The Scared Rabbit Club

So the horses got moved to a new grazing cell recently. I knew it was going to be an interesting one, because the last two cells they've been in have opened onto the feed/water area. They had to head east to get through those gates. This month, they have to head west, and trek along the track to get in for their feed. Bruce and Iona don't have any trouble with this - it's old hat. Hunter might remember to go west if he's feeling left brained that day. But then , it's not really in his interest to "remember". After all, why would he want to leave the grass and a couple of fairly unattached mares who can't read a map? Not to mention venturing down the very scary track!! Nope, his strategy the past few days has been to come through the gate (which I need to shut for the day) with the Fells and Journey (she's always up for a trip anywhere), then when I've almost got Ranger (who dawdles) and Dove (usually just to scared to move) out the gate, he runs back in, taking as many as he can with him. So I traipse back and forth with a halter or two collecting them all. 

If I'm lucky the whole herd can then be led/driven down the track to get their breakfast. Alternatively, Hunter may try to hold the others back and then there is a palaver where I have to backtrack and round them up again. Yesterday, I had a bit of a crackdown, so today they all followed me out of the cell like lambs. But every time I tried to go back up the track to shut the gate, they all turned with me and tried to run for it. Then I would turn, so they would turn. Good grief! In the end, I just walked them in, fed them, then zoomed out in a truck and shut the gate. 

Hunter seems to be going through all kinds of teenage rebellions now. Rounding up the other horses (not ponies!) if he can, and trying to take as many hostages as possible. It's a real pain sometimes when I'm trying to catch the two mares. They're scared of me because I might make them leave Hunter, which they're not supposed to do - you guessed it - according to Hunter! It's like Hunter has decided to form his own little Scared Rabbit Club, and if you're a horse you have to join, and he gets to be the president of the club. The Fells are a different story, of course. They find Hunter useful. If they're trying to move other horses, he will do their running around for them, like a teacher's pet. However, he also finds opportunities to organize Club boycotts of Fell pony planned outings. These are usually outings to go eat hay somewhere. I can't see this being a popular policy in the long term, however. Except maybe with the Fells, who then get to eat SEVEN haynets! And when I bring Hunter into the yard because we want to play with him, I can just see him thinking "That's my whole day ruined! I was gonna do stuff with the gang! This is awful!" Like a teenager who has to stay home on Saturday to write a term paper. 

However, on Sunday, I did invite his Hunterness to spend some time with me. He wasn't too impressed. I combed his mane, I put his bareback pad on. That's a ritual now. I still don't ride him much, but just in case! We went to the arena and worked on the FQ yields again. The facing forward thing wasn't as effective as last time, but probably still a good way to go. We moved on to circles. Lots of leaning on the rope and trying to escape sideways. Much more than he has done in a long time. I kept trying to reward any slack in the rope, but at the same time, was sticking to my guns that we would work on, or at least toward, a few canter laps. He just preferred to think about where the herd was, where he wished he was, and how truly unfair life was being to him! It wasn't long before we ended up in the round pen. I knew immediately that all that leaning on the line had been Left Brained, because as soon as we went into the pen, he stopped doing it. The pen is about 60 foot, so he had plenty of room to pull if he wanted to. I guess it just wasn't worth it anymore!

So we worked on a little Sideways. By now he was seriously sweating, as it was a hot day. He was also starting to act like a partner, and look rideable. Mark recently bought a mounting block, to make it easier to get on Ranger in the roundpen, so I pulled that in.

I've always been afraid that Hunter will just take off running with me and then I'll get tight, and it won't be a good experience for either of us. Our arena is huge. When Livia rode him, he did act green, but she was relaxed, had a ball, in fact, and Hunter did NOT run off with her. I was gonna follow up, but then I broke my wrist.

He is a really cool and talented horse, and now I am longing to do more with him. I always have this feeling that when I'm playing with him, and he's at the perfect point to get on, if only somebody was there to "help me" I would get on and do more. Often, nobody is around, but recently I have had somebody lead me around a couple of times. You know, it didn't help my nerves a bit!
 

I stood on the block and did a bunch of lateral flexion and stuff and hopped on. And just sat there for ages. Then I saw something that I thought might worry him, so I hopped off. Then I did a bunch more flexion and stuff and hopped on again, and just sat there. Finally, I got bored and asked him to walk. Then turn, did some indirect rein turns. Dang! I enjoyed it!

What I figured out was that I was (a) in too big a space before (b) didn't have the right height mounting block in the arena and, most importantly, (c) when you get on any horse you have to be "sure you're sure". That's actually much easier for me to do when nobody is around. I do the mental approach and retreat that I need to do, whereas I will push myself if I have somebody there, even if they are supposed to be helping me. Then I'm not confident enough when I get on. I'm hoping this will be the start of me and Hunter getting it together. It sure feels like it!

Secret Life of the Herd

This morning Dove was standing on the track, halfway up the drive, while the rest of the herd were eating in the grazing cell. "Poor thing," I thought. "I'd better go help her." So I grabbed a halter, with a plan to put her back in with Journey until the weather gets better. Of course, she was having none of it - didn't want to be caught. So I walked her back to the pasture, instead. Then I had a look at the tracks in the snow. It seemed like the whole herd had last been along that stretch in the early part of the night, but then Journey had ventured out for a drink of water in the morning and was simply stopping to eat weeds. Maybe she's not so helpless after all.

After breakfast I headed out to the pasture to bring them in for feed and to close the gate, with a plan to move them to the next grazing cell after they got their buckets. Bruce and Iona came easily, I shut the gate and took Hunter out next, but Dove was not up for it. Catching Game in a 10 acre field in 6 inches of snow. "Oh, boy!" An hour in, it wasn't getting much better. (I realised that I wasn't being entirely consistent with my body language and responses, though, which was a useful revelation that I'll come back to in a moment.) I stuck with it, and fortunately Mark saw my problem from where he was working and hatched a plan. He drove to the pasture gate and got out of his car, which kind of drew her that way. I'm sure she was looking for a change of pattern. (I know I was!) I helped her out the gate and we corralled the four of them in the feeding area. I was finally able to get her haltered in this smaller area. 

What I could see was that she was frightened of the other horses, particularly the Fells. I don't think she likes being in close quarters with them at feeding time. Naturally their energy is a little high. I have made sure that she gets to eat in safety, but there have probably been some skirmishes at the water tank. The best I could do was to make sure I kept her safe while she ate her feed. She relaxed quickly when she saw that I would defend her space, and that the others respect me. I hope I got some leadership points, but I expect that it will be tricky to catch her off and on for awhile. 

The new grazing cell gate opens almost directly onto the water and feeding area, so at least we won't have horses missing the gate when the herd leaves without them this month. Perhaps we can establish some more positive patterns.

Mark and I drove out on the track, to connect the temporary fence of the new cell to the main live fence. What a story the tracks in the snow told. It seems that the horses left the loafing shed while the storm was still blowing last night. They probably stopped off in the pasture for awhile, and then they headed on up the track! They went quite a ways along the north side, maybe to shelter from the north wind in some trees. They emptied two of their five haynets on the way back to the pasture in the morning, where they lay down in the snow and went to sleep. 

I was surprised at how much they had moved around. The track doesn't currently make a complete loop, as we've had to close a section. I have had the impression that they haven't been using the north part of the track at all. But last night's activity made me wonder whether they move around a lot more at night than we realise. Or was last night different because of the storm? We only know what they did last night because of their tracks in the snow. Hmmm.

So back to that revelation. I realised that my Catching Game was wavering between putting pressure on Zone 5 and retreating when I got two eyes, and just plain trying to catch the darn horse! OMG! When did that creep into my habits? Who knows! But I think I understand now why things got stuck with Journey, too. Wish me luck!

Just Smashing!

Tuesday, Dove got her feet trimmed. I had managed to pick them up a few times, and our trimmer, John Graves does a nice job with less-than-confident horses, so things went great. I decided that having passed this milestone, and now being pretty easy to catch, I'd introduce her to the herd and if all went well, turn her out. I put Bruce in the arena and took Dove in and led her around the perimeter to show her the fence. (We put a training wire, that looks just like the stuff on the track in Dove and Journey's pen a few days ago.) 

Once I let her go, Bruce tried to sniff her rear end, she made to kick him with one of those long hind legs, and he whirled around and squealed and double barreled her to let her know that's not advisable. With that out of the way, they totally lost interest in each other. I put two piles of hay on a tarp for them and they ate pretty well in close proximity until the hay ran low. Then Bruce started nipping her shoulder to move her off. 

While they had their lunch date I played a bit with Iona in the round pen. (I've missed using the round pen. It's been a calf hospital for ages, however, the calf is finally better and  been moved in with some buddies.) We worked on our Porcupine stuff, did a few successful changes of direction and transitions, and I hopped on for a brief bridleless session. It all went well, especially the circles and riding. I can pretty well fake having the stick in my right hand now, if I use it two handed or just drag it along. However, she was pretty light and I didn't need it much. I'm afraid that I still don't have much of a program about progressing with Bruce and Iona these days, other than getting better responses with the Porcupine Game, especially where their heads are concerned. I just mess around and do what I can. Liberty is the easiest, although Iona is not bad to ride. I try to keep the sessions short and not show them too much about what I can't do.


I then put Iona in the arena with the other two. She wasn't interested in Dove at all. Just wanted to stand by the gate with Bruce. Okay then! I spent just a couple minutes catching Dove, haltered her, and we all started down the track. I encouraged the Fells to walk in front and Dove and I followed. We stopped for a drink and then headed on out to the pasture. I let Dove graze on line for a little while then took the halter off. I hung out for a bit, then made sure that I could still catch her. That took maybe five minutes of persistence. She looked pretty relieved when I let her go again!

I had left Hunter in the pen next door to Journey for company. However, he didn't have to stay there long, as Mark arrived home with yet another new horse! This is a gelding that belongs to a workmate of Mark's. Mark has him on trial. He's a sort of "been there, done that" horse, and we've heard good things about him. However. I wasn't prepared for the great big guy who stepped off the trailer. Especially as Mark had forgotten to take a halter with him when he picked him up, so I said, "Oh, don't worry. Just open the trailer door a bit and I'll throw a rope over his neck." Well, here was this big bay, about 16hh, and about 12hh wide! Talk about stocky! He's actually built a little like Iona. Short legs and a really, really deep body. How kids barrel raced him I'll never know, but it must have been something to see. This fellow currently rejoices under the name of "Smash" (part of his registered name). I'm thinking something like "Ranger" might be nice. We'll let you know.

Journey
Most of Wednesday was taken up with picking up a load of hay, but with the round pen clear, I decided it was time to try and make some more progress with Journey. I'd love to be able to turn her out, but I'd also love to be able to catch her again, get her feet  trimmed, be able to deal with her (and maybe a foal) if she's pregnant, etc. On the way home we figured out how to create a corridor from her pen to the round pen, where we could open a gap in the panels to drive her in. That went smoothly and I started playing the Catching Game. I'm not surprised that she's proving a tough customer with this. and I wish I had some more Savvy Arrows. I ended up sending her around for ages. She would start to lock on to me, and would face me when I took the pressure off, but I couldn't get any forward steps. In the end I played things a little different and approached her. If she let me make a little progress (first, touch me, then let me touch her and make some progress through the zones) I'd back off. Not all these things at once, of course, but progressively. If she chose to leave, I'd send her out again. If not. we'd do a slow dance where I'd casually try to get back to Zone 5, then send her out. We had quite a long session, and she was a bit sweaty but I managed to get a little further past her withers than we had been so far. I didn't want to push her any harder as it was getting late and cold and I didn't want to stress her too much.


Today we had another session. I tried a few new things. One was backing into her space just as her Zone 5 went behind me on the circle. I watched Pat do that on the old Catching Game DVD. However, I think that scared her, so I quit. We also had a period when the whole thing took on a more playful feeling. I think that was great, but somewhere it dribbled away and I didn't really find it again. I also tried using a telescoping rod to touch her. It was a bit cumbersome and not quite long enough for the size of the pen, but I'll try it again in a smaller space. Toward the end of the session I'm pretty sure I approached too much and retreated too little. Darn!  I felt that I'd taught her to keep facing me but we weren't progressing much past that. I also discovered that she really doesn't want me on her left side, so I worked on that, and when she let me touch her a little there, we called it a day. Later, when I was doing chores in her pen, I noticed that she was obsessively facing me. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing.....


I also had short sessions with Bruce and Smash/Ranger today. Bruce and I mainly worked on Game 2 at Liberty. I could tell he would like to do more, but I didn't have a plan. At least the little bit we did went pretty well.


I managed to play the first four Games with the big guy. He's been a little pushy and disrespectful so far, so we defined my space. He went along with this, but I can tell he doesn't really believe me yet.  Surprisingly, his Porcupine and Driving was pretty good in all Zones. It's possible he's been played with a little in the past. I think his owners have flirted with PNH. Yo-yo was harder. He couldn't believe that Phase 1 or 2 meant anything. Perhaps my energy could have been clearer? Having given him a couple of BIG Phase 4s, I settled for some good steps at Phase 3.


It's amusing to have all these things that I can do with horses I hardly know. The first four Games one handed are pretty easy. So is most of the work with Journey. But at the same time, I can do so little with my "advanced" horses. At least the new guys are keeping me occupied. 


Snowstorm
A bit of a blizzard hit this afternoon, and they say we will have some really low temperatures for awhile. Because Bruce was in, the others hung around the yard area all day and didn't go get their hay. By the time Bruce was out the storm was coming, and he was not sure whether to take them out to the pasture or stay near the shed. I knew they were hungry and needed something in their bellies for the cold night. They got halfway up the drive and stood around eating weeds with the snow sticking to them. By dusk they were still there. I decided to put a bale in their shed and walked them to it. Dove isn't well integrated yet. She hangs back and Hunter bullies her a bit. I was worried that she wouldn't get into the shed or get any hay, so I offered to catch her, and would have let her wait the storm out with Journey, but she wasn't having it, and it was getting dark and I was frozen. I felt bad, as she's a bit thin. but she's lived out all her life and I know she'll be fine. If she's looking unhappy in the morning I'll catch her and give her some TLC.

Outsmarted

This afternoon I placed the tires out by the electric poles as planned. That part was straightforward, but let me just backtrack a little. What with the arm and everything, I got a little sloppy the past few months with the herd's grazing routine. The plan is that I get them out of the grazing cell first thing in the morning, and let them back in around sunset. Needless to say, there can be arguments some mornings, and sometimes they can also get a little spooked about something and not want to come through their gate and past certain areas. However, for a number of weeks we hit a nice routine and they were pretty much bringing themselves in. (They have to come in to drink.) Of course that just made me complacent, and so the rot set in.

This month, the grazing rotation brought them down near the house. That's great! Less walking and hassle to get them in, I thought. Especially in the winter weather. However, Bruce saw an opportunity and so started bringing them the short trip in to drink before we got up in the morning, and  taking them straight back out to the grass. Then with little further motivation to come in, they were difficult to round up. 

Bruce - 1
Kris - 0

A variation on that was that they would drink in shifts, and if they saw me coming to take the straggles out, the drinkers would run back in. 

Bruce - 2
Kris - 0

Then the gate became a very scary place, and it was like pulling teeth to get them in, even though they were so thirsty their tongues were hanging out.

As I only started the hay nets recently, and they were getting a lot of grass, they weren't really bothering to walk up and eat them most days, and I didn't always notice when the nets were finally emptied. The past week, though, I noticed that Bruce was bringing them in much better on the mornings when hay was available. While they were in drinking, we would zip out and close the gate, and they would wander up and get the hay.

Bruce - 2
Kris - 1

Later in the day, they would hang out at the loafing shed, or wander around the track looking for pickings of fallen leaves and stuff, basically waiting to see us head up to open the gate to the grass. Late in the afternoon, while they were focused  on the gate, I would put out hay for the next day. Perfect! Except, as I mentioned yesterday, Hunter wasn't getting to eat any. 

Late this afternoon I put out the tires, and the hay for tomorrow. An hour later when I went to open the gate I saw them already stuffing themselves on tomorrow's hay.  

Bruce - 3

Kris -1

I can guess that they will not be coming out of that grass willingly tomorrow morning. And I'll need to figure out a new routine. Probably put the hay out in the morning before I try to herd them out. I don't really mind. Being outsmarted by Bruce is one of the great pleasures of my life!

Game 1, Game 2 ...

Dove's progress

It only took a couple of minutes to get Dove haltered today. Out of curiosity, I tried just walking up to her. That wasn't welcome, so I started sending her around. Ha ha! That wasn't welcome either. I could hardly get her to trot. She was doing stuff like going along the fence and stopping at her water bucket and looking at me like "Can't go any further. This is in my way." At that point I did throw the line at her and get her to trot a couple of laps. Halter on! I think we could be looking at a serious LBI (Lazy and Bone Idle). Interesting, since her pedigree is full of winning race horses. We'll see.

Friendly game continued. I introduced the Carrot Stick. That was no problem. I doubt that she's ever seen a whip, so it was just a "thing" to her. Rubbed her all over. A few slightly iffy spots, but nothing dramatic. Got all four feet picked up. Good, as the trimmer's coming in a couple of days. Moved on to the Porcupine Game. Surprise, surprise - the rear end was light and the front end was heavy. I decided to see if I could make the right thing a little easier, by backing her up first, to lighten her front end, and then staying in rhythm while asking the front feet to move across. I learned this technique from Adrian Heinen, and have used it on more advanced horses, but never tried it on a horse just learning this. I think it did make it easier for her to move, although I'll still need to isolate it later. My idea was that if I make it easier for her to comply at this stage, she might have a more positive feeling about it. 

I fed her a bunch of treats and petted and scratched her and let her go. I can see her taking in these new experiences with amazement and starting to relax a little. It's nice to watch. I'm wondering  whether we might get as far as backing her a little if the weather holds for awhile. I know that if we don't do it soon, we will probably have a long wait while she is heavily pregnant and then looking after a foal. Something tells me not to go too slow with this horse, but we'll see!

Track adjustments

The other horses are now using a grazing cell which is close to the house, loafing shed and water, so in order to keep them moving I've been putting a bit of hay out on the track during the day. They don't really need it, but they do need motivation to move. I've mainly been hanging the nets on a convenient row of electric poles that run along the west side, however they are too far apart, and Hunter is not getting to eat any hay. The Fells go from pole to pole sharing a net while Hunter stands and politely watches them dine. He's just too dependent on them to go all the way to the next pole and eat by himself. It's not a great situation since of the three horses, Hunter is the only one who isn't fat. So today Mark and I collected a bunch of tires from the east side of the track (which we've had to close for awhile due to fencing issues) and tomorrow I'll place them near the poles, ready to have hay nets tied to them. I'll let you know how that works out. 

All the latest news

More weather, and mayhem.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks.The very cold spell threw up a few problems in the form of horses going nuts and destroying fences. Most of this seems to have been due to a change in the behaviour of the coyotes, coupled with moving the horses to a new grazing cell, which turned out the be Rabbit Central (and therefore Coyote Central) after the horses had destroyed the fence of the grazing cell we intended to keep them in until the end of December. We think that the extreme weather caused the coyotes to run in a big pack all together, and with all the rabbits it probably just got too frenetic for the horses, who bailed out of there without bothering to look for the open gate. All in all, we lost the best part of 1/2 mile of temporary fences, and some horses had to be kept in because of minor injuries while the rest got fed on the track for a few days. We now know that plastic poly posts don't cope well with extreme cold. They just shattered, so we will try replacing them with some new fiberglass step ins. Oh, yes. We're still learning....

After the incredibly cold spell we moved to a warm spell. They say today was the end of that - and it was spectacular. Around 57F. Somewhere in there we also had a morning of incredible fog that lifted to leave the most beautiful frost. I took a few picture while still in clogs and bathrobe. Thank goodness nobody was taking pictures of me!

Hunter's Successes

So once the weather warmed up I was keen to play and ride. I had a great session with Hunter in which we cracked not only 7 Games outside the trailer, but also managed to get the front feet consistently on a low pedestal. And he accepted me playing helecopter Friendly Games with the rope, too!! For some reason, the key to that seemed to be to do it first with the Carrot Stick and string. I find this a much easier tool to helecopter, and perhaps I was too awkward with the 22' line. If you've done this, you'll know that the line gets twisted after a number of revolutions, which means you need to pause and/or reverse directions. Also, I was able to be a little further away from him with the stick. Anyway, it was easy to transfer his confidence to the rope, once we had it with the stick.

We also worked on some circles on the 22' line for the first time. This seemed to bring out some nervousness about the herd being far away. Interesting, how moving the feet faster brings up his emotions, but then he doesn't turn into a horse who doesn't want to stop or disengage. He tends to stop before I ask. I ended up getting fairly firm to get 4 laps of trot, even though the trot he offered was fast and tense, he didn't maintain it.

Bruce

When it was Bruce's turn for a ride the other day, I thought I'd bring Iona along on line. I warmed them up a little in the roundpen. That went okay, and I didn't stay there too long. Then I hopped on Bruce and tried to do a few things with Iona in the arena. It wasn't great, but I decided I would just head out anyway. We had to go through a couple of awkward gates to get out to the pasture where I intended to ride. I was leading the two of them, and even getting through the gates and to the mounting block was a hassle. Iona kept giving me these meaningful looks. I got on the mounting block and they just would not cooperate. Finally, I got the message. Neither one of them wanted to do this. And, you know, I decided to take their advice. I popped Iona back out on the track and Bruce and I had a nice little ride. Even my ponies know that they need prior and proper preparation!

Iona

With the great weather, I especially wanted to set time aside to do things with Iona. She is still my closest partner, by far, and I love spending time with her. I have also been feeling very keen to progress with my Levels, recently, so I need to put in the time. As well as doing tasks and Patterns and things, we have been just going out riding around, checking fences and doing Point to Point, lots of transitions and stuff. I'm not sure that I am being particular enough, though, with myself or Iona. We are an undisciplined pair! However, although these rides usually start off with her saying "No way!" an awful lot, they usually finish much more harmoniously, so I must be doing something right. I think we are both getting bored just riding around the farm, but as a lot of the stuff at the start of the ride is herdbound behaviour, I don't know that heading down the road would be a great idea. Iona on roads is never that great an idea anyway! Come March, we are supposed to be getting riding access to our neighbour's zillion acre pasture. That will brighten things up for us!

Thursday I was well caught up on fence repairs and other jobs, so I had it set aside for a full day with Iona. I spent a lot of time the night before thinking about lightness and how important it is, and also about not getting too direct line about things, so I was really looking forward to our day. I was thinking about the importance of causing something to be the horse's idea vs causing the horse to just do something. However, while I was riding Bruce in with the herd in the morning something spooked him without warning (well, I didn't see the warnng LOL!) and I fell off. No big deal, I'm fine, but I twisted my knee a bit so it really hurt for a minute and I didn't stand straight back up. Just knelt on all fours saying a few choice words. To be fair, Bruce stopped dead, which was great, and stood there looking puzzled. Iona came straight over to see what was wrong and told the rest of the herd, and the darn dog who was jumping all over me, to stay back! She then wanted to walk with me, because I was limping a bit. Cash and Dakota looked at me the rest of the week like "Yeah, I was lame last week. It sucks."

We did manage to spend the whole afternoon together, although I have to say I enjoyed the ridden portion most! It was easier on my knee. That little clipper simulation task is one I have been avoiding, but I took one of Mark's electric shavers, and tried to play Friendly Game with it. Typical Iona, she was scared of it before I even turned it on. For once I decided not to come on too strong, so I turned it on and put in on the barrel where I lay my grooming box, and we played squeeze game and Almost-Touch-It (that's a new Pattern I invented) and finished on a good note. Hooray for the new not-so-direct-line me!

We went on out to the playground to work on our Figure 8s. I decided to change from our usual blocks of wood to a couple of barrels on their sides. Well, apparantly the barrels were for jumping! So that was interesting. And then she offered sideways over them. And then she offered to RUN AWAY!! I just hung in there, and eventually she managed to channel some of her silliness into actually doing Figure 8s with some reasonable drop to trot lead changes. We tried a little Weave, but I think I need to stop doing these two tasks back to back, as it always leads to her going "Sheesh! Not again!"

My next plan was Follow the Rail. I opted for the bareback pad, as she can get really tense and punchy sometimes when we are totally bareback, and stirrups were a no-no because of the knee. I have watched this segment on the Patterns DVD over and over. There is so much in it! To my amazement, we had an elegant and exuberant session. When did Iona decide that she can follow a rail without a million corrections? Why wasn't I told? It was fab! But we need to work on our right leads....   We finished up with a few Liberty tasks and both smiling.

In the bit

Fuelled by my success on Thursday, I decided to try riding in a bit on Sunday. Could I really be light enough? Would it really aid communication in some magical way? Only one way to find out. I chose the Jeremiah Watt snaffle and slobber straps with mecate reins. I haven't got my cradle bit organised onto a bridle yet. Iona wasn't overjoyed when she saw me get it out, but kind of relented and stuck her head through the reins. (Hmmm...was that want or make?) Our plan was simple. I had a backpack with lunch in it. We would ride along the path across the pasture, through the gate onto the track, then all the way around the track to where Mark was cutting wood. I'd leave the tack in his car, Iona could go back to her buddies, Mark and I would eat our sandwiches and then I'd help him for the afternoon. On the way, we'd do simple familiar things like transitions, direct and indirect rein turns, etc.

How'd it go? As usual, there was some complaining about going away from the herd. Lot's of refusing, a bit of bucking, blah, blah, blah. I was pleased to note that I am now able to deal with this stuff and stay out of her mouth, and we even had a nice canter once the tantrum was over. Got through the gate and onto the track. Now we were going toward the herd, so life was good. Lots of transitions, and most of them were really good. Except backup. She seemed to resent the bit. I was careful to use phases and only one rein at a time. It got a little better, but I wasn't impressed. In the hackamore her backup is usually great.

Of course once we passed the herd, she got sticky again. However, not as bad as I expected her to until we got up near Coyote Central. I decided to get off and walk for a bit, as I felt she was trying. Mounted up again and things went okay. Once or twice she thought about turning around. She can be very fast at this, and I know I caught her a little sharply with that bit. Interestingly, that kind of knocked that idea on the head. I saw her look of surprise. (And I didn't catch her that hard, you know, just wasn't as light as I would have liked.) That really set me thinking, though. I occasionally hear Linda Parelli mentioning the value of the snaffle bit for control. I have never liked that concept. Isn't this mechanics and maybe even intimidation? But then maybe it's better than a thousand pulling matches with the hackamore.

Anyway, I have decided to ride in the JW snaffle more often. Then once I can really see how it's working, I will change to the Cradle, and maybe I will be able to make some meaningful comparison. I will also keep using the hackamore about half the time. Just avoiding the questions is silly. I have no real experience to base my feeling on until I go out and seek the experience.

Anthropomorphic?

The day after I fell off Bruce, Mark took pity on me and drove me out to bring the horses out of the night grazing. That was great, but actually just upset the routine from the horses' point of view. Some of them never made it to the yard and I ended up taking feed buckets out in the truck and hunting them down. So I decided to get back to the routine. I also noticed that Bruce was avoiding me and looking quite down. Call me anthropomorphic, but that's sure what it looked like. I got them outof the grazing cell and stood on the mounting block. Usually, Bruce will come over and put his nose in the halter if I hold it out, but he just looked away and kept walking. No, I'd better not. I dropped you last time. But Iona walked straight over and lined up for me to hop on. Wow! The next day, I made a point of putting the halter on Bruce and riding him with lots of reassurance. He was sooo careful, especially when we got to the place where he had shied the other day. Call me anthropomorphic, but that's sure what it looked like to me!

State of the Track Report

Well, we've made it through Spring, Summer and most of Autumn on the track now, although it's only been fully open for a few weeks. It's certainly been an interesting journey and a major learning curve, so I think it's time to take stock. What have I learned? What's worked and what hasn't? Hmmmm.

Fencing

Figuring out what kind of fencing to use (that I could afford!) was a major challenge. Fortunately I had some fencing experience, particularly with electric fencing, and fortunately I actually like fencing work. It is 2 miles around my property, and I also fenced around the farmyard and up and down the drive, so that was about 2.5 miles of fence altogether. But the perimeter fence is barbed wire, not a good thing for horses, so I also had to run an offset hotwire along that, to keep them away from that hazard. I used plain aluminum wire and 6" plastic offset insulators for this. An insulator does occasionally get knocked off, but usually there is enough tension in the wire to avoid it touching the posts or barbed wire and causing a short.

Offset insulator

I used metal T posts and a product called IntelliRope along the drive and around the yard, as there are a lot of hazards in this area and I don't want any escapes. So far there has not been a single problem with this. IntelliRope seems to be a really good product, and pretty economical. I capped all the T posts with little rubber things so hopefully the horses won't impale themselves.

View looking up the drive

T post with plastic cap

For the main track fence I chose fiberglass rods, and a finer fence material called IntelliTwine. This has worked out pretty well, and to be honest, was about all I could afford, but the twine does get broken occasionally - sometimes by horses, sometimes by visiting deer. The rods were pretty awkward to drive in, especially where the ground was very hard in a few places. The little wire clips that carry the twine are a pain in the neck to put on, and frequently snag the twine or get pulled off, etc. I'm glad that I went ahead and cemented in good sized wooden posts at all the corners and bends, as if I decide to go to a heavier material like plain wire, later, they will be in place to take the strain. There are also quite a few T posts in the fence, as there is a gate leading to each of the 16 grazing cells in the interior, plus a few others for access. I used T posts at these gates and anywhere else a grazing cell run will be strained. These help to strengthen the fence quite a bit, and give more straining points when we have to make repairs.

Fibreglass post with wire clip and IntelliTwine

This corner was already rounded off, so I used two corner posts

Another shot of the same corner. You can see that this has created an interesting area for the horses, as well as space to turn larger vehicles.

A grazing cell gate.

Repairs and fence checking are a big part of our routine, but to me that is all part of having livestock, and fortunately it can be done from horseback (even minor repairs, sometimes) and to me, that's just fun. It gives the horses a job, too! However, I would suggest that anyone tracking a large area consider the increased convenience of being able to drive vehicles and tractors along their track. It has been extremely useful to us to be able to do this, and with our sandy soil it also helps to keep the track compacted.

Horse Health

This is not the first track I have had, but it is the first time I have lived on the tracked property, so I'm not sure that I am noticing dramatic changes in health or behaviour. The Fells have excellent feet anyway (as long as we don't get laminitis), so again it might be more dramatic for other horses. Their fitness is so-so. I have not had a great deal of time to ride them (particularly Bruce) and they are somewhat fat and lazy - however, everything is relative. They are not flabby, and I occasionally see them canter over a mile.  I have two horses boarded on the track, who were previously kept on a drylot and fed grass hay. They are noticeably more muscled now, and Dakota, who is usually hard to keep weight on in winter, is still looking great in mid-November.

We had an unusually good year for grass. Lots of rainfall, and lots of weeds, too. Of course, to a Fell pony, weeds are just another form of feed, anyway! I was pleasantly surprised at how much grass I actually had in the pasture by late summer, once I had mowed all the weeds. I'm sure that the rest the land got, due to the track, really helped with this.  Of course, all this grass has also contributed to the ponies' fat condition, and I think the best way to manage this will be to increase the horse population somewhat. We need to use caution, though, as we will probably have less rain/grass in most years.

Grazing Cells and Behaviour

This is the area where our track system differs from most. Call me old fashioned, but I actually believe that horses are meant to eat grass. Not rich, dairy cow grass, of course! But good high fiber "native" stuff, complete with weeds and interesting forbs. On our Colorado dryland pasture there is quite a bit of space between the clumps of grass, too!  I still need to do research into grass varieties and their carb levels in this area, but it will take time to track this information down, so I am following my instincts that what they are eating is okay, and so far so good.

I have divided the pasture into 16 grazing cells (so about 10 acres each) and we move them on a monthly basis. This does not mean that the entire pasture is cross fenced, though. We put up a temporary fence around the current cell each month. It can be done in a day, and although it's a bit of work, it leaves the rest of the pasture for riding, which is great! The grazing cell is opened in the evening and closed in the morning. During the day the horses live on the track. A big chunk of the track was originally a farm road, and on one side a county road, so not much grows there. Other areas have quite a bit of grass, though. I expect most of this will be killed off over time, as will a lot of the weeds in the fenceline.

It is probably due to the grazing that the horses don't move as much as I had hoped. However, it is also due to the grazing that I can afford to keep horses at all!! Now that the track is fully open, they are making at least one full circuit a day, with a bit of going back and forth thrown in. During the hot summer months, they got into a routine of simply coming in from the grazing in the morning, and spending the best part of the day in the loafing shed. I found this really interesting, as we are always told that horses are trickle feeders who shouldn't go without a snack for more than a few hours. Yet they were voluntarily going for 8+ hours without eating, even though there was food available on the track. I'm hoping, however, that they will not do this next summer. The area of the track that we recently opened has quite a bit of shade, so that may give them an alternative.

There will probably come a time when some hay will need to be fed on track, at least during the winter. I have created some places to hang small holed hay nets, such as on a row of electric poles. My aim is to create lots of places to hang nets, so that they keep moving to get the hay, and hopefully the active hay stations can be changed from day to day. I hope that I can situate them at a height where I can hang the nets up from horseback. However, I'm not sure how that will work out if the horse I am riding, laden with haynets, is being followed by a hungry crowd! Maybe I will just collect the empties this way!

A simple haynet hanger on an electric pole.

Luckily I have a row of these along one side of the track!

It has been an interesting exercise getting the herd off the grazing cells in the morning, along the track and into the yard for their bucket feed. I believe that they will pick up more of a routine in time, but it has been time consuming and required quite a bit of patience and a good sense of humour on my part so far. The routine I am trying to achieve is simply that they come off the grazing in the morning, the gate is shut, they are fed near the water trough and spend the rest of the day on the track. What could possibly go wrong?

Sometimes it has gone well. In the summer, they were usually thirsty in the morning, and often came in to drink, then got fed. I nipped out and shut the gate and everybody was happy. Some variations on this are:

-  I go out to get them. Sometimes they come quietly, and if I'm lucky I even get to ride one back to the yard. That's especailly welcome right now, as the grazing they are currently on is at the opposite end of the property. I'd rather ride the mile or so than walk it!

- Other times they don't come so quietly and some horses will decide to run around. Usually not the ones I like to ride bareback. Unfortunatey, the ones I like to ride sometimes decide to leave without me if catching the others takes too long.

- They decide that the track is spooky, because it looks different due to frost, snow, wind, etc. They get stuck and need patient help to make it to the yard.

-  Some come in by themselves but the one or two they leave behind decide to panic and run up and down the fenceline of the grazing cell whinnying, seeming to completely forget where the gate is, or how the track works. Sometimes I have to go get them, sometimes a herd member will go back for them, sometimes they break the fence and make their own way. I get to fix the fence.

-  They come in really early in the morning, get their drink of water and hightail it back to the grazing cell. Or, they come in, I feed them, get to doing other things and forget to go shut the gate. Doh!

All these problems are exacerbated by the occasional arrival of a new horse or two. Probably, if I had a completely stable herd things would have settled down by now. Problems also tend to arise when they go to a new cell. Either because the gate is a long way from the previous one, or because the new grass is more interesting than water or bucket feed. It will be the end of next summer before we make it all the way around the pasture and begin to visit grazing cells for the second time. By that time, I would hope that the stable core members of the herd will begin to have a good influence on movement of the others and things will get a little easier.  I can already see that the herd leaders would prefer to keep everyone together.

What Next?
With a project this large, it is never really finished. It would be nice to vary the surface of the track. The first phase of this will probably be the addition of some road base or rock in areas that get muddy, such as the gateway we use for the car most frequently and the area around the water tank. As much of the track is compacted sand anyway, it is pretty abrasive already, so I don't feel the need to texture it a great deal for the sake of their feet.

We need to create more places to hang haynets by trimming back some dead trees, and perhaps putting in a few posts in places. I really like the idea of many, many different feeding stations to keep them moving. I also have plans to create some more play obstacles on some areas of the track. Hopefully these will add some interest for the horses in their living environment, too.

We are noticing that the bark on some of our elm trees on the track is being nibbled, so we may have to build some barriers around these. Elms are one of the few trees that will survive here without water, so they are precious - both for their shade in the hot months and because they break up our emply landscape a bit. 

The IntelliTwine will probably have to be replaced in the coming couple of years, too. However, we haven't yet decided whether the fibreglass posts will stay or not. It's a balancing act between cost, safety and practicality.  

Was it Worth It?
Absolutely! Dryland property like mine can get into terrible condition from overgrazing and erosion caused by horses feet. Even relatively large pastures tend to go downhill rapidly with only a few horses on them. Instead, I am seeing my pastures, which were previously overgrazed, improve dramatically. This will save me a lot of money on hay in the long run and probably allow us to run a few cattle, too.

All the fencing was hard work, but it is great to see the horses moving freely and enjoying the whole length of the track. Not to mention quite a feeling of achievement.

TRACK OPEN!

Down the Drive

(Sorry about the awful hat!)

That's right! We've finally done it. Yesterday we got the track fully open. It's that simple really and there's not much to write, except that I am sooooo happy that it's done. Not just in the sense of not having to work on it, but happy for the horses, that they will now be able to go all the way around without finding a dead end. Of course there are many improvements that I want to make, and with so much fencing, constant checking and upkeep is required.

Linda with Dakota and Hunter

So yesterday Linda and I took the four of the down the drive and showed them that they could now get through to go along the front going east. Of course, they didn't really know why we were taking them that way in the middle of the afternoon, but they were pretty impressed with the amount of grass they found along the way. Then we walked them up the east side where all the brush and dead trees are. (This area is wide, as further up I want to create a second playground to take advantage of a bit of a bank that has some landscaping potential for drop jumps, etc.) Then the track narrows and continues to follow the old county road along the east side of the property. It was along here that the track has had to be blocked for so long to deny them access to the problem area from the northeast.

Turning the Corner into New Territory

Taking a Break to Check Things Out

Fells Checking the Grass Quality

Hunter Leads the Way

Hunter did a great job of being an enthusiastic four year old and led most of the way. He was the only one we didn't have on line, as I felt he would just get us all tangled and I knew he would come with the group. At one point he took off, a little excited and right-brained and so I lost Bruce and Iona. Predictably, the all stopped and grazed soon and order was restored.

Here We Go...

"I Now Declare this Track Open"

Once we got them unhaltered, we headed in for a celebratory dinner for everybody that has helped with this massive project over the past year. Linda, Sara, JR (Sorry you couldn't make it, Buddy! Hope you enjoyed the food I sent home with Sara.), Mark's boys Justin and Clay, and of course Mark.

I wondered where I would find the horses this morning. Maybe down on the new part of the track where there is lots of grass. But they were in their usual place in this month's grazing cell, which we are still only opening at night. They came in and ate their breakfast, and so far I haven't seen them using any new areas. I suspect they may need a little time and encouragement to break old habits. I'm sure the grass will help. I will keep you posted on developments.

Almost there...

I'm starting to get a little bit excited. It looks like we will get the last stretch of the track opened today or tomorrow! There were so many things that got in the way of that: trees that needed to be felled, tumbleweeds, mowing took precedence, I got sick, there was so much brush and weeds in the barbed wire fence that I couldn't run the hot wire, old fencing had to be hauled out and cut away by hand where trees had grown through it... However, there are just a couple of little jobs left. Hooray! Watch this space!

Some of the brushy mess waiting to be removed.

The black posts are part of a "safety fence" we put up to seperate this area from the track. The perimeter barbed wire lies behind the trees and brush - somewhere!!

That gray mass at the base of the trees is an accumulation of old tumbleweeds.

Midsummer

The New Me

Yesterday was the longest day of the year and I really missed Scotland. Sunrise here 5:30/sunset 8:20. Sunrise in Edinburgh 4:30/sunset 10pm. Just not fair! It's hotter here and I need that early/late daylight to play with horses in the cool! Still, I suppose if we had those extra hours of sunlight it might be even hotter here, so I guess maybe it's okay! According to the forecast earlier in the week, we were going to get out first day of 100F (38C), however we didn't. I don't mind waiting!

Don't know where the time went! It's been ages since I've written anything here. Let's see, what's been happening -

Linda's Horses

Coco and Albus headed home last week, but Linda decided to leave Dakota and Ducky here for awhile. They look pretty contented out there, so I think they would say it was a good decision. I am looking forward to having more opportunity to ride with Linda. We have had a couple of good sessions, recently working on things together. Linda has been working on her fluidity and I help where I can. One evening recently she rode Iona while I played with her. Iona was a real star, and by the end of the session they looked really harmonious in trot. Linda has promised to tell you all about this stuff from her own point of view in the comments section.

I'm wanting to work on my fluidity, too, particularly as regards riding different horses and feeling more confident with their movement. I've become very "specialised" to the way Iona moves, and I realised that most of my hang-ups about riding Bruce are to do with the way he moves. I know that if I stick with it, I will get used to him, but I have decided it would do me good to ride some other horses, too. It's a great opportunity to do that while D & D are here, as they are pretty trustworthy characters and I should be able to concentrate on fluidity quite a bit when riding them.

Weather, weeds and machinery

We've had unusually wet weather for this time of year. That means it rained about once a week for several weeks in a row. Some of the rains were pretty heavy and prolonged. I have to admit I really enjoyed it, as things stayed cool. The downside is that I now have huge weeds in my pastures. Huge numbers of huge weeds. Not good. The pastures aren't in great shape, anyway, but the grass is losing the race and the weeds are winning. Eek! (The upside is that the majority of weeds are kosha, so they are tasty and nutritious pony food.) It's got to be mowed. So, as of Saturday, I am a tractor owner. Don't picture me on a lovely shiny machine - my "new" tractor is almost as old as I am, but it runs, and I hope it will keep on doing that. My mower arrives tomorrow. It will make a change from fencing.

Midsummers Day

Hey! Where's Linda? We want our breakfast. The Fells are having theirs!

Yep!

Linda and I got together today to play and ride. We mostly played independently. The visitors yard is proving to be a handy second play area, and Linda helped me roll a couple of pedestals in there, as mine have been leaning against a wall "homeless" all this time. It didn't take long for Bruce and Iona to start climbing on them, even without any human input. How interesting! I choose Bruce for the day. He breezed through a bunch of L3 friendly game tasks (extreme friendly: check! flag: check! toothpick on neck: check!) What a cool dude!

Although we have had some nice sessions in smaller areas, Bruce has more fun and is more willing if he gets to go somewhere, so riding around the farm with Linda was perfect. We decided to go along the grazing track. The horses have been pretty well fed recently, and also staying in the loafing shed a lot to avoid the flies. As a result, they aren't using the full extent of the track. By taking Bruce and Ducky that way, Iona and Dakota were encouraged to follow, and see that I had opened up some more of the track recently - complete with fresh grazing. That worked out well, and it was kind of fun having them along for the trip. It also provided a few interesting moments where Linda had to defend her "herd of two" as Ducky is bottom in dominance and he got pushed around a little by Iona and Dakota. We really wished that we had brought a carrot stick. Oops!

Bruce and I got on well. However, once we got to the north side all the horses got a little high and jumpy. One of those Horse Eating Doves flew up, and Linda sat Ducky's response very well! I also was aware that a few days before, I had lost Bruce walking along that stretch on line. When we came to the little ditch (not even a jump) I got it into my head that he was going to take off as he crossed it, so I hopped off. I was really pleased that he never left me on line, as that is one of his habits. However. I created a pattern of lateral flexion, disengage the hindquarters, then eat a little grass, that he picked up on really well. Next time, I will just do that ridden, I imagine.

When we came to the current end of the track (still haven't made it quite all the way around) we discussed our options. Ride back; take the tack off and let them go, and pick the tack up with the truck later; or maybe cut across the farm. Linda chose to ride Ducky back to the yard on one of the cross trails. I felt Bruce had done enough, so I dumped his tack. This was a nice opportunity for Linda and Ducky to do a bit on their own - including a couple of gates.

After lunch, Linda and Ducky had another first, as we decided to lead him back to his pals behind the pickup. That went fine once he stopped trying to race the pickup!

Ready for takeoff!

This is what happened at the end of the track when I called the Fells...

Here they come!

Look out

Outta here!

You called?

Linda then offered to help me with a few chores (bless her!) in the now blistering heat. We did what we could, then retired to the cool of the house to watch a bit of the Freestyle Patterns DVD. Ooh! More carrot stick riding required, we decided!

Although we had missed Sara and JR's company (next time, for sure, Sara!) we did get to see them, as they invited us over for a barbecue. It was a fab evening, and Sara and JR are both great cooks! What a fine way to round off the day. My stomach has nearly returned to its normal size now...