A bit of Equine Stuff

Busy morning! This time hubby didn't wake me at 4 am! Whoo Hoo!

Our old pony is starting to show his advanced age. This past winter has been hard on him. He gets a stall inside at night as he is the only one who won't try and rip things apart. Throughout the winter he has had access to places where he can not only eat hay, but he could search for greens.

I checked our paperwork and we got him as a 4 yr old from our friends in Missouri. I always thought he was a 2 yr old when we got him. That would put his age at 32. This is the first year that I've seen him lose weight. 

He was a very happy camper all this week when I found patches of green for him to be tethered out on.

He is our weed whacker and trimmer for tough spots.

In all of his years of being tied out, he has never ever damaged a vehicle nor has he ever gotten tangled up. 

This is 15 years ago when I had him tied to the tractor.

He surely has had a good long life being a Guard/Yard Pony. His first job on our place was being a teaser for our mares. His retirement job is Guard Pony and Entertainment Pony.

Here he is ON Guard in 2009. I physically had to get out and move him out of the way.  

He is such a handsome fellow with such a fine temperament. He can prance and dance like a fancy high stepping pony. But considering that he has been handled every day since he arrived here, he is a breeze to lead around.

I love how he talks to me with his wee little whinny every morning and evening. He wants to make sure that I don't forget him.

And since I was going through older shots, I came upon a photo of our old 'string' of riding mules in 2005.

Left to right. Henry, Badger, Pipes, and Patchy. All from our Jack named Bruce. All half brothers.

Rich's main mount was Henry and mine was Badger.

Patchy now works in North Carolina as a pack mule doing training exercises with the military and was used to pack in supplies after last year's hurricane.

The others are no longer with us but always in our hearts. These guys were our 'cool' dudes.

Another quiet rainy, misty, cold yucky day in WI!

And so it begins...

Let me start by saying I love photography and quite a few years ago I started experimenting with Toy Stories.

First it was Morris and his toys that had adventures. It was a daunting task getting Morris at times to pose with his toys in the woods and convey a story. But it was fun.  And we'll more than likely do another story this fall. Morris is getting up there in years, but that doesn't mean that he has stopped being playful.

A couple of years ago my Grand daughter Ariel and I had some fun during a Christmas get together that involved My Little Ponies and photography. That morphed into #TheDoeStory. Adventures with a toy doe.

This past winter I was introduced to Val-Barbie by my neighbor and her children.
Well I couldn't let that just go, I worked Val-Barbie into the Doe Story and then it happened.

Things got well...

Complicated.

Perhaps complicated isn't the proper term. When Allie and Carson delivered this box I have to admit, what was going on now?

Oh be still my little ornery beating heart! 

A NEW goofy story line.

Perfect.

Amazing.
Before I go any further I must say that my neighbor, Lauren has an incredible knack for this. I believe she has a great imagination. She can take a doll and actually create an eerie resemblance a character. 
And this is how it all started....

So let the story begin:
One day Val-Barbie was riding her pony called Lil' Richard.
Lil' Richard got a bit feisty and bucked Val-Barbie off.

Well now.
Val-Barbie can face down coyotes and other creatures, but it isn't often that she gets bucked off from her favorite little pony.

Val-Barbie stomps through the fields to find her errant pony.

Meanwhile Rich-Ken is out for a walk when he finds a loose pony. 
He catches it and wonders who it belongs to.

The pony is to Rich-Ken's liking.

Soon Val-Barbie comes upon her horse and a stranger.

He has caught her Lil' Richard!

Val-Barbie is a bit hesitant with this bearded long haired scraggly looking dude, but her pony seems to like him.

So they stand a while in the long grass and talk.

Val-Barbie has decided that she has sort of taken a shining to ... Rich-Ken.

She mounts up and invites Rich-Ken to become a part of her story.

And so we have another fun and nonsensical story to work with.

That is thanks to my neighbor and her kids who have wonderful imaginations also.

Half the fun was taking toys out and posing them for the photos.
I know. It seems strange, but look back, I've had a long history with toys and photos.

What can I say?
Except that I am having some grande fun. And I will need a bigger backpack to include the Rich-Ken doll and Lil' Richard.

Sigh.
Let the fun begin!

Lil' Richard Part Two...

Yesterday, it was not my intent to take Lil' Richard out again, but it was still soooo muddy everywhere that I thought I'd just take him out for about an hour and ride him to get the mail.

The day before the temperature was nearly 70 here.  Yesterday, it was only 50 with a bit of a cold breeze.  I got Lil' Richard out and took him to the round pen. He rolled and then got up and bucked tossing his head.
This is his normal routine before I curry him and work a bit with him.

After a few minutes of a refresher course, I tried a different saddle on him.  It is super light weight. He really had to sniff it all over as Siera had been the last one wearing it.

It met his Majesty's approval and we saddled up and then worked on trying the bit out again.  I let him wear the bridle for a while and then swapped back to using a rope tied to his halter.

It was a good thing I'd used the saddle.  Lil' Richard enjoyed the fresh cool air and was a LOT more lively.  He pranced and bounced when we went outside.  He was not ready to listen quite yet. We had to stop and go back to the basics.

So we did a bit more of walk, trot, whoa, on a long line and then he stopped and sighed.
He got to spend a bit of time at the thinking tree in the yard too while I changed coats.

We proceeded to ride up and down the driveway and take the challenge of going through some muddy areas.  
Funny, he has no problem running through mud and puddles on his own, but with a rider ... the mud looks like pony swallowing muck!

He wanted so badly to just take off and run up the driveway, but I convinced him that he needed to turn around and listen to me.

I could see it in his arched neck that he was full of it. One of the mistakes people make about ponies is that they assume that all ponies are good for kids.  
This pony will never be a kid pony. 

His rider will always need to know what they are doing and have good balance.

We did ride to the ridge and get the mail, but on my terms, of course.  We rode past screeching children, a barking dog that ran under his belly and all sorts of noises.
He actually ignored them and had his eye on the ridge.

Funny, I think he believes he is going visiting each time we ride up there.  He is extremely willing to take on the long hill.  He never fusses either when we just stop and get the mail.

Since my driveway is so steep, I lead him back down.  I didn't want the saddle to slide up on his neck.  

Lil' Richard is just a fun little project for me and we won't be doing long hard rides.  He just isn't big enough for that.

Hubby came out and I asked him to take a photo of me and The Big Guy.

I have to admit, he is a fun little moped!

He probably would be fun to have on a cart, but I have no harness and no cart so we shall be content on getting the mail, and little fun yard rides.

Just look at this face?  Doesn't it say..."Look at me!  I may be small, but I have attitude and cunning! I'm a bit of a devil!"

Happy Trails.  And many adventures getting the mail.

Rain, Lil' Richard, and warm fuzzies...

First a funny little video of Lil' Richard.  I took this after getting him out of the muddy paddock and thought I'd give him a few minutes to get the kinks out before we settled in to work on our 4th session.

The quality is pretty poor and the lighting in our shed was pretty poor also.  But I think you can get the jist of things.
He was so estatic about getting out of his paddock and all of that wonderful dry sand that he just couldn't contain himself.

It is now routine.  I let him in the round pen and whisper "Go!" and he turns and does his rock and roll routine.
Afterwards he walks up to me and stands.

He has decided that lunging is for the birds.  He sees no point in doing any extra work at all.  So Sunday I tried to use my lunge whip with the plastic bag on the end to see if he'd get excited.
He was so interested in the plastic bag that he trotted right up to it.
I did get him to lunge and whoa properly, and he came right to the bag and played with it.

Funny pony.  I never knew this.  So many years he has been a yard ornament and an organic weed whacker.

In fact he was known in our farming community as the little pony who would go on visits to our neighbor's farm about 1/2 mile away.  He'd get loose [fences, even electric ones don't hold him, that is why we stake him out in the summer and have a corral for him in the winter]...and we'd have to go get him and bring him home.  Archived video....

So he's always been the little stinker and I have never really given him a second thought until I said to hubby that I'd like a nice paint pony one day.  Of course he said, "You have one in the yard!"  

Okay so back to Sunday.  On Saturday I saddled him.  He stood like a statue.  He looked over the saddle and smelled it.  I was careful not to cinch him up tight, but just enough for the weight and feel of it.
[I probably will not use a saddle after we are done with training, I love bareback.]

My small saddle does fit him and with a pony cinch, it fits properly.

So I saddled him again on Sunday, then did some 'spooky' stuff with him.  I tossed down a small tarp and asked him to lunge at a walk over it.  He smelled it then stood on it and then he pushed it with his nose.  
Ohhhkay, that was not scary.  So I tied a milk jug with rocks in it to the stirrup and asked him to walk.

He turned and looked at the jug.  He walked and then cocked an ear towards it and then walked some more.  I tossed a sack of cans up on the saddle and attached it to the saddle horn.

He walked and the sack rattled, the jug made noise.  I rolled a ball across in front of him.  He watched it go by.

I grabbed a snow sled and pulled it in the sand.  He eagerly followed it around and stuck his nose into it.  

Well smack me in the forehead.  This is the little sled I use in the winter to haul hay.  This is not a stupid pony.

I clapped my hands and danced around in a circle.  He watched.  I'm sure he has a journal someplace documenting all the stupid things this human does.

Okay.  I was bored, he was bored.  I took the rope and tied it to the halter in such a manner as to make a makeshift bitless bridle.
I eased my leg over his back and sat in the saddle.

I used the Tai Chi method of breathing and relaxing all of the tension out of my neck and shoulders.
Lil' Richard stood and sighed.  He then turned his head and sniffed my coveralls.

I gently turned his head to the right, he walked three steps and stopped.  I tried the other direction, same reaction.  I kissed lightly and he walked forward.

At this point I was just looking for some movement without excitement.  I slid off him and got on from the opposite side.  Repeat.  I praised him and gently ran my hand up and down his shoulder and then slid my hand to his rump.
He sighed.

Lesson done.  I praised him as I unsaddled him.  I picked his feet and then cleaned the rest of the burdock out of his forelock.  

Rich walked in about then and asked what I was doing.  I retied the rope and slid back onto Lil' Richard bareback.  We did a little bit of walking and then I slid off and got on his opposite side.  
I got off and said, "Well?"

"Well looks like you need a bridle," he answered.  "Not a buck at all?"
I patted my new best little buddy.  "Not at all."

I felt all warm and fuzzy inside.  I don't think I realized how much I enjoyed and missed training.

With the rain we've been having, I've had to do something.  And heck Lil' Richard just seemed like a fun project to try.

I hope to have him doing a bit more for Christmas Day.  I'd like to decorate him up and take him for a small ride.
If he is not ready for a ride, then I will just decorate him up and take him for a walk down the gravel road just for fun.
A Christmas Parade...A one pony parade?

That is, if it ever stops raining!

So my Guard/Yard Pony may eventually have a new career!  

Just color me happy.

I think Princess is next on my list, I've started with her, just never finished.

Thanks to El Nino and the rains I'm doing something better and different with my time.

Yard Pony

Lil' Richard has been with us I think since 2002.  That makes him somewhere around 16 to 17 years old.  Most of his life has been at leisure.

He has guarded our driveway.

He has lounged in the yard when he was supposed to be on weed and grass trimming duty and Guard Duty.

He is the farm comedian and Morris's good buddy.

He has been a frequent escape artist. He normally just goes to our neighbor's place up the road to visit with her horses.
She shuts him in the barn and feeds him breakfast, then gives us a call.
We usually just drive over and take him home like this.

We got him because his prior owners could never keep him in an electric fence.  He'd lay down and roll underneath it.  So we tie him out in the summer time and in the winter he gets a pen.

So this fall I was thinking about how he might make a nice little moped of sorts.  Instead of being of being a lazy weed whacking, grass mowing, 'guard' pony, he could 'get' a job.

I could use him to ride up to the ridge and get the mail.  Or if I wanted to go berry picking, I could take him.  He is easy to get on and off.
I put a leg over him once just to see what he'd do and he did a little buck.

Well, I took him inside to the round pen on Saturday and decided to see what we might learn together.  I wanted to see if Lil' Richard has any smarts.

His first reaction was to buck and rear then run like a ninny around the round pen as hard as he could.  It probably felt good after being cooped up in a pen.
After he started to slow down I began to work with him.  
He didn't want to look at me, he didn't want to pay any attention to me at all.

He acted as if he'd never been handled before and that was okay with me.

After about 15 more minutes of ME telling him when he should move and when he should whoa, he listened.
I stopped him then and groomed him.
He did one right thing in 15 minutes and that was good enough for me.

I didn't want to over work him as he is out of condition.
He did however enjoy his grooming session and stood like a statue.
He has always been good while being groomed.  At least we have that as a good starting point!

With the mild weather I'll be able to do more work with him.  I hope to get him to moped status in a month or so.

If nothing else, it will be an exercise in seeing if I can train an old horse/pony to do new tricks.