This week I decided that since the fencing was well in hand I would not work on it every day, and so have more time to work on other projects and also more time to play with and ride the ponies. It sort of worked.
The weather turned pretty hot, so I had to limit our sessions to morning and evening, and even ended up limiting my outdoor work a bit in the hottest hours. However, I managed to clean out half of the shed that JR repaired, start cleaning out my little "arena", and picked up a lot of glass and wire and nails from areas I want to start using. I also made some good progress on the fence the days I worked.
By the middle of the week the ponies were certainly looking better groomed, if nothing else. It seemed like everything I planned to do with them required me to prepare an area to do it in - hence the work on the arena and cleaning of some areas. I did wonder a few times whether this was partly me playing approach and retreat with the whole idea of doing stuff with them again. However. by the end of the week it was getting easier. It only left us a little time to actually play, though.
Today was much cooler so I made sure that I had a good play session with each of them. I think we're all a little rusty and getting back into it. However, Iona seems very up for being ridden and really light. Bruce just loves to be doing things, so he's happy. The other day, I was asking Iona to put her back feet on a piece of plywood that was lying in the yard near where I had Bruce tied up. It was funny how involved he got in watching her, and when she got her feet on, he whickered for a treat, as if he'd done it!
I'm still feeding them a little hay, and it's a real trek out to different parts of the track to put it out. I try to put it somewhere different each time, to encourage them to use the whole thing. Today, for the first time, I managed to get organised to get Iona to help me with this. So after we'd played and they'd been fed I slung a couple of haynets on Iona and rode her bareback out to where I wanted to put the hay. She's done this kind of thing in the past, so she knows the job, but she was so busy trying to eat the hay that it was hard to get on and then to keep her going. I'm afraid I probably got my purpose a little before my principles, but I'm sure next time will go smoother.
Got there and let her go, and was putting the hay out when I looked up and saw Bruce going absolutely nuts, galloping around and leaping in the air. He'd headed into their grazing cell, and could now see the hay - and Iona enjoying it - quite close to him, but would need to go the long way round back to the track to actually get to it. So on my way back to the yard I thought I'd cut across to him and sort of direct him to the right gate. He was really high and sticking to me and prancing around. About that time here came Iona streaking around the track whinnying. She came charging into the cell, also leaping around and putting in lots of rears, so now we had the full blown Fell pony circus, with me, of course, encouraging them all I could. When Iona gets like this I can usually get her to rear if I just raise my hands in the air. Managed to do that, and even to give her a treat for it, so that was cool. I'm pretty sure at least one car went down road while we were at this, so no doubt we'll be getting famous in the neighborhood...
The weather turned pretty hot, so I had to limit our sessions to morning and evening, and even ended up limiting my outdoor work a bit in the hottest hours. However, I managed to clean out half of the shed that JR repaired, start cleaning out my little "arena", and picked up a lot of glass and wire and nails from areas I want to start using. I also made some good progress on the fence the days I worked.
By the middle of the week the ponies were certainly looking better groomed, if nothing else. It seemed like everything I planned to do with them required me to prepare an area to do it in - hence the work on the arena and cleaning of some areas. I did wonder a few times whether this was partly me playing approach and retreat with the whole idea of doing stuff with them again. However. by the end of the week it was getting easier. It only left us a little time to actually play, though.
Today was much cooler so I made sure that I had a good play session with each of them. I think we're all a little rusty and getting back into it. However, Iona seems very up for being ridden and really light. Bruce just loves to be doing things, so he's happy. The other day, I was asking Iona to put her back feet on a piece of plywood that was lying in the yard near where I had Bruce tied up. It was funny how involved he got in watching her, and when she got her feet on, he whickered for a treat, as if he'd done it!
I'm still feeding them a little hay, and it's a real trek out to different parts of the track to put it out. I try to put it somewhere different each time, to encourage them to use the whole thing. Today, for the first time, I managed to get organised to get Iona to help me with this. So after we'd played and they'd been fed I slung a couple of haynets on Iona and rode her bareback out to where I wanted to put the hay. She's done this kind of thing in the past, so she knows the job, but she was so busy trying to eat the hay that it was hard to get on and then to keep her going. I'm afraid I probably got my purpose a little before my principles, but I'm sure next time will go smoother.
Got there and let her go, and was putting the hay out when I looked up and saw Bruce going absolutely nuts, galloping around and leaping in the air. He'd headed into their grazing cell, and could now see the hay - and Iona enjoying it - quite close to him, but would need to go the long way round back to the track to actually get to it. So on my way back to the yard I thought I'd cut across to him and sort of direct him to the right gate. He was really high and sticking to me and prancing around. About that time here came Iona streaking around the track whinnying. She came charging into the cell, also leaping around and putting in lots of rears, so now we had the full blown Fell pony circus, with me, of course, encouraging them all I could. When Iona gets like this I can usually get her to rear if I just raise my hands in the air. Managed to do that, and even to give her a treat for it, so that was cool. I'm pretty sure at least one car went down road while we were at this, so no doubt we'll be getting famous in the neighborhood...
YEEHAA Kris and ponies. Spring Fever is here ;-)S
ReplyDeleteHa, can just imagine you standing there with Bruce and Iona doing their high jinks in the field and the neighbours thinking 'that looks kinda interesting!'
ReplyDeleteYep, would be great to pay you a visit when I'm at the ISC one day! :-)