Kahlua has company ...

Just temporarily. 

This is Ricochet (unless I come up with a better name for her).  She's one of Emily's horses.  She'll be here this week so it makes it more convenient for us to get some riding in this week.  Ricochet needs a few more miles on her before I start bugging Emily to let me try riding her.  She is quite calm and friendly on the ground.

Her bangs crack me up. 

Her and Kahlua have become fast friends.

I made another cool Craigslist purchase.  I needed a larger water trough for the horses, so I found one for $50.  With a couple of bucks worth of bleach, it's as good as new!

So I put the other one in with the sheep and now I don't need to worry about them running out of water every ten minutes.

I gave Zip and Echo baths today.  Can't you tell?

Random ...

While Kahlua is no longer afraid of my camera ...

She's not really fond of me coming in and taking photos.  She always looks so put out.  Please ignore the saddle sweat marks.  We got back late last night after a fun night ride and I was lazy today.  If she wasn't white, you wouldn't notice!  ;-)

Remember that cute little ram lamb I bought?  Check out the damn horns on him!  He won't last long around here.

Back to work tomorrow morning ... yay!  (Yeah, let's see how long THAT lasts!  LOL)

I've Alive!

And I am developing a routine again!  I love having a job!  Getting up in the morning has never been a problem for me, but at least now when I go to bed, I sleep!  I feel so much better in the morning, it's amazing.  (I wonder how many times I am going to mention "I" in this post!)  It's remarkable what a job (or lack thereof) does to a person.  Now that I've gotten used to having the dogs at my feet 24/7, I miss them while I'm gone, but it's a small trade-off.  They're happy to see me when I get home, and I'm not dogged out by 6:00 p.m. 

Speaking of dogs, I have a GREAT little rescue dog here that's available for adoption.  He doesn't have a name because I haven't found anything cute enough to call him yet.  He is a love.  And he's so happy.  I think he's a BC / Aussie cross, or something. 

He needs his shots and needs neutering, but he's good to go.  I haven't put him on stock, and probably won't bother unless someone is looking for a working dog.  If you know someone looking for an awesome pet, please send them my way.  I'd love to find this little guy the perfect home. 

Back in the Saddle

That's where you have to get when you fall out.

Took Kahlua out this evening ... saddled her up and rode her straight out from the house.  She hates that.  She's a bit barn sour, or whatever you want to call it.  I hate that term because I don't have a barn!  And I want one really bad!  Pasture-sour sounds stupid.  Itty-bitty-piece-of-land-sour sounds stupid, too.  Spot-next-to-the-driveway-sour.  There.  That's better.

Anyway ... mounted her, and she immediately wanted to walk back to her pasture.  Silly girl.  Up on to the canal we went.  Got down to the neighbor's house, and she balked.  I persisted.  So did she.  I dismounted and continued walking.  I don't think she expected that.  I felt silly walking the horse.  Got to the road and remounted.  Went up the road (instead of continuing on the canal where I am not comfortable arguing with her), and entered into the undeveloped major failure of a subdivision. 

In the subdivision, the road goes in, and then turns into a circle around a cute planted area that's about 50' in diameter.  So ... like a merry-go-round, I was going to use it as a training area.  We go around the first time, and she balks at the "exit" area.  I persist, and make her go around again.  She balks at the exit again, only this time, she loses her footing in the rear because she was trying to back up.  She ends up in a sitting position and tries to get up and slips again.  I bail.  She falls over a bit before recovering.  She's fine, I'm fine.  I remount, and we go around a couple more times with more success before heading out.

At the end of the road, she wants to turn back to the house, and I make her go the other way.  She balks.  I persist.  I was going to turn on the first road, but since she balked, I went to the next road.  The whole time, her head is pointed at my house.  While I'm proud of myself for getting out and doing this and forcing this issue, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know if what I'm doing is helping, if this issue will ever be resolved, or whether I should even bother.  One thing I will say is ... I have been dying to ride around my neighborhood ever since I bought my house.  There is no better way to check this out.

We get down to the irrigation canal ... and head toward the house ... finally!  We are clip clopping along, when we get to an area where the water white-waters, even though the canal bank itself does not change width or anything.  She would not walk past it.  She so didn't want to pass it that I let her do what she wanted to see what she would do.  She turned around and started heading away from the house!  LOL!  Anyway, I dismounted again, walked her past it, and then remounted.  Turned her around to go by the white-water thing again, and there was no way she was going to do it.  I headed home.

Anyway ... it was a good experience overall.  Riding out from here, especially alone, is a different ride than if I trailer her somewhere.  My elbow is a little sore from where I ate it, but I'm none the worse for wear.

When we got back, I had her help me carry her granny food down to the feed bin.

She was happy to help.

Oh, and by the way ... there's another saddle I will be getting back into on Monday morning.  A new job!  I couldn't be more excited!

J

A Three-Hour Tour ....

Yes, it's been a while since my last post.  It's been hotter than blazes here, and I haven't done much but clean house and try to stay cool.  The weather broke a bit, and I was dying to go riding.

I have been having trouble finding people to ride with because, well, they all have jobs that get in the way of their riding time.  So, I decided to take Kahlua out alone for the first time.  Solo.  Just me and her.  I know what a pain in the ass she is to just get her to walk away from the group, so I couldn't imagine how badly this was going to go.  I tacked her up, loaded her up, and drove over to the other side of the lake.  We got out ... and she was on high alert.  I mounted, and asked her to go forward, and she backed up.  I persisted, and she went forward.  We went about 1/8 of a mile, and she was looking for every excuse to turn around and go back.  I persisted.  She'd back up, and I'd let her, and then ask her to go forward when she was done, and she would.  She wasn't winning, and figured it out in the first mile.  This was a huge step forward for me, because this is something I would not do with her on the irrigation canal for fear of her backing up ... right into the drink ... or in case she decided to do something stupid if I pushed her.  So I picked this battleground and it worked out great.  We had a lovely ride after this ... and it was so peaceful.  We rode for three hours, and I loved every minute of it.

I took a bunch of photos ... but there's no one in them except her ears.  So here we go.

 

 

  This was a bald eagle ... my camera phone sux, though.

 

 

 

This was, by far, one of the best rides I've had with Kahlua.  It was just me and her, and she tested me over and over again in the beginning, and I stepped up to the plate, and I think I gained her respect.  It was an amazing feeling.

On a completely different note, I'd like to congratulate Jaenne on the awesome job she did at the trial this weekend with Mo.  Jaenne has taught Mo everything she knows, and has competed with her in arena trials as well as field trials, and is currently running her in open.  Jaenne is an excellent handler, an expert at remaining calm, cool and collected.  (Something I definitely missed the boat on.)  So congratulations, Jaenne!  You'd better get bragging on that blog now!  :-)

 Mo is out of Melissa Reasoner's Jen x my Zip.  This is the same breeding as Kat Suphin's Deucey and Foxy, Brittney MacNeill's Skarlet, and Phyllis Steveley's Rook, among others.  While I'd love to take credit for breeding those litters, I can't.  They have matured into really nice dogs, credit due not only to Melissa for the breeding itself, but the skilled handlers that are lucky enough to own them.  If there was ever a dog I could shoot myself in the foot for letting slip through my fingers, it's Rook.  Presence, power, a keen eye, a huge engine ... and gorgeous to boot.