I haven't updated in a long while because I am superstitious and didn't want to jinx anything . . . and then it happened. We moved! And then again I haven't updated because, well, we moved and moving is a pain in the ass and I haven't had a lot of time.
Anyway, we moved to another state and left so much of what we love behind. We loved our neighborhood, our neighbors, our property, our friends, our volunteering, our community activities. But we took the opportunity to move to where my family is to watch my niece grow up and see more of my parents.
The great news about it is we got a bigger farm! We went from 5 acres to 20 acres. Oh, and a covered arena and an awesome barn and irrigated pastures and little trails on the property and across the street. The horses are so happy here!
I could type about all the stuff we've been through to get here and since we've been here, but I'll just post some little videos of Princess Fancy Pants and then try from here on out to update more regularly.
Here she is in her new pasture (just one of them!).
And here she is in the indoor arena trying to figure out who the beauty in the mirror is.
She's been so good so far. She's great when I take her for walks away from the boys in the barn. The property has little trails dragged throughout so it is a nice place go for a walk and check stuff out. We've done a little bit in the covered arena, and I've taken her out with me and worked on patience in standing still while I pull weeds in the outdoor arena.
The horses all go out together in the pasture and are quite happy to have room to move around and grass to eat. Everyone gets along great, but Paddy screams when I take anyone away.
I'm trying to turn one of our house cats into a barn cat (not too much of a stretch because he was feral when we got him) and so far he's happy living in the tack room - much happier than he was living in the house with the other cats who picked on him and the dogs who scared him.
I'm sort of at a stopping place unpacking-wise as we wait for our new floors to be installed, so now I'll have more time to play with the ponies!
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Joint breakfast
After last night's initial meeting, I left all three of the horses out together for an hour and then went back up to put Mac in his stall per the usual dinnertime set up.
This morning, I decided to put PFP out with the boys for breakfast to see how that goes. I'm sure she'd be much happier being with them than alone in her suite, so I put all the hay out and went to her stall to get her. She was very polite, stood quietly to be haltered (not that this is anything new, but I thought if she figured she was going out with the boys she might be a little antsy), walked quietly out of the barn, and bypassed Mac to get to a pile of hay. I put her hay net out in a new location so each horse has one, and there was absolutely no drama, no squirting, no flirting, no nothing.
YAY! I don't like keeping the horses separated if I don't have to, and I think it is much better for a youngster like herself to have companionship and learn from the other horses. Mac is very clear in his leadership and tends to fly solo, so there likely won't be a lot of kissy-face interaction, but he'll do his job to protect everybody and keep them in line. She can continue to do joint back scratches with Paddy. Just letting her be with the two of them will I think be comforting for her. Plus, Mac will teach her some manners if she thinks she's all that!
This morning, I decided to put PFP out with the boys for breakfast to see how that goes. I'm sure she'd be much happier being with them than alone in her suite, so I put all the hay out and went to her stall to get her. She was very polite, stood quietly to be haltered (not that this is anything new, but I thought if she figured she was going out with the boys she might be a little antsy), walked quietly out of the barn, and bypassed Mac to get to a pile of hay. I put her hay net out in a new location so each horse has one, and there was absolutely no drama, no squirting, no flirting, no nothing.
YAY! I don't like keeping the horses separated if I don't have to, and I think it is much better for a youngster like herself to have companionship and learn from the other horses. Mac is very clear in his leadership and tends to fly solo, so there likely won't be a lot of kissy-face interaction, but he'll do his job to protect everybody and keep them in line. She can continue to do joint back scratches with Paddy. Just letting her be with the two of them will I think be comforting for her. Plus, Mac will teach her some manners if she thinks she's all that!
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Video - Princess Fancy Pants and Mac get turned out together
Well, today was as good a day as any! PFP wasn't acting like she was in heat when I put her out with Paddy. She didn't immediately run over to where Mac was in his paddock when I let her out so after I got back from an afternoon yoga class I decided to let him out so they could be together for the first time.
And here's how it went.
Hussy!
And here's how it went.
Hussy!
Monday, December 15, 2014
That's NOT what I expected!
Winter is here - yuck! I hate the rain and the mud and the cold and all of it. I know we're in a drought, but I still don't like the rain. Hmpf!
Despite the bad weather, Princess Fancy Pants has been a lovely pony. She has finally figured out that she can pee and poop in her stall, although it is a last choice hold out and she'd prefer to poop in the far corner of her paddock. The other night I added some fresh shavings to her stall and the next morning when I came in to feed breakfast, she was having a little shut-eye, despite the pouring rain. It was pretty cute!
We've been working on "let me touch your ears" which is a game she doesn't enjoy . . . UNLESS there are cookies to be had. Then the game isn't so bad. She's finally decided that she likes not only carrots, but apples and cookies, too.
Because of the weather I've been having to change my turnout rotations. PFP and Mac get along fine over the fence now - there is minimal drama on his part and I dare say that he might be getting sick of her flirtations. She will run up and down along the fenceline that separates them, while he stands there and looks bored. She is meanwhile squirting and swishing her tail so that he knows what's what. And he doesn't seem to be overly interested. So I'm happy about that.
Yesterday I brought my phone up with me and had some cookies in my pocket. Paddy came right up and PFP followed him. He got a cookie, she got a cookie. He got a cookie, she got a cookie, then he shoo-ed her away. And then she realized . . . that wasn't the cookie she was expecting!
Today with the rain and wind she was very good in letting me groom her - untied in her stall - including picking her feet! :-)
Despite the bad weather, Princess Fancy Pants has been a lovely pony. She has finally figured out that she can pee and poop in her stall, although it is a last choice hold out and she'd prefer to poop in the far corner of her paddock. The other night I added some fresh shavings to her stall and the next morning when I came in to feed breakfast, she was having a little shut-eye, despite the pouring rain. It was pretty cute!
We've been working on "let me touch your ears" which is a game she doesn't enjoy . . . UNLESS there are cookies to be had. Then the game isn't so bad. She's finally decided that she likes not only carrots, but apples and cookies, too.
Because of the weather I've been having to change my turnout rotations. PFP and Mac get along fine over the fence now - there is minimal drama on his part and I dare say that he might be getting sick of her flirtations. She will run up and down along the fenceline that separates them, while he stands there and looks bored. She is meanwhile squirting and swishing her tail so that he knows what's what. And he doesn't seem to be overly interested. So I'm happy about that.
Yesterday I brought my phone up with me and had some cookies in my pocket. Paddy came right up and PFP followed him. He got a cookie, she got a cookie. He got a cookie, she got a cookie, then he shoo-ed her away. And then she realized . . . that wasn't the cookie she was expecting!
Today with the rain and wind she was very good in letting me groom her - untied in her stall - including picking her feet! :-)
Thursday, November 27, 2014
One smart pony!
Princess Fancy Pants is smart. Really smart. Too smart. I'm going to have to up it on the smartness meter myself in order to work with her!
Here's just one example. At night the horses get hay bags in their stalls to keep them munching slowly all night long. At night when I tuck her into bed, Princess Fancy Pants's hay bag is hanging from a ring on the wall of her stall. Half of the time when I come into the barn the next morning, her hay net is on the floor. There is no destruction. The ring on the wall is perfectly intact. The haybag is perfectly intact. It is even still attached to the carabiner that I use to clip it to the ring on the wall. The carabiner is intact and closed. Nothing has come loose, is broken, or otherwise undone. I don't know how that happens!
Since it was raining last week, I hadn't worked with PFP in a little while. Yesterday's horse massage therapist had to cancel because she was sick, so it was PFP's day to go to school!
She's not great about having her feet done, so I brought her to the trailer and tied her up and gave her a nice grooming and did her feet a few times. I noticed (and Mac sometimes does this, too) that when I'd pick up a front leg, she'd cock the diagonal hind leg, so really she'd be balancing on two legs! Why....????? I try to make sure she is somewhat square and balanced before picking up a front hoof, but when I pick up one, the other would come up - I'll have to observe that more and see what I can come up with.
Oh! And I introduced the clippers yesterday! I don't clip my horses, actually. But I do have little men's facial clippers that I use for under the jowls and trimming the whiskers (but not clipping them close to the skin, just taking the ends off). I turned on the clippers and she sort of looked at them, like "what is that?" but didn't seem really scared or anything. So I moved to her whiskers and took of the ends of a couple and that was a little ticklish because she shook her head around a little bit. I repeated this many times, with just trimming a tiny bit and in a few places and I'd turn the clippers off and on each time. Then I went under her jowls and did the long hairs that grow there. Again, just a little bit and in many stops and starts. She got lots of Good Girls for that!
Since she's not good with her feet I decided to get a rope and grabbed my flag for the heck of it and we went back to the arena. Lucky me there was a big puddle there from the rain, but more on that later.
I started off in the arena with her front feet with something I learned at one of Buck's clinics. I put the rope around her pastern and, in addition to still having her in hand on the halter and lead rope, "lead" her by lifting and moving a front foot and having her follow where the foot goes. She caught on to that right away.
Next I thought I'd prepare her for future ground driving by working with the lead rope on on the halter and the other rope on her back. The other rope was just loose and not attached to anything. I started by tossing it over her back and then gathering up the other end (like a makeshift girth) and walking her with that sort of tightened. Then I moved it back a few inches and did the same, then back by her flank and did the same. At first she was a little jumpy, but she actually got over that pretty quickly and accepted it. Then I tossed the rope over her back and let the end of it dangle on the other side of her, and I'd "jump" it back toward her butt a little bit. That was better on the near side than the off side. This was all at a stand still. Then I did the same while walking and that was a little exciting at times. Until I gave her a treat for calmly walking and halting. Then it became much more motivating to be a polite pony! She catches on to things so quickly that I can't stay on one exercise for too long, so once that was good we moved on.
Next was the puddle. We just walked back and forth through the puddle. There was also a cavaletti on the ground in its lowest position because I was using it to make a corner with the rail on the long side of the fence (my arena has a weird shape and at the far end there are no corners). We took advantage of that and both walked through the puddle and over the cavaletti in the puddle. That didn't take long at all.
Next up was "mounting" practice - I just want her to be okay with the height of my upper body above her. I have a wooden coop jump in the corner of the arena (one of the bona fide corners) so I led her up to it and I stood on top of it. She didn't care one bit. So then I jumped off of it. And she didn't care about that, either. I did it a few times with her on either side of the coop and she didn't care either way. Okay, so that was boring.
I then got my mounting block and put it next to her and she thought it was interesting but not really worthy of note. So I climbed on that and led her around to try to line her up. That was a little harder because there are weeds in the corners and she'd rather eat those so she didn't pay much attention to me. Keeping my weight/balance on the mounting block, I did sort of lean/lay across her back. But that didn't get much - if any - reaction, either. Oh well.
So we went back to the trailer and I had it open for her. I just stood on the ramp and she stepped on. And I just stood there and she took another step so all four feet were on the ramp. Then I stepped just inside the trailer and she had two feet in and two feet on the ramp. And then she realized there was hay to be eaten so she went in more and more. I just stood there. I didn't give any flag waving motivation to her, I just stood there. Eventually I offered a feel with my rope and asked her to go forward a bit more and she did. It was all very relaxed and calm and uninteresting.
With that we called it a day! Good job, Princess Fancy Pants!
Here's just one example. At night the horses get hay bags in their stalls to keep them munching slowly all night long. At night when I tuck her into bed, Princess Fancy Pants's hay bag is hanging from a ring on the wall of her stall. Half of the time when I come into the barn the next morning, her hay net is on the floor. There is no destruction. The ring on the wall is perfectly intact. The haybag is perfectly intact. It is even still attached to the carabiner that I use to clip it to the ring on the wall. The carabiner is intact and closed. Nothing has come loose, is broken, or otherwise undone. I don't know how that happens!
Since it was raining last week, I hadn't worked with PFP in a little while. Yesterday's horse massage therapist had to cancel because she was sick, so it was PFP's day to go to school!
She's not great about having her feet done, so I brought her to the trailer and tied her up and gave her a nice grooming and did her feet a few times. I noticed (and Mac sometimes does this, too) that when I'd pick up a front leg, she'd cock the diagonal hind leg, so really she'd be balancing on two legs! Why....????? I try to make sure she is somewhat square and balanced before picking up a front hoof, but when I pick up one, the other would come up - I'll have to observe that more and see what I can come up with.
Oh! And I introduced the clippers yesterday! I don't clip my horses, actually. But I do have little men's facial clippers that I use for under the jowls and trimming the whiskers (but not clipping them close to the skin, just taking the ends off). I turned on the clippers and she sort of looked at them, like "what is that?" but didn't seem really scared or anything. So I moved to her whiskers and took of the ends of a couple and that was a little ticklish because she shook her head around a little bit. I repeated this many times, with just trimming a tiny bit and in a few places and I'd turn the clippers off and on each time. Then I went under her jowls and did the long hairs that grow there. Again, just a little bit and in many stops and starts. She got lots of Good Girls for that!
Since she's not good with her feet I decided to get a rope and grabbed my flag for the heck of it and we went back to the arena. Lucky me there was a big puddle there from the rain, but more on that later.
I started off in the arena with her front feet with something I learned at one of Buck's clinics. I put the rope around her pastern and, in addition to still having her in hand on the halter and lead rope, "lead" her by lifting and moving a front foot and having her follow where the foot goes. She caught on to that right away.
Next I thought I'd prepare her for future ground driving by working with the lead rope on on the halter and the other rope on her back. The other rope was just loose and not attached to anything. I started by tossing it over her back and then gathering up the other end (like a makeshift girth) and walking her with that sort of tightened. Then I moved it back a few inches and did the same, then back by her flank and did the same. At first she was a little jumpy, but she actually got over that pretty quickly and accepted it. Then I tossed the rope over her back and let the end of it dangle on the other side of her, and I'd "jump" it back toward her butt a little bit. That was better on the near side than the off side. This was all at a stand still. Then I did the same while walking and that was a little exciting at times. Until I gave her a treat for calmly walking and halting. Then it became much more motivating to be a polite pony! She catches on to things so quickly that I can't stay on one exercise for too long, so once that was good we moved on.
Next was the puddle. We just walked back and forth through the puddle. There was also a cavaletti on the ground in its lowest position because I was using it to make a corner with the rail on the long side of the fence (my arena has a weird shape and at the far end there are no corners). We took advantage of that and both walked through the puddle and over the cavaletti in the puddle. That didn't take long at all.
Next up was "mounting" practice - I just want her to be okay with the height of my upper body above her. I have a wooden coop jump in the corner of the arena (one of the bona fide corners) so I led her up to it and I stood on top of it. She didn't care one bit. So then I jumped off of it. And she didn't care about that, either. I did it a few times with her on either side of the coop and she didn't care either way. Okay, so that was boring.
I then got my mounting block and put it next to her and she thought it was interesting but not really worthy of note. So I climbed on that and led her around to try to line her up. That was a little harder because there are weeds in the corners and she'd rather eat those so she didn't pay much attention to me. Keeping my weight/balance on the mounting block, I did sort of lean/lay across her back. But that didn't get much - if any - reaction, either. Oh well.
So we went back to the trailer and I had it open for her. I just stood on the ramp and she stepped on. And I just stood there and she took another step so all four feet were on the ramp. Then I stepped just inside the trailer and she had two feet in and two feet on the ramp. And then she realized there was hay to be eaten so she went in more and more. I just stood there. I didn't give any flag waving motivation to her, I just stood there. Eventually I offered a feel with my rope and asked her to go forward a bit more and she did. It was all very relaxed and calm and uninteresting.
With that we called it a day! Good job, Princess Fancy Pants!
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Catching up
Well I haven't posted in a while and there's not too much exciting stuff going on, but I do have a few updates.
Let's see - last I wrote I think that I had just gotten the hay nets and everyone had figured out how to use them. PFP was especially adept at getting hay out very quickly so I had to order her nets with smaller holes.
I switched their turnout arrangements so that PFP is now with Paddy all day long and in her own stall/paddock at night. Mac is now spending his days across the driveway. I think this works out because Mac generally isn't very nice to Paddy and they don't buddy up together so I don't think Mac minds being alone. Paddy gets to be the boss over someone (PFP) and he's a good boss who doesn't abuse his power. And because he's an all-around good guy and kind and gentle horse, he's a good horse for PFP to spend time with. I have been putting Paddy and PFP in the pasture in the afternoon while I do poo chores and I've been letting Mac have paddock-next-door access to PFP. I think her feminine charm is starting to wear off. At first he was very interested, then the more time he spent near her, the less interested he became, although she still tries to flirt with them. Now they play sniff-nose-bitey-face over the fence but there's limited romance going on, so that's a big improvement!
I think/hope I found out why PFP was having trouble trailering. The head divider in the trailer was swinging around (it should be stable but the spring that kept is stable has worn out so if there's commotion it comes undone). I've since taken the head divider out and have loaded up PFP just fine. Haven't taken her on a ride yet but if the weather holds up I'll do it this week.
We just got back from vacation and by the looks of the pastures we got a lot of rain while we were gone. We love our farm sitter, she's the best! The horses, dogs, and cats were well taken care of. Since there's no rain today and it is sunny, I put everyone out in their respective places. As I was walking along the driveway, Paddy and PFP looked so cute I had to take their picture.
Let's see - last I wrote I think that I had just gotten the hay nets and everyone had figured out how to use them. PFP was especially adept at getting hay out very quickly so I had to order her nets with smaller holes.
I switched their turnout arrangements so that PFP is now with Paddy all day long and in her own stall/paddock at night. Mac is now spending his days across the driveway. I think this works out because Mac generally isn't very nice to Paddy and they don't buddy up together so I don't think Mac minds being alone. Paddy gets to be the boss over someone (PFP) and he's a good boss who doesn't abuse his power. And because he's an all-around good guy and kind and gentle horse, he's a good horse for PFP to spend time with. I have been putting Paddy and PFP in the pasture in the afternoon while I do poo chores and I've been letting Mac have paddock-next-door access to PFP. I think her feminine charm is starting to wear off. At first he was very interested, then the more time he spent near her, the less interested he became, although she still tries to flirt with them. Now they play sniff-nose-bitey-face over the fence but there's limited romance going on, so that's a big improvement!
I think/hope I found out why PFP was having trouble trailering. The head divider in the trailer was swinging around (it should be stable but the spring that kept is stable has worn out so if there's commotion it comes undone). I've since taken the head divider out and have loaded up PFP just fine. Haven't taken her on a ride yet but if the weather holds up I'll do it this week.
We just got back from vacation and by the looks of the pastures we got a lot of rain while we were gone. We love our farm sitter, she's the best! The horses, dogs, and cats were well taken care of. Since there's no rain today and it is sunny, I put everyone out in their respective places. As I was walking along the driveway, Paddy and PFP looked so cute I had to take their picture.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
What a week!
What a week for Princess Fancy Pants. Again we worked on trailer loading. Loading is no problem - she walks right on. I want her to stand quietly and comfortably before I take her on a ride again. To make it a sweet deal for her I put alfalfa in the hay bag. She enjoys alfalfa snack time and this time didn't try to back up against the butt bar after I closed it. I let her eat for 5 minutes or so, then I had her back off quietly, then walk back on, then back off, then get on, then back off, then get on, then back off. She goes on and off very quietly. Her reward - aside from the alfalfa - is going to graze afterward.
Her eyes have been runny so yesterday the vet came out. Miracle of anatomy, those tear ducts are! Vet gave her an eye exam and everything looked healthy so he flushed her tear ducts. Have you ever seen that? It is pretty cool! I had no idea there was a convenient little hole in their nose that was the bottom of the duct - it is like a perfect engineering mechanism! When he flushed the right nostril, some gunk came out of the duct by the eyelid - pretty neat! I have an ointment to put in her eye for a couple days. And just in case you think that Princess Fancy Pants likes that, well, you'd be wrong. It is not much fun trying to wrestle a pony who doesn't want to have stuff put in her eye. The good news is that she's not tall enough to get away from me!
And today I got Freedom Feeder hay nets in the mail! I do my best by feeding the horses four times a day, but thought that the nets would be good to slow them down so that they don't go too long between meals. I set them up right as soon as I got them and put them out in the pastures. I took a little video of the horses trying to figure them out. The did a good job - especially Princess Fancy Pants who somehow figured out how to break they hay up better so it comes out more easily. I think maybe she started throwing it around or something.
Anyway, I'll follow the protocol of still having loose hay out while they transition to using the hay nets only. I'll probably buy more nets, too, so I can always have some filled and some in use.
That's the news from Farm Woe-be-gone, where all the mustangs are strong, all the TBs are good-looking, and all the ponies are above average! (well, really, they are all strong, good-looking, and above average!)
Her eyes have been runny so yesterday the vet came out. Miracle of anatomy, those tear ducts are! Vet gave her an eye exam and everything looked healthy so he flushed her tear ducts. Have you ever seen that? It is pretty cool! I had no idea there was a convenient little hole in their nose that was the bottom of the duct - it is like a perfect engineering mechanism! When he flushed the right nostril, some gunk came out of the duct by the eyelid - pretty neat! I have an ointment to put in her eye for a couple days. And just in case you think that Princess Fancy Pants likes that, well, you'd be wrong. It is not much fun trying to wrestle a pony who doesn't want to have stuff put in her eye. The good news is that she's not tall enough to get away from me!
And today I got Freedom Feeder hay nets in the mail! I do my best by feeding the horses four times a day, but thought that the nets would be good to slow them down so that they don't go too long between meals. I set them up right as soon as I got them and put them out in the pastures. I took a little video of the horses trying to figure them out. The did a good job - especially Princess Fancy Pants who somehow figured out how to break they hay up better so it comes out more easily. I think maybe she started throwing it around or something.
Anyway, I'll follow the protocol of still having loose hay out while they transition to using the hay nets only. I'll probably buy more nets, too, so I can always have some filled and some in use.
That's the news from Farm Woe-be-gone, where all the mustangs are strong, all the TBs are good-looking, and all the ponies are above average! (well, really, they are all strong, good-looking, and above average!)
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