A GREAT WEEKEND

What another beautiful weekend. Spent the week looking for toys for the Fix and Arse at the farm. They've been taking their feedtub and carrying it off to all different locations of their pen. Bought two equi balls. one is lime green and apple flavoured and the other is bright blue with no flavouring. Well threw both of them in and Eurus (Arse) started right away checking it out. Licked it, kicked at it, rolled it around and then finally grabbed the handle and tossed it. Well what fun. Then his buddy Phoenix (Fix) thought he would check it out. You could just tell by the look on his face that he was thinking, It's okay but I'm a stud and it's beneath me to play with such things. Of course, once we got the camera out, they both decided to ignore the balls completely. My family thought I was crazy, buying these but hey if it keeps him occupied and the feed tub stays stationery, then I think I got my monies worth. Worked with my filly, Arctic Frosted Pepsi, Peps for short. Just doing groundwork and getting her used to work again. Worked with her on givng to the bit, bending and moving away from pressure. She was so good, I still can't figure out what went wrong in October. My daughter Angela, (oakleydvm2012) will be getting on her hopefully when she is home for reading week the end of February and we'll see how she goes. Peps is so gentle and good natured, it's hard to imagine how or why things went south. Oh well if we could read their minds, we'd all be experts at talking horse.

On another subject, Sherry (fern valley o1) mentioned to me some time ago about a book one of her bloggers suggested she should read on the Ghost Wind Stallions, (history of the leopard appaloosa) After some lengthy searching on the internet, found a single copy, slightly used from a fellow in the states, only trouble was he doesn't ship to Canada. so long story short, I have a brother living in Texas whom I had the book sent to and he forwarded it to me. Well I had a slow day at the office on Friday and got so enthralled with this book, was late leaving for the day. It is an amazing story of both horse and man and the trials and hardships they faced. Need to do some more searching to see if this line of appaloosa still exists. The last two known stallions both died without knowing whether they produced true Ghost Wind offspring. If any one knows of these horses, let me know. There is a museum in Michigan, the Ghost Wind Museum that I am going to check out. C'ing spots appaloosas picture of Harley looks very close to some of the pictures in the book. Must contact her.

Didn't ride again this weekend as we were busy yesterday with helping with chores etc; got a wonderful bath of trouth water mixed with sludge, but hey its only water and when I showed up today, both Sherry and Martin were off helping with a calving that went wrong so just worked my filly. Saw Blue and his buddies though and gave them cookies.

The rest of my life (other than my family) is too complex, aggrevating and not worth talking about and it is so nice to have my horses to recharge my batteries and make everything else barable.

I'M NOT TOO OLD

Remember my last blog, I was a little hesitant and apprehensive about getting back on my horse after my fall in October. The weekend was awesome, my daughter was home from Saskatoon for the weekend. Although the conditions were somewhat icy, she was going to ride in the arena for a little bit. I brought my gelding Blue in just to hang out with him and before I knew it, I said, I'm going to ride with you. Saddled him up and Sherry walked him down to the pasture for me as the road was quite slippery. My stomach was just churning and I thought for sure I was going to be sick. Angela offered to get on Blue for me first and he was just awesome. So I grabbed the reins, took hold of the saddle horn and stepped up into the stirrup. this is no small feat. Blue is close to 16 hnds and I am fairly short and with my back I wasn't sure I'd be able to make. One try and I was up. He took two steps and I knew I was back, although Angela did remind me to breath. It felt fantastic. It's like I was never gone, it all came back and Blue was so good. We rode around the pasture and then headed down the road. Was out a total of 20 minutes, and if the conditions were better I probably would of gone longer. It's probably best that I didn't. I thank my daughter Angela and my best friend for standing by me and helping me to overcome my apprehention. And of Course my boy BLUE. He is the kind of horse that you can depend on and trust fully and I know that I can put anybody on him and he knows just how to be with everyone. I don't think I'll finish the training on my 4 year old Peps. Angela has offered to work this summer and possibly take her to school with her in the fall to get some miles and hours on her. She too is a sweat heart and I'm sure with time I will feel as comfortable on her as I do Blue.