I do realize that my blogging has been less than regular since kids camp, but if you where here you'd understand why; there is soooo much to do and at the end of the day the last thing I feel like doing is going down to the office through the dark and the rain (the weather is unbelievable) just to entertain you guys, but I do apologise!
Horse-yard drama; part 2
So a lot has happened since you last heard of the horses in the yard; Peckles and Quiz have since then made up again, when Quizes girlfriend was returned to her owner she gave in to Peckles' attempts to have her forgive him and things have never been better between those two. And shows have started coming frequently, so they are kept very busy and are away competing for several days in a row almost once a week.
This morning they were let out to have a graze a few hours before they were to be loaded into the truck to go away again; and looked oh so pleased running around for a while before settling down. But after a while they apparently had enough; and promptly jumped out over the gate (and its one high gate) and took of up the driveway and onto the highway and just kept going! Luckily though there were some other horses further down the road and as they stopped to talk to them T and his mate caught up in the truck and managed to grab them...
Back at the farm T asked me if the gate was ok, or had they cleared it entirely? When I told him they must have sailed over cause the gate was fine; I could almost see a hint of pride go over his face lol; Quiz and Peckles are showjumpers alright!
So as you have probably seen in my previous post; Minka finally had her foal! I came down one rainy (suprise) morning and there he was (though it took 4 days til we were sure it was a he cause his mummy didnt want us too close to him at first) and the lovely Minka chose to have her foal when Dee had a day off (hehehe!) so I got to see it first; its Dee's turn to name a horse though, (I got to name Tinuvíel so) and she's sure taking her time... But anyway, he's a cheeky little thing; we managed to get a mini-shetland headcollar on him the other day but it was slightly large so I made him another one...
Tinuvíel was put out the back with the trekers a couple of days but at one point when they were brought in she broke the fence (suprise) and landed (believe it or no) in the bitchiest and most evil mare's paddock. Those who witnessed it held their breaths as the horses went up to greet each other but amazingly Tinuvíel was not killed and the two actually get along, well, Tinuvíel gets bossed around a lot but otherwise they are fine!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
20 october 2009
ITS RAINING! YEY! I mean its been sunny like two days and a half in a row; who wants sunshine? Bring on the soaked coats and jumpers and shirts and jods and shoes and socks (if your lucky and have enough layers the top is usually alright)! And bring on the freezing mornings when you feel like your back in dad and sussi's basement trying to get dressed under the covers cause just stickin your hands out to grab your clothes is cold enough to make you shiver (depsite three covers)! And while we are at it; lets have some freakishly loud thunder to freak both me and the horses out!
There; I've moaned enough for one day ;D I am actually happy despite this; work is just busy enough; I've had some really fun treks, got to hack a showjumper out yesterday and go cantering up a huge hill, I'm responsible for schooling a future guidehorse for treks (he's broken and all but a jumpy and nervous little thing) and while the others are away on competitions I'm getting to lunge my two favorite horses once a day (apart from my favorite trekers of course) to keep them in shape.
So the horse I'm schooling is Dolphin (he has a star shaped like a dolphin on his forehead its really cool lol) , and I worked him for the first time yesterday. (Oh, if youre not interested in working horses you might wanna skip the next couple of paragraphs) He's a pain to catch and I knew that from before; so just to be sure I brought a feedbucket over to the gate and made sure my hands had feed-smell lol, anyway he was standing pretty close by with one of his friends, who is pretty easy to catch so i went up to them and started chatting to his mate, who emidiately picked up the smell and started licking and nibbling at my hands, needless to say Dolphin got curious and after a couple of minutes i managed to catch him without any issues and he came out of the paddock on a loose leadrope.
Since I wasn't quite sure what to expecct from him (I've only seen him lunged and ridden once) I decided to be basic, he was clearly nervous, so I didn't tie him up, I just grabbed a soft bodybrush that was lying on the ground (my bad, it should have been picked up earlier :P) and started on the neck, at first he kept backing up when I moved to reach but he soon got the point and stood still except for when I went for his legs, but the approach and retreat technique is awsome (look it up in any Natural Horsemanship book if your interested) and eventually he stood for me to go as far down as his knees.
My lack of preparation led to me suddenly standing there with a horse I needed to tack up but didn't want to tie up since he was without his mates and it was windy and he was a bit jumpy, and where was my tack? All in the stables. Genius Hanna... So I put him in a pen and brought everything out and then went to get him again (once again I rubbed some feed on my hands so I coud convince him to come faster) and I took him out and managed to tack him up on a loose leadrope without him moving about (even though I had the saddle make noise etc on purpose to see how he'd behave).
Lunging time; this farm has a lot of stuff I wish I could bring home (like the amazing river and that lol) but the roundpen is definately at the top of my list! Anyway, thats where I placed myself and Dolphin, I skipped the lungewhip cause I didnt see the point in bringing it when just flicking the rope gently made him jump to the sky. Sending him out was easy, making him keep going without turning around and bouncing or taking of like a nutcase was less easy. I don't know if it was just my lack of knowledge in "proper" lunging or if he just doesn't get it, he clearly wasn't getting me.
Lovely... So the next twenty minutes were spent trying to teach him to do things my way, to turn only when told and to turn the direction he was told without panicking etc, and taught him the basic commands that I need him to respond to. When he finally did two perfect turns in a row and trotted and slowed down on command I stopped; and I was sooo proud of him. It was probably not what I was supposed to do but if I'm gonna be riding him I need to know that he can listen to me, knowing that he listens to better riders isn't much comfort if he wont do as I say.
Anyway; horsey talk over for those who dropped out five paragraphs ago! Not that I have much else to talk about; there's the weather and the horses and thats about it! Oh the phone; I dropped my phone one day when out on an hr and a half trek and since the weather was pretty bad (suprise) I figured that was it and bought a new phone the following day.. However Dee being the hero that she is found it two days later, and the bloody phone works :D despite all the rain it was out in!
There; I've moaned enough for one day ;D I am actually happy despite this; work is just busy enough; I've had some really fun treks, got to hack a showjumper out yesterday and go cantering up a huge hill, I'm responsible for schooling a future guidehorse for treks (he's broken and all but a jumpy and nervous little thing) and while the others are away on competitions I'm getting to lunge my two favorite horses once a day (apart from my favorite trekers of course) to keep them in shape.
So the horse I'm schooling is Dolphin (he has a star shaped like a dolphin on his forehead its really cool lol) , and I worked him for the first time yesterday. (Oh, if youre not interested in working horses you might wanna skip the next couple of paragraphs) He's a pain to catch and I knew that from before; so just to be sure I brought a feedbucket over to the gate and made sure my hands had feed-smell lol, anyway he was standing pretty close by with one of his friends, who is pretty easy to catch so i went up to them and started chatting to his mate, who emidiately picked up the smell and started licking and nibbling at my hands, needless to say Dolphin got curious and after a couple of minutes i managed to catch him without any issues and he came out of the paddock on a loose leadrope.
Since I wasn't quite sure what to expecct from him (I've only seen him lunged and ridden once) I decided to be basic, he was clearly nervous, so I didn't tie him up, I just grabbed a soft bodybrush that was lying on the ground (my bad, it should have been picked up earlier :P) and started on the neck, at first he kept backing up when I moved to reach but he soon got the point and stood still except for when I went for his legs, but the approach and retreat technique is awsome (look it up in any Natural Horsemanship book if your interested) and eventually he stood for me to go as far down as his knees.
My lack of preparation led to me suddenly standing there with a horse I needed to tack up but didn't want to tie up since he was without his mates and it was windy and he was a bit jumpy, and where was my tack? All in the stables. Genius Hanna... So I put him in a pen and brought everything out and then went to get him again (once again I rubbed some feed on my hands so I coud convince him to come faster) and I took him out and managed to tack him up on a loose leadrope without him moving about (even though I had the saddle make noise etc on purpose to see how he'd behave).
Lunging time; this farm has a lot of stuff I wish I could bring home (like the amazing river and that lol) but the roundpen is definately at the top of my list! Anyway, thats where I placed myself and Dolphin, I skipped the lungewhip cause I didnt see the point in bringing it when just flicking the rope gently made him jump to the sky. Sending him out was easy, making him keep going without turning around and bouncing or taking of like a nutcase was less easy. I don't know if it was just my lack of knowledge in "proper" lunging or if he just doesn't get it, he clearly wasn't getting me.
Lovely... So the next twenty minutes were spent trying to teach him to do things my way, to turn only when told and to turn the direction he was told without panicking etc, and taught him the basic commands that I need him to respond to. When he finally did two perfect turns in a row and trotted and slowed down on command I stopped; and I was sooo proud of him. It was probably not what I was supposed to do but if I'm gonna be riding him I need to know that he can listen to me, knowing that he listens to better riders isn't much comfort if he wont do as I say.
Anyway; horsey talk over for those who dropped out five paragraphs ago! Not that I have much else to talk about; there's the weather and the horses and thats about it! Oh the phone; I dropped my phone one day when out on an hr and a half trek and since the weather was pretty bad (suprise) I figured that was it and bought a new phone the following day.. However Dee being the hero that she is found it two days later, and the bloody phone works :D despite all the rain it was out in!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Picture time :D
minka had her baby yesterday morning :D
it looks a lot like a moose but its still cute
hey maybe it is a moose?
Sazu
Sazu killing ... dunno what to be honest
Pretty Hemi after I spent hrs and hrs grooming him and untangling tht AWSOME mane tht i now gotta cut off (orders from the boss)
Thursday, October 08, 2009
7th October 2009
After ten days of babysitting fifteen-twenty kids (8-15 years old) 24 hours a day I finally have the time and energy to blog! Finally a day off; camp doesn't end until Sunday but today I really couldn't care less, cause the little buggers aren't my problem until bedtime lol :D To be honest they're not all too bad, I did expect worse, but it does get tireing when you are down at the camp area constantly, (me and Dee and the other camp leaders are stayin in the accommodation area spread out in the kids' rooms).
The kids have been a lovely mixture of annoying and spoilt little brats and absolutely lovely little brats ;) Some complete beginners and some talented girls who are probably past my level to be honest, so there's been a pretty big spread and work has been varied to say the least. P seems to want me to start teaching, and puts me closer and closer all the time and just keeps asking, "so are you ready to try some teaching soon?", she's had me lead Dee's lessons from horseback and help out with the vaulting (which I know like zero about), basically avoiding it will soon be impossible...
The thing is I don't really mind teaching, I have tought plenty of kids to ride on Dream back home (and if I may say so myself I've done a damn good job with most of them), but for some reason I feel that teaching in english is so not the same as teaching in swedish, and, teaching one kid on a horse you know if completely different from teaching a whole bunch of kids on horses you don't know. (And anyone who knows horses knows that it helps to know the horse if you want to teach someone how to ride it, horses are so different from each other)
And speaking of teaching I got a pretty good lesson the day before yesterday; basically, if a horse decides it doesnt wanna get caught in the paddock, don't trust it not to kick no matter how nice the horse normally is lol.. First time in ten years of handling horses I actually got hit, and it was a bloody good hit as well, but I was defo lucky. So yeah, I'll remember that one :P
I haven't quite grasped the concept of the aber girls being back and getting on with their studies whithout me, feels kinda rude lol! ;) Hope you all having a good time and miss u all!
Soo wish I could afford to come over and visit but chances of that happening are like zero...
The weather these past two weeks has been extremely welsh/swedish (both suck so have a pick), its been cold and rainy, and by rain I dont mean normal rain or even heavy rain I mean the kind of water pressure you get in a good shower except this shower seems to cover half the country and just never stop and the water is almost freezing. Over the last couple of days the south island has had its worst snowfall in 25 years, blocking two state highways and forcing the army to evacuate people from their cars, and up here in the north we had snow on a nearby mountain the other day (a mountain that apparently never gets snow even in winter). And my dear bf has informed me that south wales has had sunshine for like three weeks, WTF? Really not fair :P
Ah well, we got natural hotpools nearby, suck on that wales!
Anyways, bored with this now, love u all and take care xxx
The kids have been a lovely mixture of annoying and spoilt little brats and absolutely lovely little brats ;) Some complete beginners and some talented girls who are probably past my level to be honest, so there's been a pretty big spread and work has been varied to say the least. P seems to want me to start teaching, and puts me closer and closer all the time and just keeps asking, "so are you ready to try some teaching soon?", she's had me lead Dee's lessons from horseback and help out with the vaulting (which I know like zero about), basically avoiding it will soon be impossible...
The thing is I don't really mind teaching, I have tought plenty of kids to ride on Dream back home (and if I may say so myself I've done a damn good job with most of them), but for some reason I feel that teaching in english is so not the same as teaching in swedish, and, teaching one kid on a horse you know if completely different from teaching a whole bunch of kids on horses you don't know. (And anyone who knows horses knows that it helps to know the horse if you want to teach someone how to ride it, horses are so different from each other)
And speaking of teaching I got a pretty good lesson the day before yesterday; basically, if a horse decides it doesnt wanna get caught in the paddock, don't trust it not to kick no matter how nice the horse normally is lol.. First time in ten years of handling horses I actually got hit, and it was a bloody good hit as well, but I was defo lucky. So yeah, I'll remember that one :P
I haven't quite grasped the concept of the aber girls being back and getting on with their studies whithout me, feels kinda rude lol! ;) Hope you all having a good time and miss u all!
Soo wish I could afford to come over and visit but chances of that happening are like zero...
The weather these past two weeks has been extremely welsh/swedish (both suck so have a pick), its been cold and rainy, and by rain I dont mean normal rain or even heavy rain I mean the kind of water pressure you get in a good shower except this shower seems to cover half the country and just never stop and the water is almost freezing. Over the last couple of days the south island has had its worst snowfall in 25 years, blocking two state highways and forcing the army to evacuate people from their cars, and up here in the north we had snow on a nearby mountain the other day (a mountain that apparently never gets snow even in winter). And my dear bf has informed me that south wales has had sunshine for like three weeks, WTF? Really not fair :P
Ah well, we got natural hotpools nearby, suck on that wales!
Anyways, bored with this now, love u all and take care xxx
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