. She's a little worried about the fly spray, I think it's a learned thing from Epona who is phobic about the spray (wonder if she ever got some in her eye or some such thing?) anyway, will work more on that tomorrow, didn't want to over load anyone.
After round penning I worked on Lyra's hooves again. Took me about 3 hours, this after two hours yesterday, she is pretty sure she doesn't want her feet worked on. Hopefully after all of this and figureing some more out on her particular hooves we should have an easier time of it in the future. Hopefuly with more ground work she will trust me as her leader more and be more willing to do as I ask too. Will see.
I've been doing my own horses' hoof trimmings since December 2007. Long story, but I've always wanted to, lost the only barefoot trimmer in the area and decided now is as good a time (or better) than ever. So I dove in head first and have been trying to catch up on everything I should already know ever since. I highly recommend this website if you decide to take on barefoot hoof trimming or just for better information and understanding on how this works: http://www.barefoothorse.com/. Also the folks over on the yahoo barefoothorse group have been very, very helpful, so Thank You!!

Graduating!!!

I will be graduating June 13th, at 1PM, from The Evergreen State College!!! It's taken me eight years, as I've taken a few "breaks" along the way. I'm thrilled to be finishing this chapter of my life! Now as to what next?, not entirely sure. Will figure that one out I'm sure!! :-)

missing piece

Looking through past blogs, I realize there is a substantial missing piece.
Mattie, the Mustang, did not work out, tried to flip herself over backwards, twice, and well, not really what I have in mind for an eight year old. Truth be told I always had a little prejudice against her, not her fault, but she isn't a Curly. So...she now lives with my neighbor, still shares a fence line and everything, but she is no longer directly part of my herd.
As her replacement for Shaylise, we went out and visited some more Curly horses. We went to meet Warrior's Phantom aka Lyra in April and it was love at first site! She is an absolutely darling, grulla, four year old Curly mare, followed Shaylise around like a puppy dog trying to get a nip of Shaylise's cowgirl hat!
She is an integral part of the herd now. While we have been fighting with boughts of lameness (locking stifle and an abscess) we are hopefully going to get her sound here pretty soon and will be starting her saddle training in earnest. Keep your fingers crossed for her!!
She is almost as friendly as Xandra, which is saying a lot!!

today's ride

Well, I took Epona out for a little ride again today, went riding with her yesterday also and plan to do so again everyday from here on out. We went 3.2 miles, on the road, at the furious record speed of just over an hour!!
Yes, I'm kidding, I mean it really did take us that long, but I really do know that's really slow.
You would not believe the traffic out at 2 in the afternoon, I think we met about 60 cars, on a back road, that I've seen maybe 30 cars on total before today. Not sure what the deal was, maybe they somehow knew we'd be out and couldn't resist seeing the stunning Epona? No idea.
We encountered three fire breathing minis. To Epona's credit while she was extremely nervous she did not take off down the road, which was nice. We also encountered fire breathing cows, which again to Epona's credit she did much better with, snorted at them, but did not take off running; she's taken off galloping down the road on previous tiny walks (maybe a mile in the past). We trotted up a semi-dirt, semi-gravel hill, maybe .2 miles, then walked home. Actually I ended up mostly walking next to Epona as any time I thought things might get interesting, I got off, really want her to trust that when she's out with me, everything is fine and she won't get hurt ever, so I guess we;re in the trust building away from the herd stage of things. We also had a "discussion" at one point, in someone's driveway about walking on, halting, and backing up. We mostly stood stock still, at awkward angles for about five minutes for said "discussion" and I mostly actually laughed at Epona and told her how much of a Chicken Curly she was. We finally walked on, halted, and reversed, then stood for a moment letting it all sink in. She did the lick and chew business, then we set off again. What led to this was her charging into the road while a large truck came at us, then her standing still looking at the oncoming truck like a deer caught in head lights. Thankfully the truck stopped and waited for Epona to get her head back on and we were able to get into this person's driveway.
All in all, a better trip than some we've had in the past, rather a bit of an adventure though.
Oh!, we also encountered several harmless mailboxes, lawn mowers, a chainsaw, ferociously barking dogs, and a few unrelated horses. Epona did well with all of those. I was proud of her. Not sure how to get her over the mini horse/cow fear though, maybe borrow someones minis & cows for a month?, not sure she wouldn't go through the fence though. Thoughts?
At this rate we should be doing a CTR (Competitive Trail Ride) in, oh...10 years or so?, maybe? :-)

Spring

Wow, it's been a while! Well spring is here, everyone is shedding. By everyone I mean Epona, Xandra, and a new band mate Mattie. Mattie joined the band December 16th as a Christmas present for my boyfriend's eight year old niece, Shaylise. Mattie is a mustang off a range in Oregon, she is not a curly :-(, she is exactly what Shaylise wanted though. She's about 3 1/2 years of age and thankfully is quick to learn new things, proving to be an adventure and a half!!
I've been riding Epona pretty regularly, by that at least once a week. We'd mostly stopped for the winter as we have nowhere indoors to go and it's been pouring rain, yuck!! I recently acquired a hackamore and we are gradually getting used to it. I am hoping that both of us will communicate more effectively with it's use. Will see how it goes.
I've also begun Mattie's training, been lunging her and flapping all sorts of odd items all over her body. Oddly enough while she seems un-flappable about all of this, she still hates having her feet lifted, I haven't dared try trimming them yet, luckily she doesn't need them done yet, she's got really hard hooves.
Xandra's been curious about the work I'm doing with Mattie, so after each of Mattie's sessions I do everything I did with Mattie, with Xandra. We don't do too much and never on a tight circle. I think Xandra learns from watching Mattie make her mistakes, because I just ask Xandra for whatever it is and she does it the first time perfectly. What a smart horse she is!!
I've also been sitting on Epona while she grazes or eats her dinner. She gets a little nervous around being mounted, i am hoping that my daily mounting her and just sitting or laying there quietly on her she will get progressively calmer about the whole thing. So far it seems to be the case.

My Beautiful Curly Girls

Epona and Xandra are both safely "home" near where I live, I am thrilled to have them both in one place where I can see them every day, any time of day, and well, truth be told, I'm enjoying having quiet time with them to myself and being not only the only one responsible for what interactions they are getting, but also being in control of who they even do interact with, ie, no one gets to mess with them without my say so.
Xandra had a cold the last week of October, she is healthy, but now Epona has it. :-( Fortunately it's just that a little nose cold, no temp, decreased appetite, or mood shifts.
Epona had a bath last Saturday and....I got to ride her bareback, twice now!!!! Wow is she smooth!, such a comfortable back, amazing gaits (could sit her trot bareback all day!) and her hair is super soft now that it's all clean!!
I am completely in-love with my two girls!!
Callie loves them too, especially when they all get to play "tag."