Shavings Bird

Some time back I found this finch trapped under the tarp when I went to get shavings. It didn't particularly like being held and got away the first time, but it was really cute when it bit me with an annoyed little look on its face.

(And yes, I did let it free. I'm not sure how well Mags and Meena would do with a bird in the house.)

What's Going on at the Stables

Today was good! Usually I just pick out stalls, water, and help feed (it's been too hot lately to work Angel). In contrast, today lots of other things happened!

My time at the stables started by handling Love (a bay Arab) as MiniOwner applied Betadine on him. I don't really know quite what happened to him, but somehow he scraped some skin off him in places. It wasn't anything horrid, and treating it was simple. We filled a small bucket half-full with water, put in some Betadine, and then gently scrubbed it in using clean paper towels. Then we followed that up with using antibiotic spray.

After that, we bathed Tamale (or, Molly)! She's been at the stables for some time now, and will be staying till she's bred to Fire. Her coat was dull-looking and flies had been bothering her, so we commenced with the bathing.

She was actually very good about it, and stood there as MiniOwner and I scrubbed shampoo on her after hosing her down. It took a good 45 minutes, and she looks gorgeous now. :)

I wasn't expecting this (even though it didn't nearly reach 100 degrees), but I was told it wasn't too hot to work Angel. Yay! I didn't lunge her very long, for the lunge lines were over at Other Barn. Regardless, she had a lot of energy and was happy to be exercised.

Following that, I had the opportunity to groom up Buster! As grooming on any horse is, that was awesome.

Then I helped feed a bit. 'Twas a good day. :)

Avalanche!

Last Tuesday at the stables was awesome! Since I started working at the stables, I have always been trying to get an avalanche of shavings to land in the cart. This happened for the first time yesterday! The cart was empty, and conditions were perfect. So it was really easy to finish filling the remaining third of the cart, and only took about five minutes.

My hope of getting drenched also happened! It had ceased raining for a couple hours, and then started sprinkling. And then the heavens let loose and it RAINED. 'Twas so awesome! :D

That's all for now. Cheers.

Workin' the Mini Girls

Yesterday I got to work the mini girls (Toy Toy and Angel) for a good hour using the lunge line. It got kinda dizzying after some time. :P

On my walk down there, I was actually able to get Rave Review (pronounced more like raver-view though) to come up to the fence for me! She didn't really eat the grass I offered her, but I was able to get a picture of her scratching her ear with her hind hoof. :)

Rave is a black Arab, Polish-type, I think. She has a very float-y trot, and... Oh wait. Nevermind! That isn't Rave, that's Porschia. The only way I can really tell them apart is that Rave has a halter on and this mare doesn't. I know Porschia is black as well, and I'm pretty sure she's Polish-type Arab, but she might be Egyptian. *shrugs* Too confusing.

Anyway, after I got down there we cleaned out a few stalls and then I got to working Angel Eyes. After grooming on her a little (mainly just picking out her hooves), I grabbed the lunge line and lunge whip, and started lunging her.

She did great at first, and she definitely does not have any excuses about why the puddles will eat her. :P However, once she was a bit more tired, she decided to push her luck on being lazy. I tried a lot of stuff (snapping the whip, kissing to her, and so on) to get her to move, but she wouldn't. Instead, she would just slow down, stop, and angle her rump away from me so I couldn't pop her there.

Finally I sensibly asked MiniOwner how I could get Angel to go. The plan:

• Put the chain onto her halter so she'd pay attention more (it helped a bit, but not terribly much).
• Keep one foot on a small-ish rock in the ground to ensure that the horse is doing all the work, and the handler is staying in one spot.
• Every time she wants to be lazy, I reel her in towards me (yay for strong-ish arms :P) until she was to where I could pop her on the rump to get her moving. (It may sound mean, but 1) she has tons of fluff still, and it doesn't hurt her, and 2) she does need to be disciplined for stuff like that. Otherwise she'll just become a very lazy horse that thinks she can her way with anything.)
• Continue above two points until she stays at a steady trot and has nice slack in the line.

I had to do that for probably about 15-20 minutes, but it helped TONS. She realized she wouldn't get away with being lazy and that it wouldn't kill her to keep moving. After she did a few rounds especially good, I had her walk in to me (which is something she's very awesome at :)) and - after letting her have a bit of a carrot - put her to bed.

Then I pulled out Toy. As soon as I was in the position to lunge her, BOOM - she must've had megatons of energy. For some reason she didn't want to canter, but just gallop. At certain moments I would actually have to almost sit on the ground to keep her from moving my position (she, unlike Angel, doesn't leave much slack in the line).

After awhile she finally slowed down (just a tad!), and I put her to bed after lunging her for about twenty minutes. She didn't really get in trouble for being lazy, and I managed to get a picture of her lunging at the trot. :)

And of *course* she has to be blinking. XD Silly mare. :)

Grooming on a Rainy Day

Yesterday I went down to the stables, and as MiniOwner put it, "the whole ground's saturated." So, instead of the usual cleaning stalls + working the minis, we headed into the upper barn to pull out a couple yearling minis and groom on them.

First MiniOwner took Echo - an E^eE^e/Ch^ChCh⁺ (gold champagne) filly, and I got Ruger - an A^aA^a/To^To-/Z^Z (silver on black) colt.

Ruger was pretty calm about the whole grooming process, and there wasn't much I had to reprimand him for (other than pawing when I stopped grooming temporarily). However, as we'll be showing Echo next year, MiniOwner decided that then was the time to get the filly used to clippers.

Bottom line was that Echo finally got over it. At first, though, she was rearing and freaking out all over the place. MiniOwner just kept going at her (which is honestly what has to be done until the horse realizes that clippers won't kill them. This technique is known as flood training) until she got over it.

After we were done with those two, I got out Reggie - an E^eE^e/To^To (chestnut and white) colt, and MiniOwner pulled out Cayenne - an E^eE^e/Sb^Sb1Sb⁺ (chestnut sabino) colt. For a little while, Reggie was nervous when I was picking out his hoofs; after awhile, though, he just stood there completely still and let me do whatever I wanted to on him. He was shedding a lot (wait...maybe that was Ruger? Grr my memory is getting confused) for merely a yearling, and he really really liked being brushed with the shedding blade. :)

Cayenne, however, decided he was going to act silly when MiniOwner was trying to lead him out of his and Reggie's stall. Short story even shorter, he reared up the first time and struck MiniOwner (thankfully he's a fairly small mini), she warned him not to rear up again, he did, so she pushed him over onto his back.

It may seem mean to a simply "playful" horse for those who don't know much about horses, but they need to learn. And that wasn't just playing, it was also disobedience, and that kind of behavior should not be allowed to reside in any horse; no matter the size.

Anyway, I didn't get any picture of Reggie or Cayenne, but here are a few of Ruger and Echo. :)

Ruger's head. :) Cute boy, but he didn't want to stand still for the picture!

A dark spot on Ruger's neck. I found it a bit interesting!

Echo, the gold champagne filly.

With some minor editing, you can kinda see the hazel-ish eyes common in champagnes.

She has such a delicate Arab-y head.

And big eyes, too!

A Productive Day of Cleaning Stalls

So! Today was a good, productive day. I was at the stables for about two hours, and we got three quite bad stalls absolutely clean. All of these stalls were in the upper barn (aka the mini barn), and now Lad (Arab weanling), Sonny (mini stud), Reggie (mini colt), and Ruger (mini colt) have clean stalls. :)

Actually, both MiniOwner, MiniOwner'sMom, and BoarderLady started working long before I got there, but I'm not certain of how many stalls they did by themselves.

Spooky and Thomas were there as well, and from this picture, you can probably tell how great of buddies they are. :3

They're both great kitties. :) Thomas is an absolute sweetheart, and Spooky is an interesting kitty. He's a lot more rambunctious than Thomas, and although he too will want attention - one must be careful. If you let your hand stay near him for too long, he'll have his claws in it, and will pretty soon commence to trying to bite it. XD So, you just gotta learn his ways.

Anyway, all the time I was there we were busy working, and it was a lot of fun! And thanks to BoarderLady for making sure everyone either had bubble gum or butterscotch candies. XD Anyway, here is a picture of Lad (the orphan weanling/yearling) as we were bringing him back into the barn (after we had cleaned his stall).

Also, if you made it down this far, I have news for you! SPOILER ALERT - I'm getting a horse. Soon. :D