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.

I Think I Own A Woolly Mammoth

So I decided to head out to the barn today to help clean and to groom Dollar out as much as I could before I had to go to work. Once we were done cleaning the barn, I ran outside to grab Dollar, brought him in, grabbed my shedding blade and got to work on him.

I didn't realize before how much he was shedding, but after spending about 20 minutes or so just on his left side, I had a small mound of hair that was enough for a miniature pony! Holy Cow!! I had stopped and was laughing at him because he is so furry and he just looked at me with an "eh" face and went back to chill-laxing and enjoying his pampering.

I moved onto the other side and spent another 20 mintues just grooming that side! Seriously horse?!?!?! You're not a wolly mammoth!! Once I was done (or at least had enough hair for a miniature pony), I decided that it was enough for now, as I had to head to work soon. And of course, I grabbed some photos of my work. During the photos that I was taking, Dollar decided to start yawning at me and making faces, hence why he looks so weird in the photos. He wouldn't stop doing that! Silly horse!









See what I mean about the pile of hair?!?!?!



Once I kicked him back outside, I cleaned up my stuff and headed home and then to work. Sigh. Wish I could spend more time at the barn on days like this...

When 19 Is The New 2......

Well I managed to hitch a ride with my Dad out to the barn today to play with Dollar. Seeing as i can't ride and the barn has the round pen up, I decided to free-lunge him today just to get him working a bit. So once we got to the barn, I went outside to grab Dollar. Well it turned out that he didn't like me for clipping him last time and decided to start walking away from me. He was by the pen when I saw him and by the time I caught him, we were almost by the feeding spot at the other end of the pasture! Old Man....

Once I had him caught and haltered, I brought him into the indoor arena, put him in the round pen and got to work. He was moving around pretty good at the trot, but was being pretty lazy. Sam came over to take some video of us and when I asked him to lope, well, he let out a huge buck and kept acting like he's 2!!



So yeah, I was laughing at him, but also slightly not impressed because he knows better. At least he doesn't do that while I'm riding him. I kept him going around for a while and just switching up directions on him. Near the end, I could tell that he was getting tired. So I took him out of the round pen, tied the lead rope to both sides on his halter and took a walk over to where Sam was sitting while she was watching Dad ride Sue.

We stood there for a bit, talking with Sam and then I decided to put him away. At this time Dad was done his workout with Sue, so I kicked Dollar back outside and waited for Dad to finish bathing and putting Sue away.

I swear, Dollar thinks somedays that he's 2 and can geta way with it. Sigh. I do love my Old Man. At least he knows how to make me laugh, even if it's bucking when he shouldn't.

Clipping Time!!

So since our last ride, I've been contemplating clipping Dollar as he is pretty hairy and worked up quite a sweat just walking in the arena for 1/2 hour. And after I was done cleaning the barn today, I brought him in from outside and then and there proceeded to clip him. He has like a foot of hair on his, which is ridiculous by the way and I'm going to dread when he starts shedding. And as I had a limited amount of time, I decided that I was just going to clip his neck and leave the rest for another time.


Hairy beast before......

Once we were all set up in the cross ties and had found an extension cord (there's no plug-in for clippers in the boarder's cross-ties), I got to work on him. He eyes me a little and then just relaxed as he realized that I was just helping him not be such a hariy beast. I had realized that I couldn't just use the bare clippers because he has so much hair, so I had to use the 3mm guard. That seemed to do the trick, but even then, it took me almost an hour to clip just his neck. I'm so glad that I didn't decide to do a trace cip. Can you imagine how many hours that would take me??

After I was done, I took a step back to admire my handiwork. And he didn't look too bad. Just different as I'm not used to seeing him clipped like this.

Hairy beast after! (Sorry for the bad quality. this was taken on my phone :( )

Walking and Lunging

Finally got out to see my Old Man today after work. It turned out that my Dad was heading to the barn as well (his horse Sue is there for training), so I hitched a ride with him and got to the barn around 5:30. Remember the last post in which I said that I wouldn't be riding for a long time? Well it turns out that I'm PREGNANT!! Hence the no riding part. Yeah I know, suspension, eh? The bright side is that I'm allowed to sit on him and walk. But I'm OK with that. D can have this year being semi-retired. Lol.


Dollar waiting patiently for me :)

So when we got to the barn, I walked out to the pasture, grabbed him and lead him inside and threw my tack on him to do some walk work. Got in the arena pretty quickly and started our walk work, just keeping it simple. We just walked around and worked on his collection and stretching so that he could strengthen up his top line. Of course, after half hour of doing this, he was sweaty. I think the King if out of shape, And since I really wanted to do some faster work with him, I untacked him and then hooked him onto the lunge line and did more work like that.

And found out that apparently my 20-year-old Old Man was feeling like a 2-year-old * shake head * He was doing pretty good trotting around, but had a kind of snarky attitude today. And then when I asked him to canter, he let out a HUGE BUCK and went cantering around. So I asked him for a bit more speed and flicked the whip at who and he let out another buck. That's when I asked him to just keep putting speed on because I wasn't tolerating this from him. He knows better.

Once he calmed down, I turned him around and went the other way. He did pretty good, but still bucked when I asked him to lope. Sigh Old Man. After I was done lunging him (and my arm/fingers hurting because he pulled quite good in his bucks), I brought him back to the cross ties, brushed him down and let him cool off a bit before kicking him outside. I guess I have to find other ways of getting him into shape....

The sweaty mess after our "work out"