Pony Party

I have no stats to back it up (because there are none) but it felt like the rainiest winter ever. April has been gentle, though and it's finally started to dry out. If you're from the area, you know what that means. The fields are finally usable again!

Happy dance!

I was a little unkind and started by putting everyone out in individual spaces for 30 minutes twice a day. After minimal grass since December and everything currently growing like crazy, we need to be careful. The horses, of course, thought that was pretty miserable of me, but I'm thinking founder would have been worse? Kids these days :)

Adorable child horse tho

In the last week or so, the boys have been going out together and of course insanity has ensued. Surprise! They're zero percent more mentally mature than last year.

They both turned two at the beginning of April and they're still very much babies. 

Height and weight increases may not be proportionate to mental capacity increases.

remembering the ground is edible

chasing each other in tiny circles all day is the best fun though

Sad times when this pony is the good behaviour example :D

It's the time of year where everyone's looking slightly moth eaten and I'm raking up buckets of hair after every grooming session. The corner store guy dubiously asked me how many cats I own, answering the question of whether I really was presentable in public, even 'just for a quick stop' ;)

Trying New Things

Everything is great. Recent events have led to an unexpected silver lining of feeling very positive about the opportunity to draw a line under that hard stuff and embracing the change. I know the universe does what it will and I'm not owed a thing, but it still feels like good things HAVE to be on the horizon :)

Since my last update, I audited another straightness training clinic, which was fun. This time it was under saddle and practicing some of the groundwork exercises. The groundwork and under saddle work was interesting, but a lot more aligned with basic dressage exercises I'm already familiar with that help improve different weaknesses. I didn't find it quite as useful for myself as the previous one I went to that mostly evaluated different horses at a standstill. The predictions based simply on the picture presented, considering conformation, musculature, and posture were kind of mind blowing to me, after coming at it from a more rider/handler 'in motion' perspective.

While there, at an unrelated event, I bumped into a few old riding buddies I've been terrible about keeping in touch with, and we discussed a coach we all really enjoyed. Turns out she recently retired from her real job and is open to resuming visits here once a month.  I'll sign up for that! A groundwork or in hand trail clinic or two would be a fun thing for the boys this year. Of course if I ever ditch toodling around in the bareback pad for a proper saddle and a plan Sophie could attend group dressage lessons too.

Ready to get out and about! Sorry for the low quality photos - bringing the camera is the next step to getting back to a blogging routine.

Objectively the timing for baby horses was good and I've loved every minute of them, but them turning two years old feels like a milestone. It's really making me happy to think I can start doing a bit more with them. Planning for a riding future seems like an actual long term goal now rather than a far, far away sometime in the future type thing.

I've been gradually expanding the cob boy's educational boundaries. It's been a few years since the last time and I do feel like I'm approaching things differently. We'll see where that gets me. I'm at a weird stage of old school calm and practical getting it done, mixed with being a lot more aware of the value of choice and positive reinforcement. There's something to be said for the breed too. They're so much different than the typical quarter horse I grew up with. Generally much quicker thinking and engaged. Often the trick is to get them to try a little less hard ;) You don't need to build any softness or responsiveness or wake anyone up around here.

Reggie/Tradey is now surprisingly good to longe or long line walk/trot. There are of course little moments that come with being a Baby Horse doing the thing for the second or third time ever, but I think even with another session or two he'll be solid.

 He's proving very easy, he's one that's just naturally both confident in himself and also tuned in to his people and happy to be given a job. How lucky did I get with that? A: Not lucky at all probably because I think his breeder knows what she's about as far as making sporty, ammy friendly cobs.

Just wanders off and happy in his own company. This is not far away, but as far as Sophie and Buck are concerned it's a moon landing ;)

Tradey's 'brother' Buck is currently going through a Wild Dolphin phase. It's actually hilarious because he absolutely has to vocalize a 'WHEEE!' and then you know the leaping dolphin routine is up next. I've inadvertently created a funny quirk when I'm leading or handling him and he desperately wants to play - he knows my bubble is for safe grown up pony behavior, and his little built in warning system gets things nipped in the bud. So I just hear a lot of quiet 'whee' and tiny squeals under his breath, like almost inaudible while he walks along seemingly quietly. I just love him. He's different to Tradey for sure but he's absolutely fantastic in his own right. I think he just needs a little longer for his brain to fully install before we try learning too many new things :)

WHEEE. Currently his favored way to move quickly is by leaping place to place like a frog/dolphin. I'm trying to reassure myself this is not his permanent interpretive version of canter :D

Obviously I have at least a year or two before we're even thinking of having grown up pony expectations of them. So, they have very short sessions with the emphasis on having a job and learning things being fun, just setting the foundation for a ridden pony life. The absolutely wonderful thing about having them at home is that 5 minutes here and there is what they need and it's also exactly what I can easily do....there's none of the feeling like I should put time in since I drove all the way to the barn (or didn't put any time in because I didn't have enough).

Baby Buck for tax, since I'm well aware I shorted you on media this week.

Sophie's new thing to try is of course a saddle. I'll update that next...we're still in a trial period with a kind of out of the box solution and I don't want to jump the gun declaring anything.

Peace

Thank you for your kind comments on the last post. 

The silver lining to everything is that I'm back with a renewed appreciation for the happy life I've crafted as an adult and all the good people and things filling it. Younger me was way stronger than she ever gave herself credit for. 

I've been spending a ton of time out at the barn. The sun has been shining and it feels like spring! Everyone (except me) is shedding like crazy.

Signs of spring here and there. I really need to get the vegetable garden tidied.

Sophie finished her round of Gastroguard and sucralfate a couple of weeks ago and scoped clear. I didn't do a follow up scope last time (we did the initial and the 30 day one, then gave the extra 30 days treatment and crossed fingers) and regretted it because the assurance they were really gone would have been valuable for easing my own stress levels. It's nice this time to know we're on the right track this time. I've just being doing groundwork with her since, getting her back into shape, partly because no, we have not solved the saddle issue (more on that soon). We have a follow up vet appointment next month to investigate a couple of other small things to get her feeling her best again.

Vet also said she's too round, it's a fun line to walk with needing forage 24/7 but also being a pony.

The boys are both looking fabulous. It's time to start considering some revamped barn layouts, though. They still get along and play and roughhouse all day long, but they're starting to get more serious when there is food involved. Buck in particular is wearing a few more teeth marks than I'd like. They have hay 24/7 but it's in a shared shelter. I have enough paddocks, but adjustments need to be made so everyone can have a non-shared shelter/hay space on rainy days. 

Trying out borrowing Sophie's house in the daytimes. He approves.

She also approves because the middle winter paddock has grass right now, and grass>house in her opinion.

I've been doing a little bit more with the boys. They're learning how to longe in a way. In a way because I'm paranoid about young horse legs and repeated circles, so it's more walking and trotting on a longe line as I walk alongside. That has been surprisingly easy with Tradey, and complete chaos with the baby dolphin we've somehow acquired over winter (Buck). He's a good boy, but his brain is short circuiting this spring and he's also going through a stage where being velcro'd to me would be far more preferable than experiencing the world isolated and excluded a whole 8' away on a longe line :D. 

The state of them

Honestly, they're both generally a little too feral and pushy at the moment - we might argue as a product of their age and gender, but really it's a result of my own lack of discipline this winter. Also, the things I let slide because 'they're babies' somehow seems less valid now they're days away from being two year olds. If I'm really outing myself, Sophie wasn't much better a couple of weeks ago. So, I needed to step up, because we all know it's not going to be perfect all the time, but scoring three out of three on badly behaved ponies in one day means we might need to start getting judgey about their handler ;)

Random lake interlude to break the text wall

I'm easing my way back into being part of the local horsey crowd by auditing a straightness training clinic this coming weekend. I'm also organizing a saddle fitting weekend put on by a lovely lady I was in contact with regarding training and educational resources. She offered to come here for a visit, so that's a win for our little community.

going to the gym again

On the saddle fitting topic, I've got my SMS Trainee status now. So, I'm 'officially official', but with recent events I took a little break and don't have anything new in the calendar for training milestones as of yet. I went into this thinking I'll do what I can when I can and refrain from setting goals or timelines and I think that's the wise choice. 

The day I find something this pony and I both approve of, you'll just need to hand me my Master Fitter credentials already ;) Everyone is like "Oh she looks fairly straightforward!" when I send a conformation picture. Then the tracings are met with silence because the picture lies and she is tiny IRL plus she is extra wide AND a little curvy AND there is 15" of saddle space AND she is shaped like a wedge of cheese with a big hind end and narrow shoulders just waiting to suck that saddle forward lol