Three in a Row

 Last year, I rode twice. I intended to ride more than that, but I blinked. Next thing I knew, the spring was over, summer was over, and we were headed into fall. I rode twice, blinked again, and now we're in a whole new year. How does that even happen?

As of last Sunday, I've officially ridden Skeets more than I did last year (and the year before).

L.E. and I took the girls for a walk around the back yard on the 1st. Probably not Skeeter's favorite way to spend her birthday, but she did it anyway. Back in September, she was so, so chonky that I had to let out all of her tack. We switched to an "extreme" slow feed net from Hay Chix, but I hadn't done any work with her since. I was pleasantly surprised when I tacked her up for her birthday ride - I had to size down the tack a bit. Not a lot, but enough to know that the new hay net is working.

She tolerated the forced kisses.

L.E. and me with the girls, post-ride.

I didn't take any pictures during the ride because I had gotten a new phone and was waiting on a case for it. With my luck, I would have pulled it out and dropped it.

Two days later, the weather was cooperative, so L.E. and I took the girls out again for a quick stroll around the back yard. Skeets has some opinions about riding, and I can't quite understand what she's trying to tell me yet, but hopefully we'll get it figured out soon. She'll go nicely around the yard for a while, then grab the bit and "take off" either west toward our neighbor's or south toward the pen. And by "take off", I mean quickly trot. She's a lazy girl at heart.

A between the ear pic.

Yay! Up on my horse!

For the second ride, I'd just finished painting part of Maggie's walls and was covered in paint, but I didn't want to go change, so I hopped on in my paint-splattered leggings and tennis shoes. I do not have a roughout seat in my saddle, so between having slick leggings on a slick saddle, I got a lot of practice paying attention to my core.

And, last Sunday, after Mom and I finished up in Maggie, we joined L.E. for another little ride. Washoe's back is ouchy, and we're waiting on the chiropractor, so Mom didn't throw his saddle, she chose to hop up bareback for a short ride around the yard and up the farm road the tiniest bit. A little exercise is good to keep him moving, and he was perfect. I've long called him the Wonder Idiot, but he takes really good care of Mom.

I swear, Pearl knew I wanted a picture of both horses and
deliberately kept trying to block my view of Washoe. Can
you see how pleased she looks that I just moved to get the picture?

The sun glinting off L.E.'s stirrups makes it look like
there are floating orbs around her.

I had to get supper started, so Mom and L.E. got to ride longer than I did. I did eventually get out to join them. Mom rode just a few more minutes on Washoe, then traded him out for Big Al.

I love her derp ears. They make me giggle.

Mom worked with Al at the mounting block, leaning across
from both sides. Also, I love the sun dog in this picture.

After playing at the mounting block, they went for a quick
walk to gather some leftover corn cobs.

Mom chose not to swing a leg over Alloy because he was too focused on what the mares were doing, and was completely ignoring her. Maybe as we do this more often, he'll relax and not care so much what we're doing so he can focus on Mom.

Skeets did have a bit of a temper tantrum and tried "taking off", but it didn't work any better than it had the last couple of times. There are times when I do wish I could read her mind. She's trying to tell me something, but I'm too dumb to figure it out. We'll get there eventually.

Happy Birthday to the Wild Ones!

January 1st is the "official" birthday for racehorses, and we've adopted it as the mustangs' birthdays as well since we don't have any actual dates of birth for them. 

Their birthday morning stated off pretty rough, if you were to ask them. Which no one did. Ask them, I mean, but they started screaming bloody murder about 7:30 this morning, alerting the whole neighborhood that they were being neglected. They were starving to death and even dragged the feeder over to the gate to prove to us that it was (mostly) empty.

There were still a few bites of hay in there, but they knew they would need that so they wouldn't actually perish of starvation while Jay and I put the new bale out.

Do you see how neglected they are? Skin and bones, the lot of them. 

We were forgiven once the new bale was put out, even if it took us far too long in their opinion. 

Once they had a few hours on the new bale, L.E. and I pulled the girls for a little afternoon ride in the backyard. Skeets wasn't thrilled, but I was. She's lost some weight, and I had to do some adjusting of her tack. The new "extreme slow feed" hay net is doing its job. 

I didn't have any birthday carrots for them, so after our ride, Jay and I ran into town for a couple of errands and picked some up on the way home. 

They were appropriately appreciative, and would have eaten the whole bag of they'd been allowed to. 

Overall, I think they had a pretty good birthday. (At least this year, I didn't make them wear party hats like I've done in the past!)

Merry Christmas from the Wild Ones!

 Last Saturday, I got really excited when I woke up to snow falling. In all of the years that we've done Christmas pictures with the horses, we've never had fresh snow on the ground.

However, Colorado was being Colorado, and within hours the snow was gone. Sunday, the day we chose to take our pictures, was gorgeous, bluebird sky, 50+ degrees, no wind. Absolutely perfect day for taking pictures, except for the lack of snow.

I crocheted the horses Christmas hats a couple of years ago, but Miss Pearl and Copper kept shaking theirs off, so this year, I added strings to tie them under their throats. Those strings were magic - suddenly the horses thought the hats were part of their halters and weren't bothered in the least. Goofy horses.

I went on a Christmas hat crocheting binge this year, and made hats for all the cats in the family, then thought, why not?, and made one for Mary Kathryn, the hen.

Before the chaos of the horses started, we began picture taking with Mary Kathryn. She did not approve. 

L.E. and Mary Kathryn

She's the only hen I like and will touch. It
helps that she comes running to me when she
sees me. (I'm not special, she loves all humans.)

During our dress rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, she kept shaking it off, so I added a string to tie it under her 'chin' and behind her head thinking that would work. I had a plan - I was going to have L.E. put her down under the arch and get cute pictures while Mary Kathryn ran to me.

Here's the thing: Mary Kathryn has survived bobcat and hawk attacks. I don't know why I thought she wouldn't be able to outsmart the hat.

L.E. put her down, and Mary Kathryn said, "no, thank you".

Hen: 1, Humans: 0

Well, at least it was funny (to us, MK is still mad at me). The horses were next, and things went much better with them.

Copper just adores hims daddy.

Skeeter is a mare,
adoration isn't in her vocabulary.

The 'kids' look like teenagers dragged to
an event they don't want to go :D

L.E. and Miss Pearl (who
does not believe in posing
under the arch).

L.E. and Fred the Farm Dog

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Surprise Horse Cookies

(Cross-posted from It's a Horse Life.)

Two weekends ago was our annual Baking Weekend at the lodge. It's always a big to-do, and we always crank out a lot of cookies, but we've never made cookies for the horses before. The Friday of Baking Weekend, I had to drop Jay off at the airport on my way up to the lodge, and as I was driving, I drove right past the barn where my friend boards her horse. I looked at the facility and immediately thought, "we should make some horse cookies." Now, why I thought about it when driving by my friend's horse's barn and never while looking out the window at our own horses, I'll never know, but the idea took root.

I was running ahead of schedule, and hungry, so when I stopped to grab a bite to eat, I looked up horse cookie recipes that wouldn't require me to go to the store to buy more ingredients. There were a lot of yummy sounding ones, but the one I landed on was this one:

This seemed easy enough, and we had all of the ingredients, so up to the lodge I went with my additional project in mind.

Luckily, I got up there before everyone else, so Mom and I had undisturbed mother/daughter time to whip out these treats for the horses. They came together very easily and quickly. 

I quickly wrote down the recipe on a white board so we didn't have to keep going back and forth to the video. In the video, she said to bake them at 315*F, which Mom and I decided had to be a mistake, so we baked ours at 350*F. Very quickly, we smelled burning molasses, and turned the oven down. If you chose to make them, follow the video's directions.

We dug through our cookie cutters and found a cowboy boot, cowboy hat, and a horse to use. Not that the horses care about the shapes of their cookies, but they made us smile. We chose to leave them unfrosted, as none of our horses need the extra sugar, and we didn't want to bother with the mess.

I did taste one, just because, and it's not horrible to my human pallet, but not great. The horses, however, greatly disagree and think they're about the best cookies on the planet. Washoe and Alloy got the first taste of the cookies after they loaded into their horse uber, but the rest had to wait until they'd finished with their Christmas pictures yesterday.

This is a simple and easy recipe to make, and the horses give them four hooves up.

L.E. and Miss Pearl

Yesterday, when I pulled into the driveway, I saw L.E. and Pearl out riding in the backyard and it took my breath away, it was so beautiful. She had just passed by the no-watermelon arch as I pulled in, and they were perfectly framed.

Instead of continuing on to my parking space, I threw my car in park, jumped out, and got all bossy, telling her to do it again! I was hoping I'd be able to take a couple of pictures. I am by no means a photographer, but I needed to take these pictures.

Almost...almost...

... got it ...

... just to be safe, I took another one.

L.E.'s safe space is across the street in the arena; riding outside of the arena causes her some anxiety, so she's been working hard on getting comfortable riding in the backyard. Riding at home isn't new to her, we've done it together for a few years, but it's not comfortable for her. It's funny, because anywhere outside of the arena is where Skeeter and I feel best, and we feel confined within the fence of the arena. L.E. and I are opposite in that way, but because we're opposite, I know what a big deal it is for her to ride solo in the yard.

Eventually, we'll be riding the farm roads. L.E. might never want to ride the mountain trails with us, but it'll be fun to hack out on the farm roads.

And, just because I love the pictures, here are a couple more.

I cropped it a bit closer, to remove the buildings and focus on L.E.

Then L.E. cropped it even more,
and the finished product is incredible.

I'm Not Sure I Deserve Skeeter

It's been two weeks since I've had a chance to climb back up on Skeeter. (As I typed that, it sounded like I was going to confession - ha!)

Maybe I needed the almost two years without riding to appreciate what a gem of a mare I have. I mean, she's still pushy on the ground, and opinionated, but she really is a special horse and I'm glad she chose me all those years ago.

She eagerly met me at the gate when I called her, and remembered her manners as we were leaving the pen. Last time, she got in big trouble for trying to push past me instead of waiting until she was asked to follow. We did have a bit of a discussion about approaching the hitch rail. She prefers to be tied to Pearl's hitch rail, because then she cleans up everything Pearl has dropped out of her bowl. When we walk by Pearl's rail and head to our own, she gets sad and stubborn. It didn't take too much to remind her that she needed to walk up nicely to her own hitch rail, but it's definitely something we'll have to work through.

She stood like a rock star while getting groomed and saddled. Which, she should, being an old broke horse, but we're out of practice.

She still doesn't like the mounting block, and prefers me to mount from the ground, but until she loses some weight and I gain some flexibility, that's not going to happen. I'm super thankful for all of my Estes training, though, since Skeets likes to walk off as I mount from the block. She doesn't when I mount from the ground. Do I know that I should dismount and keep at it until she stands still? Yes. Am I willing to invest the time in that right now? No. That's something that we'll work on when it's just the two of us, not when L.E. and Pearl are waiting on us. Yes, I know that makes me a "bad" owner/rider, but frankly, at this point, I'm picking my battles.

We only rode for about 15 minutes around the backyard, working on serpentines, figure eights around a tree and the mounting block, a few laps each direction. When she wanted to pick up a trot, I let her and kept her going a few more steps when she wanted to come back down to a walk. My body is remembering what it's like to be astride and I was much more relaxed this time. Still had to remind myself to breathe while posting, but that'll come back as well.

L.E. and Pearl

It's not a ride if I don't get a picture of her derp ears.

Our backyard has changed a lot in the past couple of years,
the horses don't seem to mind the changes.

The pallets that make up the walls of the greenhouse used
to be our bridge obstacles for the horses.

The ride was short and sweet, and I asked Skeeter to drop me off at the mounting block. I don't recall the last time I dismounted onto the mounting block, actually, I'm not sure I ever have. After a moment of confusion she stepped right up and allowed me to dismount without moving a muscle. It felt very weird (for both of us, I'm sure).

After our ride, I wanted to take her through the archway in front of the greenhouse. It's something I want to work on, because I want to take our Christmas pictures there and it didn't go so well last year. I had laid cardboard down to kill the weeds, and none of the horses liked walking on the slippery cardboard. This summer, I was able to get the flagstone put down and some creeping thyme planted, so it's more like real ground instead of cardboard ground.

L.E. was kind enough to take pictures for us, and I'm so thrilled with how well Skeets did walking through the arch.

You can see how thrilled she is. Willing,
but unimpressed.

Even less impressed with forced cuddles ...

"Ugh, Mom! A kiss?!"

"Are we done yet?"

Funny how she never balks when we're done riding, and we're headed back to her hitch rail to get undressed after a ride, isn't it?

Someone looks pretty proud
of herself, doesn't she?

"Don't forget my 'good girl' treat, Mom."

She's so out of shape that even the short time we rode, she lathered up between her legs and couldn't wait to throw herself on the ground for a good roll. We'll keep with the short rides for a bit, and gradually increase our time as her fitness improves. Now that we're both middle aged, it takes longer than it did when we were young 'uns.

I Finally Rode My Horse!

The last documentation I have of riding Skeeter was from November 13, 2023 at my neighbor's arena. I rode with the Bionic Cowgirl and L.E. I always take pictures of our rides for documentation, even though the pictures are basically always the same, and kind of boring. However, I'm glad I'm in the habit of it, so I could look back to see how long it's been since I rode.

671 DAYS!

That's almost two years. Holy cow, I feel bad about it. But you know what? I have the most amazing, pain in the ass mare you'll ever meet. I pulled her from the pen, did about five minutes worth of ground work (no longing - I don't believe in it for "getting the wiggles out") with her, to make sure she was paying attention to me, then saddled her up.

The saddle used to fit. It used to fit quite nicely. Almost two years ago. Now that she's been sitting and is chonky, her clothes don't fit at all. 

She is a big girl right now.

Unlike human clothes, though, just letting out the cinches a few notches, and loosening the breast collar, made her saddle wearable. Does it fit well enough for a two hour ride on the mountain? No. Does it fit well enough to piddle around the yard and the farm roads to get exercise to start getting the weight off? Yes. She stood like the well-broke horse she is while I adjusted everything. 

We did just a few more minutes of ground work while we waited on L.E. and Pearl to get home from their lesson. While we were waiting, I thought I'd get her bitted up. Y'all. The girl's face got fat! I had to let out the bridle by a hole on each side. I probably should have loosened her chin strap as well, but she did okay with it, and I'll double check it again next time we ride.

As usual, she gave me some attitude about wanting to use the mounting block. She much prefers me to mount from the ground. However, with her increased girth, the stirrups are about an inch too high for me to reach from the ground, not that they were ever easy for me to reach to begin with. After a few refusals at the mounting block, we got our poop in a group and I climbed on my horse for the first time in forever.

Obligatory between the ears pic.

L.E. was kind enough to take pictures of us.

Ignore the brimless helmet - my hell hat brim
came off and I haven't replaced it.

We rode for only about 10 - 15 minutes, but it was enough to get started. Enough to remind both myself and Skeeter that we can do this. It's hard for me to look back and see all of our great rides on the mountain, and then realize we're back here, not quite to square one, but close.

The plan is to ride at least once a week, now that gardening season is wrapping up. While I don't mind her going into winter a bit on the heavy side, this is extreme, and we've got to get some weight down before bad things start to happen.