New stuff for Tumbleweed

His little cuteness is getting easy to catch and lead now, and is finding his independence from mama.
I thought I'd take a couple of videos just for fun.

This first one is walking up to him, bringing him out of the pen to eat his ration.

This one is where I decided to take him for his first solo walk away from the other horses. He wrapped around me a lot, but I just went with him. He did really well! But when I put him back in the pen he got in a hurry and you will see how that turned out.

I like that he doesn't panic when things go south. He does quite well, doesn't lose his mind.

He's a fun little fellow to work with. 😤

Pasture mates

Today was a non riding day. But not a non horse day!
I had a dentist appointment this morning and it kinda knocked the energy out of me so I wasted the early afternoon having a nap... there went my riding time!
I turned out Belle and Gussie into the adjoining pasture, and brought Sassy out; normally she is just turned out with Mesa but today I left Rosalee and Tumbleweed in with them. I noticed yesterday when I was riding Rosalee that she seemed comfortable hanging around the fenceline of Sassy's pen; no ear pinning or stink eye going on. So since I want to be able to have all the mares together soon, I opted to do Rosalee today instead of Gussie. It went fairly well.

First on a leadline to assess Rosalee's attitude, and then I turned her loose. Pretty quiet at first, but there were about 4 times when she charged Sassy, who was quick to get the heck outa there! Then they settled down and got along, from a distance.

Any time Tumbleweed got too close to Sassy, Rosalee went into protect mode, but by the time I came down to put Sassy back in her pen for the night all was quiet.
She did get really buddied up with Mesa today, I guess it's comforting to have a friend.

I brought T'weed out for his munchies, he is getting quite confidant about leaving the pen, especially since he gets a little hand grazing too.

Everything is progressing nicely!

Riding with li'l pests

Finally I'm getting time in the saddle again. I rode Gussie the other day, and after the previous ride where she was sure she didn't want to go in the bush, this time- no problem. We waded through the pond and down one of the trails- only to find ourselves swarmed by mosquitoes! ( Li'l pests version 1) That kind of made it unpleasant enough for both of us that I didn't prolong the ride. We did the pond again on the way back.... just because it's fun!

The lady who came up from the coast decided not to buy Rosalee, she was looking for more perfect conformation. No problem, there are very few perfect horses and I'm sure she will find one she likes better. There is another lady coming on Saturday to try her out, so I have been trying to ride her every day. A certain li'l somebody is having to deal with it!

He goes in for a slurp when I stop for a few minutes.

I stepped it up a bit today and rode with T'weed and Mesa loose in the pen. (Li'l pests version 2)

They got a little silly a couple of times! I was pretty happy with how Rosalee handled their antics. She basically ignored them. She is soooo out of shape! So regular riding will really help and by weaning time she should be able to go on and work for whoever ends up with her. Sometime in July I'd like to take her and T'weed to the little local arena to give her a better workout. Maybe I'll even teach him to pony.

Come for a spin or two with me!

I take Rosalee out of the pen by herself to saddle up.

Crappy photo but it shows how unconcerned both of them were about being separated. 

T'weed is starting to shed now, his ears and face and legs are showing some of the colour under that baby fuzz.

That's not dirt on his knee, it's a kind of sooty black; that's the colour his stockings will be.

Buckskin showing on his face.

And those ears! Neat colour and it will look even better when all that whitish hair sheds off.

Riding day 32, 33, and 34

T'weed makes progress

All the work I did on T'weed's feet with the rope paid off. Look what he let me do today:

It has been really wet here with massive downpours and thunderstorms, so the horse pens are a wee bit soggy. I wanted to get the mud off him and he was pretty agreeable about it. A couple of other times today he let me lift his feet and hold the toe for a sec, without me haltering him. Progress!

I turned Sassy out by herself in one of the "grass" pens (it's mostly weeds!) as I want her to move around a bit. Her leg is swelling and she gets stocked up overnight. I am cold hosing it which really helps, and treating it with Underwoods. I will spare you the grisly photos of her owy.

Now that I have Sassy here I can't run Mesa and T'weed into the foaling pen for their foal ration, so I stepped it up a bit and brought him outside the pen to eat his num nums. It worked out well, his mama didn't seem to care. She is letting him get quite independent now.

I was quite proud of him today! He really stepped up and advanced today.

He is starting to shed his baby hair and his true colour is showing around his eyes now. He is going to be quite handsome!

What I was up to....

Well- how about a road trip to Alberta?

I loaded up all three dogs and headed out early in the morning. This was a stop at Crowsnest Lake. Both collies were quite disappointed that I didn't trow a stick in the water for them! But I didn't need to be travelling with that wet dog smell.

I know Merle is tiny at only 3.8 lbs., but he looks like a speck against that view!

And the purpose of this trip?

The girls were wondering too....

I went to pick up this mare.
This is Meradas Boon Bar, aka Sassy, who is in for breeding to Beamer and to recover from a nasty looking wound on her left elbow. She is Shayla's cutting horse, and since she will be down for some time as she heals she gets to be a mama. But she should be rideable soon.

T'weed was wondering who this new girl is in his pen... but Rosalee came in for the "kill" and they got told! My Baby!

Beamer likes her....

but she isn't quite ready for him yet. I'm really hoping this works out, this should be a super athletic and pretty foal. Here is Sassy's pedigree.

Rope work and what am I up to now....

I have changed up my routine a bit; Belle and Gussie go out on pasture in the mornings and Mesa stays with Rosalee and Tumbleweed so that I can give them their ration. Rosalee gets tied up while the littles eat.
T'weed is happily eating his ration now, although he loses interest after a few bites.

I also do some work with him; leading and touching him all over including his tickly belly and touching his legs all over. He still isn't really good with picking them up so I decided to do some rope work with him today.

(Sorry about my loud breathing, I have issues!)

He is getting easier to catch too, although tomorrow will be a day off as I have some early morning traveling to do- and a surprise to share afterwards- so Friday I will be catching him in the mare pen instead of running them all into the foaling pen. 

Mesa is starting to put weight on and is looking really good! She does need work though, she has gotten a bit opinionated about where she should and shouldn't go. She likes to get out for hand grazing but doesn't want to come back in (can't blame her!) 

Rode Gussie yesterday, and she surprised me by refusing to go into the bush. There are bad skeeters and horseflies right now. You know how sometimes you get a feeling just before a ride that things may not be just right- well that's how I felt and not sure if Gussie picked up on it, but she was quite certain that we should not be taking that trail into the bush- who knows, could have been something in there that I didn't know about but she did- and I always trust my gut so I gave her some trotting work in the round pen, then up to my schooling spot. 

She was quite happy to work, no issues. Pretty sure she wasn't just giving me attitude and that she felt there was a legitimate reason not to go down the trail. 

I had a nice ride, working on some lateral stuff that is a bit more advanced. Picking up a bend like you do when you are sidepassing, how you arc away from the direction of sidepass, and then hold the same arc and sidepass into the direction of the arc. So pick up a left arc, sidepass to the right, then hold the arc and sidepass to the left. Easier to do in an arena but she did well out in the open.

She is holding her body much better now but I think she still needs one more body work session. 

I do love this mare!

I love that I can go out to the pasture with a halter and she walks right up to me. I guess she is happy too.
Riding day 31

Mesa's mama

Just a quick photo stolen from FB of Coulee and the good life she is leading.

Youngsters

Thursday was another Tumbleweed day, he got another visit from his people, who brought along their granddaughters.  I really enjoyed the visit, including the yummy scones that they brought with them; coffee for the adults and tea for the girls, and a nice visit around the kitchen table before we headed to the barn.
This time, Linda did most of the work, catching him, encouraging him to lead, and generally handling him all over. He was lapping up all the attention!

He was very good with the children and seemed quite taken with the smallest one, someone just his size but in people form!

Both girls did very well handling him, and he allowed as how the older one was ok to lead him.

I did step in to help accomplish picking up his feet, he is still not too sure about that, but he is coming along. He was better with his back feet, but struck with a front foot this time.

Then it was Mesa's turn for attention.

They took turns leading her, and Mesa didn't quite see the point in it as there was no food involved and actually pinned her ears at one point, but Linda helped and got her over that.

Reward for being good- stop and get petted! She does love attention.
Then they all visited Da Man. Aka Loverboy  😍
He too loves attention, you can see where his foals get it from.

This photo and the next photo are my favourite moments of the day.

Both these girls are good hands around horses and I hope they continue to be involved with horses.

We also introduced Tumbleweed to foal ration. He wasn't too sure about it at first, but when mama dove into it like she was starving, he figured it must be something to eat and did try nibbling on it.

Gussie wanted some too! 

It will be about 3 weeks before they come back, so I'm hoping/planning that there will be some major differences by then. Better with his feet, easier to catch, and he will be much bigger by then!

4 weeks old

Tumbleweed is 4 weeks old today.
Today he was integrated into the whole herd. I just opened the gate of the foaling pen, and he and mama strolled out and joined the herd. 4 weeks of them visiting over the fence and establishing their pecking order that way worked well. There was no drama.

Other than Mesa getting the stink eye, that is!

He was quite interested in Gussie.

She laid her ears back one time and he respectfully walked away.

Mama Belle had a really soft look to her, as if to say all was right in her world with a foal in the herd.

This afternoon when I brought Rosalee and Tumbleweed in for the night, I spent some time working with him. He decided to play hard to catch, so after a while I got tired of that game and flipped his lead rope up on him and caught him with that before haltering him. He was a bit put out that he had to work! I ended up using the butt rope on him. I wanted to get some medicine on his tummy as he has the runs, I mixed some DiGize oil with coconut oil and put it on his tummy. He was pretty ticklish there!  But I had him against the wall so he just had to deal with it. Then he pouted about being led, hence the butt rope. I also worked on touching and lifting all 4 legs, still keeping that handy butt rope in place. He didn't kick out this time when I worked on his hind legs like he did the first two times. So it was a pretty good session. After that I figured since it was a rope kind of day that I'd do some rope work on him.

The first part of the video I had the camera hanging around my neck, the second part I was holding it- sorry if it's a bit bouncy! 

He did really good! I plan on haltering him every day and will be introducing him to foal ration over the next few days. 

Oh the cuteness

A visit and integrating

Yesterday Tumbleweed's people came to see him and play with him. I got to meet Linda's husband, and he got introduced to the li'l guy who stole his wife's heart

I haltered him and played with him a bit first.

I haven't done a lot of work on picking up his feet but that will have to change; he took exception to having his hind leg picked up  and kicked out, so got a reprimand slap; tried it again with the same result and on the third try he didn't kick so I left it at that.
He's starting to lead fairly well. He doesn't panic when he feels the pressure of the lead rope although sometimes his protest is to back up and we just go with him, maintaining the pressure at the same level, releasing when he stops and then asking again for a forward step. After a bit of work he was leading like a champ for Linda.



Then it was turnout time. They hadn't seen him having fun and stretching his legs in the bigger pen.

Showing off his power take off.....

and his break dance moves.....

and his muscles! These 3 photos were taken by Linda while I went to get Mesa... it was time to start integrating him into the herd. I like to do it one horse at a time, and because Rosalee was mothering Mesa last year, she got first call to duty.

The initial contact was drama free.

Mesa getting told "My Hay!"

Tumbleweed getting told "My Hay!"
Shortly after that she cow kicked him, fortunately no damage and he minded his own business after that.
I left them together for a few hours, and all went well.

It was a pretty good and busy day; after that I got my corrals cleaned, all the pooh is in a pile now- yay! I got some more of my flowerbeds built too.  In the earlier part of the day I rode Gussie, bareback just for fun and did a schooling ride on her. I worked on vertical flexion at a standstill: Leg, rein, flex, release, over and over until she started flexing at the leg cue only. I used as light of pressure on the leg and rein as I could. Several times she started to move forward, so a little verbal cue worked, with rein cue added if needed. Worked on her spin and lateral travelling too, she is still a bit sticky in the sidepass to the right.
You never realise how much leg you use when riding until you ride bareback! When I lifted my right leg to slide off her I got a muscle cramp. Uggh!

My beautiful Gussie. You can see why I was working on vertical flexion!

3 weeks old

Yes, his li'l cuteness is 3 weeks old today.
I started his morning with a halter lesson. He decided to pull away before I got the halter done up, so we had a mini work on him allowing me to catch him. He is pretty friendly overall. One of the things I do, now that he is a little older, is that I don't go to the butt when I approach him. No more butt scratches. I go to the wither, and slide my arm around him and give him chest scratches with one hand and neck/wither scratches with the other- which he loves. Then I slide the nose piece over his nose and quietly do it up. The second try he stood quietly for the process.
Here is how the session went:

I was watchful to make sure the rope didn't slide onto his eye; I have to adjust the knots that go down to the throatlatch a bit lower.

I like to do a photo shoot at 3 weeks, and he didn't disappoint. 

On with the show!

Swapping directions like a pro!

He's gonna have some reach in his spins!!!

Muscling up and look at that lovely head and neck.

And that booty! 'Nuff said!

Good thing his mama loves him.

Speaking of mama, today she got to go back under saddle. She seemed happy to have something to do. I will be riding her regularly as Shayla has someone coming to look at her; one of the ladies who was interested in her from the first time I put her up for sale. She will be here on the 22nd and wants to take a light ride on her. 

Right on

Since my last post I have done more work with Tumbleweed. I had a friend over to hold him in halter while I finished trimming his mama. Dave is 80 years old now, and he is a good hand- gentle but not a pushover. He grew up with horses on the farm and has lots of stories about those days. He loves coming over to help out with the horses. At first Tumbleweed objected to having the halter on, he was all over the pen until Dave ran the lead rope around his butt. It had the usual calming effect and to make things easier we took him into the stall and I trimmed his mama just outside the stall.
It had been about a week since I had done much with him, so I figured it was a good idea to do more daily work with him. The next day I haltered him and mama and led them out on grass. He is pretty good when he is with her, I guess it just makes sense to him to follow her.
The following day they got turn out; I don't turn them out on rainy days but it had dried up enough to let them loose.

I wish I had started the video a little quicker as he did a sliding stop and roll back right in front of me. He's an agile little guy!

Today I stepped it up a bit and caught him and worked in the pen without having mama haltered too. It was pretty obvious that he is a left sided horse, he wanted nothing to do with seeing me out of his right eye. So... guess what we worked on....  I spent about 15 minutes working with him, used the butt rope so he couldn't just back away from me, or his other favourite trick of putting his head up and swinging his butt to me while stiffening his neck. Once he was calm about me being on the right and leading him from the right, and standing quietly, I turned him loose. 

Then this evening at chore time, I caught him again just to make sure that he had absorbed the things we worked on earlier..

And look at that... he remembered and was pretty much good with it, except for the little backing up spree. It is so important to use the butt rope with foals when they don't quite get things, it seems to connect their body to their brain. You don't need to keep it on the whole time, just enough to get them thinking.
I have filed his registration now, should get his papers in a couple of weeks. It took a while to capture that 3/4 pose they want for the papers but I think I nailed it with this photo:

It's probably the one that will go on his papers. I am excited to see what his colour will look like once he sheds all that baby fuzz! You can see hints of the dark from his knees down and the wither patch of darker hair. The leg stripes are faint right now, hopefully they will be more visible once he sheds out, probably around August.

Trails and swirls

Last week I rode Gussie on a short trail ride and followed with some schooling. I'm happy with her progress and love how light she is to the leg. I can almost go bridleless and steer! Not quite there yet though.
Today's ride was just trails. She is in heat, and kept thinking she should turn back to the herd, but it was more a hesitation in her step than an actual turn. Once we got a little farther away she settled right in.

The trails are so pretty right now. The river has gone down quite a bit too.

As usual, I could have ridden much longer; I'm going to have to haul somewhere to do that.

Gussie is looking mighty fine right now! My strawberry roan is all sleek and shiny and at the weight I like on her.

Linda and I have had some discussion on swirls, and I checked Gussie over for swirls today. I knew she had pretty much a normal swirl on her forehead, but I found a few more.

She has this one on her windpipe, and this is the info I found on it:
Windpipe
- Swirls located on the trachea or underside of the windpipe were seen as a sign of prosperity and good fortune in olden days.
- These are entirely different from the long 'wheat' coming out of the chest extending almost to the throatlatch.

Then she has this one on her throatlatch.

Throatlatch
- Swirls under the throatlatch seem to draw the head up. They can help keep a horse from getting the head too low if they have good poll swirls.
- Swirls under the throatlatch without poll swirls may create a high head carrage, and/or a lack of flexibility in the throatlatch and/or poll.
- It is preferred these swirls be evenly spaced under the throatlatch and not all off to one side.

As you can see in the above photo, she does carry her head high. She rarely carries her head level when we are riding. She struggles to lower her head on command, like when I'm bridling her.

This next photo is on her other side, so you can see that it is even on both sides.

There is one more swirl:

This little half swirl on her cheek.

Cheek
- In the olden days, a swirl on the cheek was a bad sign of debt and ruin.

Had to laugh at that one because this horse has made me quite a bit of money, from selling her twice to selling her blue roan foals. I guess the Windpipe swirl counter balances that one!

For those interested in the source of my info, it is Fox Point Farm

My take on Gussie's personality and ability: 

She is trustworthy, a wee bit emotional. She doesn't get upset easily. She does flex at the poll but doesn't carry it that way for long. She is willing and is a joy to ride. Super light to leg and rein aids.

All in all I'm really happy with her!

One little Tumbleweed update:

Toofers!!!!

Riding day 29 and 30