Christmas Ride

Well....I CAN FINALLY RIDE!! WOOT!!!
Yup, we've reached the 8-week healing mark from the C-Section that I had, and now I have permission from both doctor and hubby to ride! Yeah!

We went down to my parents place today for Christmas Eve and since we were the first ones there and V was content, I decided to quickly head to the back and hop on Dollar for a short ride.

Got to the back and realized that I didn't bring my bridle with me. Ooops. Left it at home. So I just grabbed a pair of barrel reins and went out to the holding pen. Dollar and Echo were both laying down, but as soon as I started approaching them, Echo got up. I went up to Dollar to take some pictures of him and realized that he had ripped out almost all of his mane!! Shxt!! I grabbed some pictures of him, clipped the reins to his halter and got him out of the holding pen. Echo wasn't too happy with this though. Lol.

I got Dollar up to the front rails, clipped the other side of the reins to his halter, climbed up on the rails and hopped on. He just stood there like a gentleman and waited for me to tell him to start walking. Once we got walking he was pretty good. A little on the lazy side, but you can't blame him, he's been off since April! We walked a couple rounds around the arena and tested the brakes, reverse and steering, which were all still installed. Yeah!

After spending about 10-15 minutes riding, I called it a day, hopped off and put him back into the holding pen with his girlfriend. It was nice to be able to ride again.

Dollar's New Job

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I haven't been out to see my Old Man for a while, but as of October 21, he now has a new charge and job waiting for him come spring-time.

What new charge you ask?

My baby girl V (no, I'm not posting her full name on blogs)

So come spring-time, she'll be going for her first ride.

I'm hoping to be riding by Christmas time, as we had to go through a C-Section and I've got to wait about 8 weeks before I can ride. Sigh.

The Old Man is enjoying his time off though. He's escaped his fence quite a few times and is now in the holding pen at home with Sue, where we can make sure that he's not going to escape again.

Hope to update soon!

Brief Visit

So since I've still been being a bad Horsey Mom, I decided to make a quick jaunt out to see Dollar, who is now back in his 2-acre pasture as Echo is off to a trainer's for a while and there is still tons of grass in said pasture.

Now, normally when I go to see Dollar and call for him, he comes to me and doesn't make me walk through the entire pasture looking for him. Not so today. I started calling for him before I got to the pasture and no response. So I hopped the fence and started looking for him while calling his name. Nope, the bugger still didn't show his face. Ok.....and my imagination starts going wild.

And then it hit me to go look in the bush because that's where he likes to hide on me. And find him I did...

Can you spot the horsey??

Needless to say, he was hiding quite well on me, but he was also getting away from the flies. Poor Old Man. I went up to him and offered him his apple. At first I thought he was going to turn it down, but then he changed his mind and gobbled it up nicely.

After spending some time with him, I went on my way. He's still looking pretty good, just can't wait until I can ride again :)

Deworming Time! (Yes, we're still alive)

Yes, we are still alive here! And I do have to apologize for being a bad horsey Mom. I've barely been out to see Dollar lately, as every time I see him, I feel horrible that I can't really do anything with him. Sigh.

But today, we had a mission...DEWORMING!! Dollar actually seemed pretty happy to see me, and left his girlfriend with no problems to follow me into the coral. Yeah! Echo on the other hand, was not happy that I took her boyfriend away. It also helped that I had some corn-on-the-cob to entice Dollar. Hehe.

He happily munched on his corn while I tied him up and went to go get his deworming stuff ready. And then I almost blew a gasket. Why? Oh, because someone decided to take apart my English bridle. FULLY! Aaahh!! So needless to say, that while I grabbed his deworming stuff, I grabbed my bridles as well (English and Western) and put them with my stuff to go in my car. Urg...

Once I had everything ready, I got ready to do battle with him. Since I had to give him his heaves meds by mouth last year, he doesn't like anything shoved into his mouth. Especially medicine. Sorry Old Man. I did have to fight with him a little bit, as he was being a bit of a brat, but in the end we did get it in. Or most of it. He decided to turn his at the last little bit and got some on his face. That should teach him for not taking everything. Lol.

Can you really resist that face??

Treats

See what I mean about getting dewormer on his face?? Lol. He also doesn't look too impressed.

After everything was done, I let him back into pasture and reassure Echo that everything was fine. Sigh. I miss my Old Man :(

More Picture Spammmmm!!!!

Time for more picture spamm!!!!

Dollar with Echo

The two love-birds

Just too cute :)

Echo coming to say hi

Dollar coming to check us out

Brody trying to irritate Dollar by playing with his ears. It didn't work. D just ignored him and kept on eating grass. Good thing he's tolerable with kids

Brody showing Echo his truck

Brody playing with Echo and his truck

I Think Someone Has A Girlfriend....

Dollar's back at my parent's place in their side pasture right now. No, he didn't escape again. Lol. My sister Natalie got herself a new horse and they brought Dollar home to keep her company.

Well, I think he's in love. Apparently he hasn't left her side at all since they got put together and is always right by her side. Yup, it's love. :) 

 



Escapee

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Not really much to blog about in Dollar world with me not riding and Dollar on semi-retirement.

But it seems that Dollar would like to keep me on my toes once in a while. I was at work today and left my cell phone at home (it's the only phone we have, so I left it for Keith). When I got home, Keith said that my Dad had texted me, so i checked it. It basically said that Dollar got out last night and was in the tack room this morning and that he had to be moved back. Wtf? The text didn't say anything if he got hurt or anything.

So I called my Dad up and he said that he found Dollar in the tack room this morning. Which didn't make sense because his pasture is a 1/4 mile away. And again, he didn't say if Dollar was hurt or anything. So I was a little annoyed about all this, changed into my regular clothes and was almost in tears. Apparently my pregnancy hormones are kicking into high gear. Sheesh. Keith said that he'd come with me to see if the fence needed fixing and he'd help with that. Gotta love him.

So when we got to Dollar's pasture, we saw right aways how he got out. I'm guessing that the kids that live there were playing on the fence lines and managed to push them right down to the ground. Basically low enough that Dollar could step right over them and make his way home. So Keith quickly fixed the fence and then we went to go get Dollar from my parents place.

Now I'm really lucky that Dollar knows where home is, but I have no clue when he got out and exactly how he got home. Because his pasture is a 1/4 mile away, he does have to go on or close to gravel roads, where people have no respect for livestock. But I also know my horse enough that he probably stayed in the ditch and ate grass on his way home.

When we got to my parents place, I went to go grab Dollar, but Keith beat me there (Wtf??) and said that he'd bring Dollar back. Now Keith isn't a horse person, so this really surprised me that he'd do that. Dollar's pasture isn't that far for me to walk and it would be good for me too, but he said that he would. OK. So I asked Mom if they know when Dollar got out, and she said that he was in the tack room when Dad went to go do chores at 8 in the morning. He did go into the garden and help himself to some samples (apparently they were yummy) and also went into the tack room and helped himself to some grain. I quickly checked Dollar over to see if he was injured anywheres, but he looked fine to me, and then I covered him in KONK because of the horse-flies and then I sent Keith and Dollar on their way.

I hopped in the car, beat Keith to the pasture and waited for him and Dollar to show up. Keith went to move the trailer that's in front of Dollar's gate for his pasture (so that the kids can't let him out) and I kicked him back into his pasture. He seemed happy to be back into his pasture. Now just hoping that he doesn't try to escape again.

Pasture Time!!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Haven't really felt motivated to do much. Doesn't really help that I can't ride :(

Well, Dollar got kicked out into his almost 2-acre pasture today. My Dad has pretty crappy hay at home right now and since Dollar can go out into pasture, he let me know to bring him out there.

So I grabbed him, got him away from Pretty and Sue and started our nice long 1/2 mile walk to the pasture. Keith was in front of us with the car and just making sure that we'd be OK on the walk there. And we were, except for the stupid horseflies. They drive Dollar insane!

Once we got him there, I opened up the gate and let him in. Of course, he had to go tearing up to the fence line screaming for his buddies. Once he realized that he was by himself, he wandered around for a while and then settled down to eat.

And I know he's gonna be in horsey heaven. The grass in there is up to and past his belly, so he's gonna be content for quite a while.


Can you spot the horse?


Eating to his heart's content.

Picture Spam

Seeing as I don't really have anything of me and Dollar doing our normal routine, it's time for PICTURE SPAM!!


Brody riding "his" horse


Madison on "her" horse


Apparently Brody wants to help groom Dollar


"Hello little person"


Dollar loves his little person


Dollar in his new halter. Yes, it's pink and purple. Don't think he's too impressed. Lol.

Ummm...I think Dollar missed me...Or is mad with Me....

Yeah, if you can't tell by the title post, today's visit with the Old Man did not go very well. I had gone out to the holding pen to see Dollar for a bit and was going to play with him. Was. I'm getting there.

When I got there, Dollar and Mars were both laying down and just being lazy. So I said hi, climbed through the fence and went to go take some pictures. Dollar seemed pretty happy to see me while I snapped some photos of him. I went to go say hi to Mars, who still hates me. Good thing the feeling is mutual.


The boys


Mid head-shake


Being all cute


Mars not looking too impressed

I got back to Dollar and noticed that he was shaking his head back and forth, so I wondered if something was bothering him. I went up to him to check and he went to shaking his head again and in the process, managed to smack me right in the chin, which caused my teeth to go right into my lower lip.


Lip from the outside...


And the inside. Ouchie :(

Ouch. Of course, in between spitting out blood from my mouth, I yelled at him for doing that to me and gave him a good smack. He knew I was there and knows not to do that. Old Man. Of course then, he had a pitiful look on his face that I couldn't resist to get on photo.


His "pitiful face." Lol.

After that ordeal (and loving him up a bit), I just figured it was best to go. I feel really bad for him right now because I can't do much with him, given my current growing state and I won't let anybody in my family ride him. I'm trying to look for someone who'd be willing to ride him a couple times a week or to lease him out because I know he'll go stir-crazy for the next 6 months like this.

Walking, Walking and More Walking

So I decided to take Dollar for a nice 1 mile walk today. My destination? My neighbors about 1/2 mile away to see the Percherons. Once I got to my parents place, I got Dollar out of the holding pen (luckily no new marks on him) and got to tacking him up and then went on our way.



He did pretty good on the way there, but for sonme odd reason, he kept wanting to sniff the ground. And I found out why. There were some horse tracks on the ground and I guess Dollar figured that his new job could be a sniffer horse. Sigh, Old Man.

Once we got to our neighbors place, I headed to the back to see the Perchs. Our neighbors don't mind. But there was one thing that had Dollar totally stopped in his tracks and snorting a little bit...


Lol. Optical illusion?? Yup. It's actually the back door of the trailer painted to look like his two biggest Perchs are in there. And looks realistic!! It had Dollar doing a double take and backing up a little bit, going "Mom, WTF??"  I did get him past it, but he was snorting like crazy at it. Lol.



Made our way to the back and Dollar was happy to see them Perchs, but also being weird. I guess he thought that they were an optical illusion as well. Lol. The Perchs came running up and jostling each other to say hi to D. After a bit of time there, I turned him around and headed for home. And had to go past the big scary trailer again. Lol.


And now since we were on our way home, Dollar decided that he could speed walk. He did try trotting, but after getting in shit from me, he decided that he'll just speed walk all the way home. It turned out to be a good work out for him and gave me a chance to spend some bonding time with him.

Dollar's Home!!!

Yes, Dollar's going back home. After much discussion with Keith about money and future (now that I'm expecting), we decided that it was best to move Dollar back to my Dad's (hopefully it will be better this time around) just to save on money and time driving out to see him.  So I had e-mailed Brenda letting her know that Dollar was leaving sometime this week (Saskia was in Germany) and she said that was OK and that she understood.

So then Sam called me today and said that we were going to pick him up today. So I grabbed my stuff and headed out to Dad's place to grab the trailer so that we could head out. I got to the house shortly before Sam got there and then we proceeded to hook up the trailer. Turns out that the trailer was in quite a bit of water, so it took a couple tries to get the truck hooked up. Once we were able to get the truck and trailer out, we got out of the parking spot and corral and then headed out to the barn.


The trailer swamp

Got there in no time, and I headed to the back to grab him. I grabbed his halter and then crawled through the fence to grab him and then decided to hop on his bareback with the halter and lead rope and just walk back to the gate. It was pretty wet back there, and I didn't feel like getting a shoer. Lol. So he stood patiently while I climbed on him and then we treked our way back to the gate, where Yvonne let us out.

Once we got back to the barn, I hopped off and took him inside, tied him up and proceeded to throw my saddle on him and carry the rest of my stuff. Once I had everything, I led him outside to the trailer, loaded him up easily and threw my stuff in there. Got home with no issues and were greeted by the other horses when we pulled the trailer into the coral (they were all loose for water).

I had to unload Dollar first before we could park the trailer because of where we had to park it. So I opened up the back doors and went to get Dollar out. Now Mars decided that it was his turn to hop in the trailer, so he started loading himself! Silly horse. Of course I yelled at him to get out, which he did thankfully. I don't need them fighting in the trailer with me in there. Once Mars was out, I let Dollar lose so that he could walk out of the trailer himself. I for sure wasn't going to get myself into him and the other horses while they were making acquantinces again. And, Mars being Mars, didn't want to let Dollar out of the trailer without inspection first. So of course, there was the general sniffing of each other and then the sqealing (not sure from who) about all this. All this time, I was yelling at Mars for being an idiot and to let Dollar out of the trailer.

Once Dollar was out of the trailer, the kids went tearing around the arena like crazy, so Dad said he'd park the trailer where it belonged. Good thing too, because it was still a swamp and I had no desire to do that myself. Once Dad had the trailer parked, I grabbed some pics of the kids playing around. And they looked like they were having fun.


"Ooohhh....who's here?"

Dollar wandering around


Apparently Reno was in a good mood :)


And then there's Mars. Sigh.


Dollar's plea of "Mom, HELP ME!!!"


Reno's moment of "Oh, hi Mom!"


And...they're off!


Tag teaming on Dollar


Mars: "I'm just following...I'm not up to anything..."
Dollar: "F-ing brat."


Mars: Ok, maybe a little nibble...
Dollar: Oh shit!


Apparently Mars is still the school-yard bully


Help me PLEASE!!


Mars trying to look as if he's behaving. All he needs is devil horns. Lol.


Who then saw his Mom and decided it was time to run away...


See??? I've been telling Sam to put him into Dressage. Look at him!


Looks like their playing tag, trying to catch Dollar.


Whee!!!


You'd think that by now, Mars would know not to piss off the Old Man.

After we were done with everything, I bid good-bye to the Old Man, just hoping that Mars wouldn't try to kill him too much. Sigh. Horses.