Equinpilot: 300th Post: M.I.A

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

300th Post: M.I.A

Sorry, I have been missing in action. I am back to limited internet at home and with the nicer weather have been spending longer hours at the barn.
So what have you missed?

1. Rosemary turned 7yrs old on May 31st. Our beautiful girl looks so good this year. I am determined to get her better under saddle. With that I took her out to ride and we just flew through the fields. She needs to get comfortable with canter and that means doing it. Love this pony! She has been awesome to have in our barn.

Eating Mulberries

2. More barn drama which includes lying women, plus a quote from the "Good" boarder. "This is my barn and I should be able to open doors how I want. I don't even know why you use the run in shed since it connect to MY barn." Yep, she went there. All this over the fact we wanted the dutch door top to be closed if she kept hay near by where my horses could see and be tempted to break into the barn. While she insists she needs it open for ventilation. We compromised, the door is opened and she keeps the hay away. So over this crap :(

3. Roscoe and Comrade are signed up for the Eastern Regional Welsh show in Maryland on the 14th. Both are doing the breed classes and Comrade will be doing the Low Hunter jumping classes. Even though he can do higher, I am sticking with 18in. I have been raising the fences in training with some great results. Peggy will try to get him to Bobby for some training over fences too. That will be a bit since Bobby went to the Rolex earlier and now is at Bromont. Fingers crossed he ends better than at the Rolex. Anyway, today Mom set up an Oxer. The first time just a small X with a straight rail in front and a ground rail. Comrade looked but went over the first time. Next was a bigger double straight rail oxer. That resulted in the perfect jump. It felt effortless. Reminded me why I love jumping. Now I need to play with some courses before the show.

A cleaner Roscoe, looking chunky at this angle :)

4. Pictures, pictures and more pictures. When I get them I will totally share. My friend came and took pictures, with her fancy camera and lens that cost more than the camera, of the horses and dogs. I bathed Roscoe and put him in his show bridle. We did standing, moving and jumping shots of him. The little I saw on the viewer was awesome. Baby boy even surprised me by doing 2 jumps on a circle. Totally unplanned, but it worked. She also took shots of Rosemary as she moved around the turnout. At one point she even jumped the doggie pool. I am so excited. I can't wait for her to finish the editing.

5. Roscoe was supposed to get his wolf teeth pulled today. But the vet, unbeknownst to us, passed us onto an associate because he was out of town. So yesterday they said he would be late due to having to put a horse down. Then today we get a call saying the associate does not have the tools needed and can we reschedule for Saturday. Ugh! I took a vacation day from work. Well, I told Mom we had to do something special so the time was not wasted. I decided to let Roscoe me the driving drag. This is a PVC contraption that helps horses get used to having a noisy thing behind them and the stiffness of shafts. We harnessed him, minus blinkers and then led him while one of us pulled the drag. He followed, walked next to and in front of the drag with no problems. We rubbed and bumped him with the long shafts. In the end we were even able to put the shafts on either side of him and pull the drag behind him. No turning yet but straight was okay. He tried to swing his butt at times but always faced who was leading him. So proud of him. We think some of Rosemary's drag training while she was pregnant rubbed of on him.

Forelock braided and no Dentist coming

6. We got HAY!!! I feel so much better now that we have 200+ bales in the loft and have another 200+ on order. Tough part was stacking it on end so it could have good air flow since it came straight from the field. Of course the horses are whining after getting to clean up two busted new bales and then going back to the old stuff. Poor sad ponies.