Mom and Bill's Christmas Card Surprise

We have Mom and Bill's herd for a few days, and since we were going to take Christmas pictures with our horses, how hard could it be to do Christmas pictures with theirs?

Washoe the Wonder Idiot and Jesse were angels - they were easily caught and willing to play dress-up without a problem. Ranger Danger, on the other hand, well ... let's just say I got a lot of exercise trying to catch him. I might have given up a time or two, but there was no way I was going to get Christmas pictures of only two of their horses. If I couldn't get all three, then I wasn't going to do it. And, by God, Mom was going to get her Christmas pictures, so Ranger and I had to come to an understanding.

Eventually, he deigned to be caught and was a perfect gentleman for his 30 seconds of fame. Jerk.

I didn't know what to do with the pictures once we took them, so I decided that I'd make Mom and Bill some Christmas cards to send out. Now, this is risky, because I don't know if Mom has already sent out her cards. Just to be on the safe side, I didn't put the year on the cards in case she needs to hold them until next year. How's that for thinking?

Mom's herd wasn't super excited about having to play dress-up and pose for me. They do great for Mom and Bill, but I'm not really their human. There was no getting happy ears from them for the pictures. They stood nicely like I asked them to, but that was the extent of their cooperation. It was like taking pictures of sullen teenagers. But the pictures are done, and Mom's going to love this surprise, dammit.

Clockwise: Reba, Washoe, Ranger, Jesse, Humans

Christmas Card Win

Monday was an exercise in persistence. But we did manage to get enough decent pictures to assemble a card that makes us smile.

Clockwise: Pearl, Skeeter, Copper, Speed Racer, Gizmo, Pongo, Allie-bird, humans.

Maybe next year we'll be able to get a group photo.

Christmas Card Fails

It's been two years since Jay and I attempted a Christmas card with all the critters, so I decided this was the year. It was going to happen. In my mind, I could picture it - the horses all standing nicely in their American Mustang halters and their Christmas scarves, lined up behind us, and Allie-bird sitting nicely on the ground in front of us. It was going to be perfect.

However, I've been around animals enough to know that what I want to happen and what actually happens are two different things, so I had a back-up plan.

After I decided to make the horses scarves, I decided that we were going to get pictures of the cats too and made them scarves. They were Not Thrilled.

I set up a mini photo studio (read: red fleece draped over a chair that I could plunk the cats down on to snap a quick picture) and started chasing them down.

Pongo was after the treats and didn't want to sit still.

Gizmo has a demon inside her, I think.

Speed Racer is going to kill me in my sleep.

Eventually, I did get pictures of the cats that are usable, not perfect, but usable. I turned my focus to making the horses' scarves. I wasn't sure how long they needed to be, so I took my first attempt out to try on Skeeter.

It wasn't nearly long enough and she tried to eat it.

I doubled the length, added some fake snow stuff to the ends and tried again.

This time, both Skeeter and Pearl tried to eat it.

I realized that we had a big storm coming in, so my window for getting the "perfect" pictures was closing. Jay was off today (Monday), so I took a personal day so we could get the pictures done. I expected it would take an hour.

It took three.

Instead of the perfect card I had imagined, we ended up having to go with our back-up plan of individual pictures of each horse. The wind was kicking up and we've gone one heck of a winter storm moving in, which made the horses a bit full of themselves.

Miss "Cranky butt" Pearl

Skeeter "the Goofball" Bang

Copper "I don't wanna" Casanova

I was not kidding when I said it took three hours to get the pictures of the horses. The girls were fairly easy to catch, but Mr. Copper was a turd. It took lots of work to get him caught. Lots of work.

We finished with the horses and ran into the house to change into not-horse-snotted clothes. The wind was really kicking up by then and our window of opportunity was closing very, very fast.

Pongo the photobomber and Allie-bird just wouldn't cooperate.

Eventually, though, we did come up with picture of all of us that we could use to make a passable Christmas card.

The thing is, I kinda wish we'd used all the outtakes for our card - they are a much more realistic view into our world.

Adventures in Christmas Cards

Oh my.

I had the perfect Christmas card composed in my head.  Jay and I each with our well-mannered horses with Allie-bird sitting calmly between us.  Each of the horses were going to calmly stay in place and were going to set up for their pictures like pros.  They weren't even going to mind wearing their Christmas colors.

We spent some time a couple of weeks ago getting them used to their Christmas clothes.

I should have known that it wasn't going to go as planned when Skeeter pulled her clothes off the fence and proceeded to shred them.  I think she liked the sound of the material tearing, because she kept doing it.

I didn't like how not-Christmas-y Skeeter's blue halter looked, so I changed to a purple flat nylon halter.  Have I ever worked her in a flat halter?  No, but she's got good ground manners, right?  She's solid, I shouldn't need the reinforcement of the knots on the rope halter, right?

Jay got the camera all set up and it was show time!

After trying to get Skeeter (the damn mare) to line up nicely, I said screw it, let's just do pictures one at a time.

Since Copper was being a good boy and was already in position, he and Jay went first.

Then Skeeter and I took our turn.  Lord is that girl food-driven.

Skeeter needs some serious work; she hasn't been worked in a few weeks.  Her ground manners in the pen are amazing.  Once we leave the pen, it's like her brain falls out her butt.

Sigh.

We said, screw it, let's just get our picture with Allie-bird and call it good.  We put the horses away, threw their hay and got ready to take pictures with the dog.  As soon as we got ready to take the pictures, over came the horses, like, "whatcha doin'?"  Skeeter even kicked the fence to remind us she was there.

Estee's Christmas Present

Mom and Bill got me, well, Estes, a new headstall for Christmas.  It's beautiful; the perfect balance between tough girl and pretty.  It's got bling in the form of BBs, not flashy stones.  And the leather is not dainty; it's good, sturdy leather.

I've been using Ashinator's headstall when I can get away with it (she keeps catching me at it, darn it!) and it's obvious that Estes prefers that one over her own.  Since she's so light and doesn't try to rub off her bridle, I don't feel the need to use a traditional bridle with her.

She's currently in a pasture that is fairly easy to reach, so when I go up to the lodge on Wednesday, I have every intention of trying out her Christmas present, even if it's only a quick trip around the fence line and through the trees.

Pictures in a few days...

Merry Christmas!

Love and hugs from Queen Estes and GunDiva