Mmmmm, Her Highness is in T-r-o-u-b-l-e

Big, big trouble.

Apparently, today, Her Highness didn't feel like the hay I had in my hands; she wanted the beautiful spring grass and dandelions,thankyouverymuch. She executed one of her beautiful spins away from me and was out the gate, prancing along like she owned the world.

Ooooo...

I couldn't believe she pulled a stunt like that.  She usually hooks on as soon as I step into her pen and I don't think twice about the gate.  (Even if I'd wanted to shut the gate behind me, I couldn't have, I needed both hands for the hay and another two to pull the gate up out of the mud and close it.) 

I dropped her hay, marched to her little house, picked up her halter and headed out to get her.

I had visions of tromping all over the county road in my skirt with her halter and lead rope, but when I came out of the house, she had planted herself right in the middle of a dandelion patch.  Then I heard a truck tearing down the county road and all I could think of was, "please don't spook, please don't spook".  But, oh, no, Her Highness couldn't be bothered by something as mundane as a big ole pickup truck barreling down on her at 40+ mph.  She didn't even flick an ear when the truck blew by just a few feet from where she was eating.

As I was walking through the gate, a car came down the farm road (at a much slower pace) and passed right behind her.  Again, she didn't care.

Nor did she care when I walked right up to her and slipped her halter over her head.

But she *did* care when she got popped in the nose with the lead rope for trying to dive back into the grass on our way back into her pen.  Twice she cared, then she remembered her manners.

She also cared a great deal when she got tied up while I finished moving her hay from where I dropped it to where it was supposed to go.

She might be the Queen, but I'm the one with opposable thumbs and she'd do well to remember that.

First Ride of the Year

The snow finally melted for a couple of days and both Estes and I needed to move.  But the mud was gross enough that I didn't want to try to run in it - I was afraid I would have fallen right underneath her.

I had to use a step stool for a mounting block, I was still almost too short.

I think Buck wanted to go too

The green was very tempting for Her Highness

So tempting that she had to walk in the road until she could remember her manners.

The wind picked up and it got a little chilly on the way back.

AFTER the ride, she was allowed to graze.  She looks like she's in Heaven.

It was a very short first ride, but it felt really good.  We've got snow coming in again tomorrow, so it'll be a few days before we can venture out of the pen.

Darn it.

Snow Day

We've had some weird-ass weather here lately.  The weathermen have been crying wolf almost every weekend.  Seriously, we've been on Winter Weather Advisory more this month than all winter long.  This morning, without any weathermen telling us the Blizzard of the Century was coming, we woke up to snow.  Beautiful, heavy, wet spring snow.

This is the kind of snow we've been expecting with each Advisory.  This time, no warning, just a mention that we had a slight chance of snow.  We've had eight inches throughout the day and it's still snowing.

Yesterday, just on the off chance that we'd get more than just a smidge of snow, I threw an entire bale for Her Highness.  I found that if I put the bale in her stall, she would stand at the door and eat off of it.  She still won't go into the stall, but she'll eat her hay from the doorway.  Crazy girl.

It wouldn't kill her to do a day without oats, but I wanted to check on her, so Ripley and I battled our way down the dirt county road to check on her.

Hanging out by her house.

Oh, okay, I'll grant you an audience.

Hi Mom!

There were no tracks in the pen, so she had been standing by her house, just hanging out enjoying the snow.  It wasn't cold and blowing, just gently falling and she looked so peaceful.

Mom, the oats go out there, not in the scary stall.

Right here.  This is where they go.

What?  Just put the oats already.

Yum.

Thanks Mom.

No, I did not clean out the oat box - it had no snow in it.  Beel says it didn't dare snow in her oat box.  That's possible.

My Four-legged Personal Trainer

Her Highness has decided she *likes* going for runs and meets me at the gate with a hopeful look every time I drive in.  Or maybe she just thinks she's going to get some oats.

I can't really chalk it up to the oats, because I just started her on them.  So it is definitely that she likes running.  I now have to lock the gate when I go into her pen, because she thinks once I'm there it's time to go.  The crazy thing is that we've only been out running three times.

Late this morning, I went over, fed her, scooped her poop and told her I'd be back for our run.  She looked at me like I was betraying her.  It didn't matter that I spent an hour in her pen, cleaning up after her and loving on her - I was leaving without taking her for her run.  You think a dog can make you feel guilty?  Try those big beautiful eyes.

Not a current picture, but I got the same cranky look.

She looked at me like I was lying to her when I said I'd be back later to take her running.  I didn't want to take her right after she'd finished eating, so I went home and took a nap.

When I got back, I grabbed her halter and curry comb.  I threw her halter on the ground in front of her so I could work on her nasty shedding with the curry and that little brat tried to halter herself.  She pushed and pushed the halter around with her nose until she had her nose in the nose band.  She wouldn't leave it alone until I haltered her.  Once I haltered her, she stood ground tied while I finished currying her.  It's like she didn't believe that we were actually going running until she was "dressed".  I have curried her recently without her halter on and then left, so maybe in her little mind, the halter was sealing the deal that we really were going to leave the pen.

She's so good when we go out on our "runs", which currently are intervals that are more walking than running.  She stays right at my shoulder and has quit swerving into me and lets me set the pace.  I was in a flat-out run on a couple of our intervals and she just trotted along happily, later in our program, when I was tired, I slowed down to a job and she just followed suit.

I'm trying to figure out how to get pics of us running together, but it's all I can do to breathe when we're running - I'm not sure I can breathe, run, AND take a picture.

We are having a good time, though, and I have a much harder time bailing on her, so this running thing might actually take this time around.

Running With My 800# Dog

When I told Jay that I was going to start Ease Into 5K again and do it with Her Highness, he looked at me like I was crazy and informed me I couldn't just run with a horse like a dog.

What?!

Who says?

So yesterday morning, I slipped on my sweats and shoes, put Her Highness in her halter and headed out.  And you know what?  It was so much easier to take Estes for a run than ANY of the dogs I've ever taken out for a walk.

She kept right at my shoulder the whole time.  Occasionally, I had to push her away from my shoulder because she would drift into me, but she really was easier to run with than any dog I've ever dealt with.

She also pushed me a bit on the run portion of the intervals.  Not that she dragged me or put any pressure at all on the lead rope; I just had to move my feet faster than a slow jog to keep up with her easy trot.  That's good for me, because I can do the world's slowest jog - barely faster than a quick walk.

Anyway, it was so much fun that I'm actually looking forward to doing it again tomorrow, and I can't remember the last time (if ever) I've said that about running.

Settled In

24 hours in and yes, I'm loving having Her Highness here.

I got up this morning to a text from her Landlord that she was doing great, so I waited to go over until I was on my way to Easter dinner at Nebalee's house.  That gave me time to finish baking the cupcakes and making the jalapeno poppers without being rushed.

I pulled up and saw her sleeping in the yard, enjoying the sun.

I think she might be part cat - give her a sunbeam and it's nap time.

She roused herself enough when I got to the gate to escort me to the back fence.  It was obvious she *had* to show me something.

"See them, Mom?"

There's a whole herd over there ignoring Her Highness.

She had introduced herself quite loudly to the other horse on the property, but no matter how much she hollered, those darn horses across the road would not respond to her.  She was not pleased and kept taking me back there like she was telling on them.

I checked her hay and water and told her I'd be back after dinner.  I kinda forgot to tell her than when I came back, it would be with Ivermectin.

First order of business when I got back was getting rid of as much hair as possible so she wouldn't look like a curly.  I'm fairly certain the birds will be thanking me once they get a look at the amount of hair I curried off of that girl.

It's harder to see here, but there's, like, half a horse on the ground.

I have a little "issue" with loose hair.  So as much as I love my girl, I HAD to wear gloves while grooming.  And I had to keep moving around so that the breeze would take the hair away from my mouth.  'Cause that's just gross.

Her hooves are long and were packed with God-knows-what; they need some serious work, but I think that if I work on them a little bit every day, they'll start looking better.  I'm still not super confident with hooves, but I am fairly certain that if I go in baby steps I won't screw her up too badly.  At first, I was thinking she was thrushy, but I think that what I saw was unshed sole.  I poked and prodded around her hooves and she doesn't seem tender.

After a good brushing, we took a quick walk around her new home.

Her pen - she loves all the new grass coming up.

The little house she thought she could follow me into yesterday.

The stall she won't go into without me.

This is Buck, he's on the other side of the property.

The farm road we'll be doing our Ease Into 5K training on.

Estes' New Apartment

Thank God for good friends.  When Mom called and told me that Estes needed to be moved ASAP, I called a friend who I know has some land and already has a horse on her property, thinking that maybe she would let me lease a spot for a month or so.  She agreed, but the next morning called me with what she thought would be a better place.

Turns out she has a friend who might have a better set-up for Estes and she wanted me to look at it.  My friend had remembered that Estes is getting up there in age and thought she might appreciate some formal shelter.

The place is perfect and beautiful and only about five minutes from our place.  For the first time since I've owned her, I'll be able to be with her every day.  I'm a lot excited about that.

Mom got directions to Estes' current pasture and we headed out to pick up my baby.

After traipsing through the cow pasture, we spotted the horses.  Estes saw us coming, she went on alert as soon as she heard us, but being Queen of Everything, she allowed us to cross the pasture to approach her.  We had assumed she'd be out there with the big herd, but it was just  Her Highness, Paint, and the Shetland-cross horse-type thing.

Paint was one of our livery string back way back when, so he's an old friend.  And I mean OLD, he's 27 if he's a day and he's lost an eye, which is kind of creepy, but he's still a sweetie.

Oh, I know you

Estee was perfectly happy to let me rub on her, but we had to go through the ritual of pretending to run away.

See how fast she's trying to get away?

Once she was certain I understood that she was still the Queen, oh about thirty seconds, she decided that she could come with me and practically haltered herself.

Ok, you may approach.

Does the Royal Purple still look good on me?

We spent a few minutes loving on Paint, who looks really good for his age, other than that eye thing.

The Shetland-cross horse-type thing is supposed to be Paint's companion animal.  I think that's another way of saying he/she/it is Paint's seeing eye dog.

Ok, so he/she/it's kinda cute.

The thing I *hate* about picking up Estes from winter pasture is all of the crying and going on when I lead her to the trailer.  This year was worse, because it was just the three of them and the cows and I'm pretty sure Paint doesn't count the half-horse as a herd member.  Paint bellowed and hollered and Estes bellowed and hollered and the little one tried, but it came out sounding more like a squeak.

It only took us about forty minutes to get to Her Highness' new place.  She's got a house in her pen.  Like, an actual two-room house, which is super cute.  She's also got a stall that I doubt she'll use, but I did take the time to show it to her.

That's for me?

I guess it might do.

I led her around the perimeter of her new place and turned her loose.  She was more than a little happy to start grazing on the new grass, while the Bionic Cowgirl and I unpacked all of her stuff.  "All of her stuff" was ten bales of hay and her bucket 'o supplies.  She's a light traveler.

Hop to it, Humans.

See that little building behind Estes?  That's the little two-room house I was talking about.  I opened the door to put her bucket inside and had to quickly shut the door.  While Her Highness wasn't overly excited about having her very own stall, she was certainly interested in claiming the house as hers.  Maybe I shouldn't have taught her to follow me through the Lodge, after all.

She hollered after us as we left, but when I went back this evening to check on her, she was quiet and grazing.  Mom and I had loaded up a couple of hay bags and I hung one on a post in the middle of the pen and one in the stall.  When I went to check on her tonight, she hadn't touched either bag of hay.  I took her a handful, which she ate, but then looked at me with disdain and went back to the new grass coming up.

She's got to put on some weight, so I'll be free-feeding as much hay as she'll take and start her on some Senior Feed this week.  I'm hoping to get some weight on her in the next four weeks.