Mira Today

Here is a photo of The Spoiled One. I picked a bunch of grass today so they had fun chowing down on that. While they were doing that I used the new camera to take what is seriously the best ever head-on picture I have gotten of her. I have GOT to clean her up really good and try this a bunch more times now. With the right grooming, pose, and background it would look fabulous. I love her ears, and Andolu's too. Does anyone else just love seeing their horses perk their ears as they watch you come over? I do!

L

Fencing photos

Here are some photos of the finally finished fencing project. It SOO nice to be done with it. There are a few little details left, of course, but it's done! I suppose a fencing professional would cringe, as it is definitely not perfect, but it should be strong enough and safe enough to do its job, so I consider it a good job.

I am discovering a downside to my wonderful new camera - everytime I take pictures of the horses I always cringe later at how much dust you can seen on them! I hate to immortalize bad pictures of them; on the other I probably shouldn't get so perfectionistic that I'll only post pictures right after a bath and thorough grooming and before they've been able to roll...

Meanwhile, they are doing well, although a few days ago when I went out to feed we had a little incident. Ever since it got dry and sunny I drastically cut back Andolu's feed amounts from when it was cold, in order to help him lose a little weight. He has gotten somewhat grumpy with "only" getting about 15 pounds a day. Anyway, they saw me come out and came running over to the fence, but Andolu, for whatever reason, suddenly double-barreled Mira. I saw it happen and saw her stagger but I was too far away to throw anything at him, so I yelled at him and then went into the house for a couple minutes (bad behavior = no food). I got some first aid stuff and went out again. By the time he was settled eating and I could tend to her, she had already developed a larger-than-my fist bruise right behind her right front leg and there a bleeding wound on her shoulder. Argh! The wound was already clotting but I put alum on it to help the clotting and then iced all the bruised areas for 20 minutes 3 times a day for the next day and a half. After that I did heat for a couple of days, and now I'm just watching it. She was definitely stiff the first few days, but seems back to normal now. I'm really glad it didn't require a vet visit!

The grass around here is growing really nicely so far. I've been taking some to the horses and I hope to start doing some rotation grazing soon.

L

Sun? Really?!

Wow, today we had nice sunny warm weather the WHOLE day - not just for a teasing hour or two. It was nice. :-D

I haven't posted new photos of the horses yet because, well, they both are enjoying sleeping and rolling in the mud. Mira is quite thoroughly grimy and Andolu somehow managed to get his legs completely muddy again right after I had thoroughly washed and dried them. Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow I can get them presentable enough for pictures.

My brother #2 and I are almost done with the fencing project, finally. Only a bit over 100' of fencing to go. It would be super fast to do except that this is the part where the ground varies so much that you have to do each section separately. It should take us only one more session, though. I'll try to post pictures of the new fencing; it looks nice. I am definitely a fencing freak. I just adore sturdy and safe fences. I do not, however, like white board fencing or some of the other "classic" fencing, simply because I can't help thinking how much work it would be! My ideal fence would be a nice thick 5' or 6' high hedge...

The other day I called Sis in Washington and let her talk to her dog, Kippy. It was Kip's first time hearing a phone call (outdoor dog) and she was hilarious! She kept trying to lick the phone and as Sis kept talking she started looking around in all directions and barking intermittently. Obviously she recognized the voice - I felt sorry for her that she could not see Sis, but oh well. Maybe she or they can visit this summer.


L

Two Years Horse-Blogging

So, as of yesterday I am starting on my third year of blogging. I was thinking about my horsey goals for this year just now, and decided I might as well put them down. Here goes...

1. Get into a routine of riding Andolu at least a little for four days a week. I hate to say that is a goal as if it was work, but I do need to schedule it or else I tend to try to get all my chores done first, which means it doesn't happen.
2. Build Andolu's endurance up slowly and keep him sound if at all possible.
3. Learn to post well and post without stirrups regularly.
4. Take lessons at M's, especially longe lessons to develop my seat.
5. Pony Mira at least twice a week with both horses staying calm and obedient.
6. Finish the fencing project.
7. Teach Andolu to bow.
8. Get Andolu strong enough to be well balanced and comfortable changing leads at the canter.
9. Go on a trail ride in the mountains with both of them!

That is a good starting place, I think. I guess the most important thing of all though is that he stays sound and I keep having time to ride!


Below is my original post and last year's New Year's post.

http://me-mira.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-year-new-blog.html

http://me-mira.blogspot.com/2008/01/one-year-anniversary-and-happy-new-year.html


Happy New Year to everyone! Hopefully 2009 will be a good one for us all.


L

Way cool... A great Christmas present.

This is so cool. My aunt and uncle (the nice and indulgent ones that I always stay with for the Horse Expo) came up yesterday to exchange presents and celebrate New Year's. Our present from them was the exact camera we had asked for!!! It was rather expensive so when we told them about it we said a gift certificate toward it would be great, but they went ahead and just got it! It is a really nice 8 MP, 4x optical zoom camera with some video ability, and when my brother was doing research it was said to be one of the all around best in its class. So, pretty soon when it stops raining and I can clean the horses up a little again I will be posting new photos!

Today has been a really nice day for a lot of reasons, even though it is now raining again. All that nice mud makes me sooo excited. Not. :-) But I haven't had any work to do today, which means I can just clean stuff and get caught up on important things like sleep. Ahh. I hope everyone else is having a good day too!


L