Muddy Boy!!!

Had an awesome time with Danny last night......he was very muddy so most of our time spent together was in the front yard....him eating that good grass and me brushing and brushing and brushing..........the best part was that I didn't have to chase him at all to catch him....for the first time ever he saw me by the gate and came trotting over to me! :) It was great........quite the bonding moment. I did figure out fast thou that he does not like mopeds......lol.

Wow.....is it ever cold outside today! I think it's -17 regular temp. and -36 wind chill. Holy moly cold. I don't feel so bad with the cold this time, the last time we had such cold temps I worried the entire weekend about Danny getting too cold because I don't have a blanket for him. Well, I bought him a blanket so now he should be nice and toasty warm the rest of the winter. It fits him perfectly and he didn't have a problem at all with putting it on. I feel much better knowing he's nice and cozy warm now. :) If I ever remember to bring the camera out I will take some pictures of him in his blanket!

It's been a long time!

Hi all, I haven't blogged in a long time now. I am still around just very busy lately! Danny is still doing wonderful. He was a little spunky and acting like a knucklehead last week when the weather turned cold all of a sudden. I had a new ferrier out and I thought he was going to break her in half. She's a smaller built woman and he was just kicking and dancing around like a crazy horse. I had never seen him like that before. It really wasn't anything dangerous, he was just pulling away from her and kept moving around a lot and jumping up and even biting, little brat, yep he bit me. No blood or broken bones though so it was ok. He did get a yelling at from me though, he knows better then to do that. He's such a good horse and such a lover that it's hard to stay mad at him at all. It's nice having this cooler fall weather but it sure does put some piss -n- vinager in the horses. :o)

Well that's it for now! I have a lesson tonight so if anything exciting happens I will let ya know!

Oh yeah, the kids are doing fine too! LOL

2007 County Fair...

Wow, it's been forever since I posted, but we have been busy, busy ever since fair. First it was fair and after that it's been preparing for school to start. Anyway, here are some pictures from fair. C and Danny did very well at the shows. They did Showmanship (won 3rd place) and Western Pleasure Horsemanship walk/trot (also won a 3rd place). She was very excited. In total including her projects she won 2 first place ribbons, 4 second place ribbons and 3 third place ribbons.

L had a blast at fair too. She can't wait until her Cloverbud Graduation next month so she can get all the cool ribbons next year too.

They both (we all) had soooooooooo much fun.

Her 1st Horse Show...

They did awesome!!! No ribbons (those will come in due time) but they had tons of FUN. Danny did sooooooo well, for a horse that I don't think has ever been in a show ring he acted like a pro. They make the perfect pair. They were sooooo good together. I am such a proud mom of both of them (horse and kid)

They had to wait a long time between classes so they both attemped to take a nap.

The afterglow! It was a very long day. :o)

Chelsea's 1st Horse Show 2007 Part 2

Chelsea's 1st Show Part 1

Working on Showmanship

We have been working with Danny every other day during the week and every Saturday and Sunday. Lounging, walking, trotting and working on lots of groundwork. We are all bonding very well. C has been working on Showmanship with him and they are coming along good. He is really listening to her. Both the girls have been riding him too. He loves all the grooming attention he gets. The girls and I brush him and clean his feet both before and after we do anything with him. He gets treats after we are all finished (regular horse treats we baked, apples and carrots). He's getting some muscle tone to him and his coat is getting nice and shiny from all that grooming. We also sprayed him down the other night after I lunged him. I was very happy to see that he will have no problem with taking a bath. He gave one of those looks like....ahhhhhhh that feels sooooooo good...of course it was 92 degrees out too so I'm sure it did feel good.

First Round Pen Attempt...went pretty good

Paperwork, Paperwork, Paperwork........

Chelsea and Lindsay are all signed up for Fair now. They seem to be doing soooooo much this year. It's all fun though. We had our monthly 4H meeting last night and tied up a lot of loose ends. We decided on our Fair decorations for the barn (they are going to be soooo cool) of course I can't tell what it's going to be (you never know who reads this.....lol) it's TOP SECRET!!!!!!!

Everyone turned in all the paperwork needed to show at fair so the girls are now all set to go. It seemed like quite a bit of confusion but after almost two hours everyone had all their paperwork in and are set to go. We will be starting next week on making the decorations for the barn. We decided on a logo for our clubs fair t-shirts and signed up to get them. They are going to be very cool too. Chelsea (being the treasurer) reminded everyone that hadn't paid for their club dues or project fees to pay them as soon as they could. Well that pretty much sums up the meeting last night. We will be going to a Hunter/Jumper and Dressage education clinic this Wed. evening, should be very fun to watch. I will update on the clinic later in the week.

I forgot to add that I rode Danny the other night after our trainer rode him for a little while. It was awesome. He did great only one small issue, he is a bit barn sour and was wanting to go back to the barn every time we would get close to the gate out. He was very easy to control though even when he was wanting to go back by his buddies. Both the girls and I will be starting our regular lessons with Danny this week.

Hoof Trim

We had the farrier out this morning to have Danny's feet trimmed. This was the first time trimming for me anyways. His first time during the time we have had him. He stood like a champ. I was so very proud of him. And, so very happy that he did so well. Ferriers don't usually like horses that don't stand well while they are working with them. Anyway, that's our news for today! Bye for now.

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a very nice relaxing Memorial Day weekend. The kids played a lot outside, fourtunately the weather was good.

These are a few of our new flowers this year. We didn't even realize this was going to flower. We put it in last year and all it was all summer was the green leaves....now all of a sudden this year they sprouted these beautiful purple flowers.

We planted the garden too.......Of course that was my "big" chore for the weekend and it took all of about 15 minutes to put in....lol. It's looking good so far and at least the rabbits are leaving it alone this year (so far).

We also spent some time working with Danny over the weekend.....he is doing very well....he's has now met all of his new horsey friends and is enjoying being out in the huge pasture with all of them. He is much more calm now that he is out with them too. Our trainer rode him to see what he does or doesn't do and it went pretty well. The only issue was that when she asked him to go into a canter he would do a small buck.....I did however talk with the lady that I bought him from and she said he was never cued to move forward with legs only clucking and asking with words.....we are going to try again tomorrow evening. I think he was just a bit upset with her asking him to move forward with her legs......we will have to teach him though because you can't cue a horse in the show ring with clucking and talking ... he should catch on quickly....he's a very smart boy. We love him sooooo much.

Well that's about all for now. Have a great day!

Danny's home sweet home...

The trip to go get Danny went very well. It was a hour and a half one way. He did very well. When we first got there I think he could tell something was going on. (I think he saw the trailer and just knew something was up) I went to get him from the pasture and as we were walking up to the trailer he would stop and plant his feet every once in a while. He would go again when I rubbed his neck and told him everything was OK. He jump right in the trailer like a champ. (with a little bucket of grain in the front window because we weren't sure how he would do) He handled the long ride just fine. Half way through we stopped to check on him and he was doing just great. When we got him to his new home he backed right out of the trailer and stood there looking around. He walked right into the barn doorway like he already knew the place. He is settling in wonderfully. I couldn't get any good pictures of him yet because I didn't want to interrupt the process. I will have some soon and post them for everyone to see. We are so very happy he's doing so well.

Danny Update...

I spoke with Danny's owner again today and she said the Vet was out to check the Mare and it may be another week or more. She is though laying down a lot lately which is a good sign too. Any new news I get I will be sure to pass along here. Still patiently waiting.

Getting Closer...

I spoke with Danny's owner and found out that the mare is starting to "Bag Up". Which means that the baby should be here within the next week. Oh the waiting is so difficult, it's almost like waiting for my own baby to come into the world. It's been a long week so far waiting but hopefully it will only be another week.

No baby yet....

Just thought I'd share that there has been no new news on the foal. Mare is due tomorrow and we are hoping it will be sometime this next week so we can go get Danny the weekend after. We can't wait to start working with him. With all this great weather we've been having the girls and I are really itching to get him home.

Crossing our fingers that the baby will come soon.

4H Fun Day / Riding Lessons / Danny Update

4H Fun Day:

Saturday after Chelsea's soccer practice we went to the 4H Fun Day. It was fun, but would have been much more fun if we would have signed up to do some of the hands on things.......We did get to watch the Saddle Up class which was interesting. They explained all the parts of the horse and both English and Western saddles and bridles, what their functions are and showed how to put them on properly on an actual horse. We also popped into the Model Horse area so that Chelsea could see some of the different ways to set things up. This is Chelsea's first year in the Model Horse project.

Riding Lessons:

The girls and I had our riding lessons today. Brandon came along to watch. All went very well. Lindsay trotted on the lunge line for the first time today. She had tons of fun and is still talking about it. Chelsea did very well as usual, she did have a bit of excitement though, the lesson horse shied and spooked a little bit, just a little jump and a fast turn, she rode right through it awesome, didn't fall off and didn't get too scared about it. All and all it was a very good experience for her, because things like that will happen and they are always unexpected. I then had my lesson and trotted for almost a solid hour and believe me my butt is gonna pay for it tomorrow. :o)

Danny Update:
I called to see how Danny was doing and he is doing good. The other mare still hasn't had her foal yet but we are all patiently waiting....very patiently! I can't wait to get him to start working on ground work and start riding our own horse for lessons and practicing.

It's OFFICIAL...

It's official, "Danny" is ours!!! I bought him last night. WOOHOO!!!! We are soooooooo extremely excited. We unfortunately can not bring him home for a few more weeks though. He's right now busy keeping a mare in foal company so she stays calm before the birth. The mare is due May 4th and as soon as the foal is on the ground we can go get Danny and bring him home. That's really ok with me though, we have a lot of little preparations to do before he comes home. The girls are still undecided on what color halters and other little items they would like. I'm sooooooo unbelievably happy, he is such a good boy. He will take good care of the girls I just know it. Lindsay already figured out that he likes Trix.....she had a bag she brought along for the long car ride the other day and she fed him a few. He was so friendly he even stuck his head right in the truck so that my husband would rub his head. He's so awesome! We love him already!

A horse we are looking at to buy...

This is "Danny". He's perfect in my eyes. He has the perfect attitude, has spunk but not more than we can handle. Both girls and I rode him and little Lindsay even rode him bareback. (I have that on video that I will try to upload here later) Here are a few pictures of Lindsay and Danny. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Going to look at a horse......

I just got off the phone with a woman selling a Black and White Paint Tobianio gelding. Sounds like this one could be perfect for us. All the needed elements are there and the price is right too. The girls and I are very excited. We are going to see and ride it Sunday. WooHoo !!! Wish us luck!