Back to school

And not just for children!
Now that I don't have to work with Tumbleweed, it's time to get Mesa back to work. Today, I saddled up my trusty red head and ponied Mesa.

She loved getting out! It was only a short session, just the pond loop to see how both horses would do.

All was well! No drama, no pulling back, just two good horses strolling along the trail. (Big grin!)

When I got back, I plunked the saddle pad on Mesa just for fun. 

Someday soon that saddle won't be on the saddle rack it will be on her back! Actually, not that saddle but my little saddle. 

Mesa is growing, she is 2 inches higher at the butt than the wither. 13.2 and a half inch at the butt, 13 hands and a half inch at the wither. I have her sticked out to finish at 14.2 hh. She is 1 year and 3 months so she is on track to be at least that tall.

I look forward to ponying her out on the trails this fall!

Riding day 61

Great idea!

Found this video on Facebook and just had to share it here because this is something I plan on doing. I'm all about safety and making things easier!

...you're welcome....

Au revoir

which translates as until we meet again.

Today was moving day for Tumbleweed and Rosalee.

Say goodbye to your buddies, T'weed....

Linda and family arrived right on time, we made sure all the paperwork was in order and then it was time....

The grandkids came with them, it was nice to see these girls again. 

A little visiting and going over some pointers... and it was time to load up.

Convince me....

I guess it passed inspection! Once she was in it was time to load T'weed. 

Yes T'weed, your mama is in there.

Well, all right then!

He took less time to load than his mama!  Off they went on their way to Washington state. They are within 3 hours of us and I do look forward to being able to visit, hence the title of this post. Rosalee will stay there for a few days until her new owner comes to pick her up, which gives T'weed time to settle in to his new surroundings. 

Photo courtesy of Linda

Pretty nice set up in their new home! If you want to follow his journey, go to Beautiful Mustang blog.

The herd looks pretty small with them gone! Now I have to find a new normal. Time to start working Mesa again.

Beamer's turn

Another nasty smokey day, but the river is so good for Gussie's leg that we went back there today. I invited Shayla to ride Beamer, much to her delight- and Beamer was so happy to get out again too!

The smoke is doing funny things to the light sensors on my little camera, a lot of the photos have this old-timey look to them.
I wasn't sure how Beamer would take to going in the river, he hasn't been really keen on water before, but then again, I had never had him in a river.

I needn't have worried! He really enjoyed it!

Tastes refreshing apparently, he drank several times.
Gussie stood motionless and let the water do it's magic on her leg. The swelling has gone down quite a bit, and even more so after today's session.

I think he should go for a swim! Take the saddle off and go for it! I didn't get it on video, but he did swim one stride and kind of tried to lunge forward to get his footing- rather like Gussie and Kit did.

Emptying her boots after the near-swim

On the way back we got to those horse -eatin' cement blocks. Gussie was very s'picious! I tried first to ride her through, giving her plenty of time and rewarding the slightest try, but it was pretty plain that she was not going to go. So, I led her through, and she went quite easily; led her back through and got on... and rode her through. Silly mare....

Tomorrow is a big day. His li'l self and his mama are heading south.

Definitely going to miss him! He has been a delight to have around. He and his mama are both nice easy going horses, and I'm sure will both be going to the best homes I could hope for. The cool part is that I get to keep in touch with both of them.

Riding day 60

We ride, but not far or for long.

Although the fires are not close enough to be a threat, the smoke is very thick here- but not always . I have squeaked in 4 short rides in the last few days. 

The morning sun...

and tonight's setting sun.

We had spotted a trail to the river that we knew would lead to another trail on the south side of the river, that some friends of ours use. So we decided to explore it. 

I'm glad I was saddled up that day! These cement blocks in the following photo are set to prevent people in quads and other vehicles from driving on the dyke, and in this set there is enough space for a horse to walk through them. We had Tay and Goose with us, and Tay was right in front of  Gussie as we went through the gap... and she stopped to investigate something. Right under Gussie's nose. Of course, Gussie scared Tay as she almost stepped on her, and that scared Gussie, who panicked and tried to turn in that tight space and of course she couldn't, and ended up scraping her leg and freaking out, whirling, kind of bucking. (You can see some of the hair on the cement in the photo that Shayla took as she rode Sassy through the gap). I stayed on! My one rein stop instinct kicked in and I had a good grip on the big ole saddle horn on the Wade saddle. Gussie didn't seem hurt, not limping so we continued on and stood her in the river for a bit as we made our way across. 

It was another steep trail that lead up to the hay fields on top, but the landowner had it fenced off so we rode back down. The silly dogs bailed off the steep side of the hill and had to climb their way back up to us, a couple of times. But it didn't wear them out!

The next morning Gussie was stocked up in that leg, so we went for a ride to the river just for some hydrotherapy for her.

We are getting rather a lot of bareback riding in this month!
Gussie was reluctant to go through the gap in the cement so we went around it. Today we went down again for hydrotherapy, I sure do love having that river close by! Shayla rode Rose this time, and we went to a spot with more current.

Headed across for a photo shoot against the beautiful rocks....



The fall colours are starting.....

and I'm back in long sleeves! The nights are cooling off. We actually have rain in the forecast!



On the way back I schooled Gussie about facing her fear of going through the cement. I got off, and led her through- she grabbed her butt and rushed through, so I turned around and asked her to go through, slower.

 Once she would stop on the way through and relax, I used the blocks as a mounting block to get back on, which was also good for her. Tomorrow I'll ask her to ride through without the groundwork.

Apparently I neglected to post about my ride on Beamer the other day- my bad! I have him on Protandim now and he seems to be sound enough to ride, so ride I did! Hence my new cover photo. A nice trail ride down through the bush to the river and back.

My happy place! He always has his ears on me, so I pushed them forward in this goofy photo:

I think I can ride him a couple of times a week now. If it isn't too smokey tomorrow we have a ride planned to explore trails further upstream, and I'll be taking Gussie on that one.

Riding day 56, 57, 58 and 59

3 month photo shoot

August 16th, and Tumbleweed is officially 3 months old. So for part of my 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months and 3 years (as being the best times to evaluate a horse) without further ado, I hope you enjoy his photos!

Rockin' the dun factor now! Check out the stripe on his back:

Love those markings!

He still has some shedding out to do but his beautiful colour is showing.

Love  the dark tips on his ears.

Such a friendly guy. 

I'm trying to get him to drink water after he eats his ration instead of heading straight to his mama for a slurp of milk, but he is still a mama's boy.

Beamer sez: Hey! He is lots like me too! Handsome! And fun! 

Another river day

We did head back to the river today, but we took the long way around, doing some bushwhacking parallel to the dyke, heading downstream. Found some very pleasant trails, and turned around when they all ended at the river. Michelle came with us again today but on her palomino Morgan/Quarter Horse cross mare, Allie, who used to be Shayla's horse; you may remember her from a few of my posts trail riding with Rio a few years ago.

I was bareback again as I planned to ride into the river, as was Michelle. My butt cheeks are sure getting a workout!

Shayla did a little schooling on Sassy, checking her for issues when the other horses get a ways ahead of her, but- she was a rock star! She was happy to stay back, no trotting to keep up.

Shayla was saddled, so she opted to take the photos. We went across on the shallow end first to see how Allie reacted. All was well so the next pass was deeper.

Michelle said that she could really feel Allie reaching for bottom!

 No, Allie, you are not a submarine, you need to keep your nose above the water!

Gussie did better today, although she definitely was more comfortable with another horse in the water with her....

we did get to swimming depth a couple of times. She does turn around and head to shore pretty quickly once she has to swim though; I think the trick there will be going with a horse that will swim straight across and have her follow.

Shayla took her mare across but not at swimming depth. Sassy seems to like the water.

She's a pretty cool li'l mare!
After that we went upstream a ways and found a place where we can go further by getting into some shallow water to go around a fenceline- that's Sunday's project. It should bring us to some trails that Shayla knows well.

Riding Day 55

Too much fun!

What do you do for fun in August? Go swimming? Well; of course! Since our first sortie to the river went well, we invited another friend who had never swam a horse; she rides English and has a really cool horse that is 18 years old, the lovely bay mare Kit.

You know that bend in the river that I always say is my favourite view? Well, that's where the swimming hole is. We headed there, I rode Gussie in the saddle as I wasn't planning on swimming her, while the other 2 ladies rode bareback.

We all crossed the river at a point where they could just wade across. Kit wasn't sure aboutthe water touching her lady parts!  On the way back across, Shayla got Rose to swim for more than a couple of strides.

That got Kit's rider a little braver!

But, Kit was still having none of it!

Eventually though.....

She swam her back across too- and her smile says it all!

Shayla swam Rose several times. Rose gained confidence with each swim.

We sure had fun!

We even had an audience- I hope we didn't disturb them too mush with out squeals of joy!

Kit swimming back

Shayla and Rose in the deeps!

We had so much fun; even though it's still very smokey here, this is an easy ride and a good experience for the horses. 

Sooooo.... since that went well....

Today Shayla and I decided that the red roans needed to get this figured out too. Gussie has never swam, to my knowledge, and I do know that she dislikes scary footing such as teeter totter bridges.So losing her footing in the river would be a big deal for her. And Sassy, as a 4 year old, has never done any of this stuff before we introduced her to river crossings. So it was their turn today. We rode them bareback to the swimming hole, accompanied by our faithful border collies Goose and Tay.

You can see all the smoke in the air... BC has declared a state of emergency, finally, which frees up more funding to pay for fire fighting.

Anyway, we did an easy crossing first just to gauge where the mares were at mentally with the water. That went well.

Gussie went across well, this was on the way back across.

Then Sassy got to go for her very first swim...

She did really well! Took everything quite calmly. Then I took Gussie in the deep water.....

As soon as her feet couldn't touch bottom she wanted to head back to the safety of the bank, and she lunged out of the water. It was ok for her first swim! and lots of fun. But I do need to take her back through and all the way across, but for the day, that was enough for the mares. 

The smiles tell the story! We thoroughly enjoyed that! We do need to take them back again just to encourage them to be braver and trust us. Gussie especially. 

Tips for swimming horses: A short rein and split reins - you sure wouldn't want to get caught up in a looped rein if things go south.

Riding day 53 & 54