New muzzle

Dani was rubbing a hole in her grazing muzzle so I decided to buy a couple extras.  I decided to try one by Tough One with larger breathing holes.

I bought some snazzy little protectors too since she's rubbing the fur off one of her cheeks in a spot. 

Reflecto-pony!

Well it didn't take long before she learned how to scrape the halter off on the fence!  The thing doesn't use a snap but instead uses velcro and not much. This halter is not Dani proof.

So I then found little disk inserts you can get for a standard cribbing muzzle.  They worked pretty well with her regular muzzle and are much cheaper than buying a new one.  I may be able to figure out a way to make the Tough Ones harder to get off for my silly mare since I like the design and since I have them, might as well put them to use. 

For now at least she has a working halter though the disk captures yuck underneath it so you have to clean it more regularly.  We'll see what we can do once we get to North Carolina....headed out and officially moving next week!!!

Under Contract

I'm sure anyone who's ever moved across town, across the country or the world know what it's like to be in limbo.  Selling a house has been a process.  We sold our house in 9 days and close this month but there is more than just the offer and a celebration.  Steve and I traveled last week to North Carolina and found a wonderful little house on just under 4 acres.  So I will quickly present....

The house we'll be moving into in September....

The house Dani will move into in September....

Two pastures Dani will explore and hopefully not graze down too much!

The other large pasture where Dani can talk with ponies across the way...

Where my saddles and horse supplies will live....

Where the hay will live...

And of course the main room in the house where we can watch TV or glance out the window and see pony TV right in our backyard!!!

I'm so excited and hope that the inspections and all the other hoops go well with this house.  It will be nice to call it home!

A Walk in the Park

WE ARE MOVING TO NORTH CAROLINA!!!!

Okay, the wait is over.  I can tell everyone.

Phew!!  That was killing me!  

My husband, as many know, travels for work and comes home on the weekends.  Being in Colorado he often doesn't even get an entire weekend home because he has to make sure he arrives at his contracted job in time on Monday morning.  Most of his work has been on the east coast.  He's applied and interviewed for positions and even been offered some but they didn't really fit what we desired.  We finally decided to make a choice to just most to the east coast to an area where there are opportunities for me and will land us in the same time zone.  I also want to throw in there that my brother who's been my best friend since I was born lives in SW Virginia with his awesome wife and the coolest nephew I could ask for.

 With all of this thought process we decided on the Research Triangle area of North Carolina.  So we spent nearly a month getting the house ready for sale after finding out the market was actually doing quite well in our city.  We listed our house on July 1st and had an offer after 9 days.  Actually we had three offers!  Needless to say we are under contract and have gone through the difficult hoops of inspections and sewer line scoping (yuck!).  

I'm sad to leave the state I love and a lot of family I love but there is family out east I've missed as well.  I also miss my husband and know that we'll be able to spend more time with each other....and eventually get that elusive second horse and there is talk that Steve wants to seriously look at some donkeys....

So that brings me to ponies....we are searching for horse property.....squeeeeeee!!!!!!!  Nothing outlandish or fancy.  We want about 5 acres (or more!) but have seen properties that are smaller than that and well set up for horses.  We'll just have to see what seems to be a good fit for us.  Dani will stay in Colorado until we move into the new house, hopefully it will only be a few weeks without my dear girl but at least I know where she is boarded takes care of her like she is there own personal baby.  We are going to ship her professionally since I feel being with other horses will be less stressful than being alone for 3-4 days in my horse trailer.  It's crazy stressful and now that housework is gearing down a bit it's time to get back into that trailer loading!   I know the professionals will do fine but I want to give them a better chance of easy success.

I'm excited since this also means a leap of faith for me in trying to find work in the area but there are tons of biology and environmentally related jobs in that area.  I may take some biotech courses at a local college too in order to brush up on some science skills I haven't used in a while.  I have a Masters in biology and though I have a great job and work with great people I have come to the realization that I'm still too young to give up on my dreams.  Problem is I have many dreams.  I love working in labs and working in field studies, a big love during college and grad school was entomology.  I think there are more bugs in North Carolina....at least that is what I hear!  ;-)

It will be an adventure and I will document it all here as I am able.  It surely will be very busy over the next month or two.  No, there will not be any great posts about trail rides or EXCA competitions.  That wasn't in the cards this summer....wow how things change.  Hope all is well in the blogosphere!  Talk to you all soon!

Still Here....but Big things Coming!!!

It may be many weeks before I can divulge the big things that are coming but I think my fellow bloggers will be excited for me!  Stay tuned.  I'll post regular pony stuff soon.

Hood Ornament

I recently watched a show on TV, Richard Winters Horsemanship.  I don't have RFD-TV anymore so was happy to find something I could start recording again.  I log onto Julie's website for her shows and Clinton Anderson has some online as well but I enjoy watching it on my big TV not just my computer screen.

Anyhow, I watched this one show about focused riding.  One major thing that I want to share was an analogy made about riding your horse.  Richard Winters stating you should ride your horse like you ride a car, look where you are going.  You don't stare at your hood ornament, you look ahead, so why would you ride while looking at your horse's ears?

Sure this is common knowledge but the hood ornament thing just sort of clicked.  How often do we riders watch the horses ears as we ride?  How often do we focus on the ground?  I think it's good to pay attention to the ears, don't get me wrong.  They indicate attention and mood.  In these three pictures where is Dani's attention?  The first one, she's listening to me perhaps or listening to the tiny cat stalking her from behind.  The second picture her left ear is cocked to the side, something has her attention up at the barn maybe.  This last picture show's her looking forward toward the Italian flag.  While it's still important to look at a horses ears to determine what they are being drawn to we still need to remember that focusing 3-5 horse lengths ahead is the best way to communicate to your horse while riding.

By constantly glancing at the ground, the fence line or my pony's ears I inadvertently shift my weight forward and that affects my mare's gait.  This is something I know and have known.  It just takes continued awareness to see what we are actually doing under saddle that could be causing some of our riding issues.  Can staring at my mares ears cause her to tense up?  Sure, maybe looking at her ears tenses my body and thus hers.  I just found this simple comparison something I needed to share since I thought the idea was so cool.  Hood ornament or ears...it's best to keep a good posture and keep our head and eyes up towards where we want to go in order to communicate better with our equine friends.  Though a couple glances at the cute little ears is perfectly fine!

Ouch

Really?  Only my horse can get injured on a rubber mat. We were working on trailer loading again and Dani was doing fantastic!  She was going in and then standing with her head out the back.  If I asked her to step back she would.  I started then moving the divider over to her and then releasing.  I'm trying to get her used to the "confinement" of having that divider on her.  Sure at this time she is facing backwards but baby steps.  I'm not at the point where I can walk in after her to shut the divider.  I know she can whip around to step out the back of the trailer and possibly squish me in the process.  I've been in the trailer when she's turned around and it's not a safe thing.  Luckily I was only bruised.

Well I got greedy I think and took it a step too fast and tried to work on the divider closing as she was still facing forward.  She freaked a little and I think the back rubber mat flipped upwards and rubbed her inside leg.  It looks like she has a very close shave.  Right afterwards though she was holding her back leg up and I was freaked thinking she'd gotten herself really injured.  She finally placed it down and I was able to walk her with no issue and it seems the pain subsided.  I asked her a couple of times to enter the trailer, not surprisingly she was hesitant.  She didn't stay in but we ended on a good calm note.  Granted if she'd been seriously injured we would have foregone the additional loads.  I don't want to create a huge setback because of this.

Then I took her up to address her injury.  I hosed her off and then washed her with Iodine.  It really was just that, a shaved off area, like road rash but with rubber.  I still felt horrible.  She kicks out when there are wraps on her back legs but darn it, she's just gonna have to deal.  We are using them when we load!  I'll be headed out today to see how she is doing.  I put some ointment on her so I'll be washing her leg again and seeing what the injury looks like.

I'm just so frustrated.  I should have just stopped at moving the divider over to her.  Instead I took it a step too far and it was just too much for her and she got hurt.  My poor baby

Rain, Rain, Go to California

More rain on the forecast but looks like it's not going to be the near constant rain we had in May.  Dani's feet are doing okay at least, I've been keeping an eye out for scratches and thrush.  

This was a post I meant to publish a while ago.  Now our rain pattern is the standard chance for storms in the afternoon.  Just yesterday there were several tornadoes throughout Colorado.  That always worries me with Dani being out east....

Moisture Means Bugs

We've been getting a lot of moisture in Colorado.  After spending a week in California, I said for the first time ever after a trip, "Wow, Colorado is so green!"  Usually I'm headed east or somewhere else so it's nice and green and Colorado is always so dry.  Compared to CA though, it's lush this year!

A dug out area near my horse trailer was filled with yucky water.  In my shed at home I'd come across some mosquito dunks (BTI) that I'd used in my zoonotic disease job in Public Health.  I brought those to the barn and asked if I could apply then to this pond.  The mosquitoes are getting bad but these dunks have a bacteria specific to mosquitoes that disrupts the growth of the larvae.  They are safe and easy to use so hopefully the mosquito population will die down a bit.

Until then I have last years bottle of fly spray for Dani in my trailer and another kept up a the main barn.  I also have some spray for me.  That has been one benefit of the dry weather though is that usually Colorado lacks hordes of biting insects.  Oh well, the pastures are green and my yard at home is looking nice including newly seeded lawn patches.  The rain has been helpful in many instances.

I'll get out to ride more now that the rain has calmed down a bit....just hoping I don't get eaten alive!

Howdy

Still here. Just went on vacation....more to come and pony stuff too!