Saturday Fun

If fun is spending two hours with three years worth of barn dust falling in your face. We don't have true electricity running to the barn yet.  Right now, we just run an extension cord down from the house.  During the summer, this usually isn't a problem since the barn has clear ridge panels (light) and the water doesn't freeze.However, in winter we need to keep two heated buckets running and have some sort of light to feed by.  Before Saturday, I had to rely on a single lamp at one end of the barn and a flashlight for the other end. Over the weekend, I found myself child free for a few hours and strung up a bunch of white Christmas lights all over the barn. It's festive and certainly helps, but didn't give me as much light as I was hoping for.  I can't wait to get real lights in there.

At least it's festive!  Both horses had their noses buried in their feed buckets.

After I strung up the lights and dusted myself off as much as possible I decided to take Maggie for a walk.  We have a new neighbor a little ways down that has a horse (yay!). She's been going around to other neighbors asking to ride across their property, including ours. I hadn't tested out Maggie in the creek yet and really wanted to get her feet wet.  Our spot to get into the creek is currently blocked by a tree that came down, so I wandered down to the new neighbors and used her area to get in. Maggie walked right in without issue. She even played a little in the water with her nose. We I decided to keep going on the other side and check out the neighbors trails. Maggie was trying so hard to be good.  Max was hollering back home for most of the time.  Maggie started hollering when Max finally stopped for a few minutes, but was mostly quiet for the walk.  She was on alert for most of the walk, but never balked or spooked. She was extremely interested in the big field nearby. My only complaint would be her trying to walk ahead of me. She never rushed, but was pushing a little. I resorted to swinging the lead rope in front of us and let her whack herself on the nose when she got too far ahead.  I need to get across the creek on our property and start bushwacking some more trails back there.  The far part is so full of thorns it's hard to walk through there.

Now, I just need the confidence to ride her back in the woods.

Changes

Just as an FYI for anyone who follows me, I will be changing my blog name and domain address to the following:  Horses of HOF - horsesofhof.blogspot.com

I'm not sure if the feed will update automatically once it's changed or not.  I may be creating a new blog with the old howlingowlfarm.blogspot.com domain.  Only time will tell. 

Here's a picture that is the complete opposite of the weather we had over the weekend :)

A Beautiful Browband

A while back, Stacey from Behind the Bit held a contest for one of her handmade browbands. I won!  She said she had made a mistake when making it. It honestly took me a while to spot the possible mistake, but I'm still not sure if it's the one she was talking about. Can you spot it? 

It's a gorgeous and well made browband. I was a little worried it would be too big for Max, but it fits nicely. I love the curved band she used. It will allow the beading to show when I braid up Max's excessive forelock. 

I apologize for Max's forelock. It was really windy and I kind of tucked it up under the bridle to keep it out of the way.  Pony only wanted grass.

Out with Max, In with Maggie....

Hopefully not a metaphor for the year. 

I ended the year with a ride on Max.  He was so good, especially considering the wind.   We even made it out into the pasture, but not to the far end along the road. My nerves can only handle so much.  Boy got fat though. I could barely get his girth on.  I ended up buying a girth extender from RW. 

On Max, in the pasture looking towards the road.  His ears say "barn's that way*

Then, on Monday I rode Maggie.  She was also exceptionally good and we rode all over the pasture, including by the road. Also including some trotting. We were all brave.

On Maggie. If you blow up the picture,  you can just see Max behind the IBC tote behind the barn.

Both horses were really good for me.  There was some slight arguments to head back towards the barn, but the conversation went more like:

Horse: "Hey, lets go this way" *pulls a bit towards the barn*
Me: "No" *slight nudge*
Horse: "Oh, okay" *grumpy ears*

Repeat. 

The horse left behind screamed their head off though.  But no hollering from the horse that I was riding.  So yay?

On Monday, I also took each of them separately for a walk through our woods.  I wanted desperately to take them through the creek, but I didn't think ahead and my footwear was not meant for cold water.  It was Maggie's first time back there.  They both did very well. Max was a little more pushy and on edge, but there was no run and bolt from either of them.  They were both a little more forward on the long stretch back to the barn. But again, no shenanigans. I'm sure the pit stops for grass helped sooth those poor starving souls.

Photo Dump

Just because I have no content and a few photos...

Ahh! Scary Christmas stuff!  Run away!

Really?  We just want breakfast!

Okay, fine, I'll play along.  Happy??

My barn cleaning buddy.

Best buds forever.

Then she came in and became PITA barn cleaning buddy who would not move.

WW: Makes Me Smile

I get the feeling a lot of us could use a pick-me-up today. So here are some pictures of the animals that make me smile, or laugh, or just shake my head and call the pony a shithead.

After I looked through all those pictures, I realize I never really introduced Maggie on here.  That will be coming up soon.

2pointober and winter

My start time was 5 seconds and my final time was 49 seconds which resulted in an 940% improvement according to the magical formula. Since I did this bareback, I think that's pretty damn good.

I'm also counting 2pointober as no stirrup November, since, ya-know...bareback and all. I actually do want to get back into something a little more secure and take the mare around the pasture. That is one of goals.

Winter is coming, and so are the yaks. (recycled pic, but we are getting there)

The other one is to ride at least once each weekend. With the changing weather, the impending loss of daylight in the evenings, and simply not having enough time, I won't be riding during the week. Somehow this decision makes me feel better.  I think 2pointober helped to set a precedent for riding on the weekends and I'd like to keep that going for as long as the weather holds. Even if I only get 15 minutes and ride bareback in the paddock.

Old picture, but he's been doing some of this again lately.