Conditioning Hugo, Horse Heaven Loop

Joe drove me and Hugo up to Horse Heaven so I could do some trail ride conditioning.  The loop is 8 1/2 miles with a 1100 foot elevation change.  

Hugo is still barefoot.  He has never had shoes even before we bought him.  I am finding however, that he prefers to not trot on gravel. He has no problem walking on any surface but when I ask for a trot, he gets over on the edge as far as he can.  The ride that I am aiming for is all sand, no rocks or gravel.  So that’s good. 

I also think he is a bit lazy.  I had to do a lot of encouraging to keep up any kind of pace.

It was a beautiful day, low 70’s, light breeze, and he didn’t even sweat that much.  

 We finished in just under 2 hours.  That pace doesn’t leave much room for error when we only have 6 hours to do 25 miles.  But at least his pulse was within finishing limits as soon as I got him tied up and was able to check it.  

Three Things

1- I finally got the wall pockets from my brother hung yesterday after a Mike marked the studs for me.  

After arranging and rearranging them, I finally decided on this placement.  Right now I just have some succulents in three.  I might change that out eventually.  I was thinking about orchids but succulents are what I currently have.

2- Had a nice just walking ride on Hugo today.

We haven’t had rain in over a month.  Things are really drying up and getting critical. 

But the views were still nice.

 3- While watering some flowers next to the porch, I saw this very long snake skin.  I will have to stay alert when I am working in the yard.   Maybe it can catch a couple of rabbits. 

Calf Update

I know there has been a lot of concern about out little red calf.  

She is still with us and finally eating well.  The bottle goats still outweigh her though.  We have been calling her Red but I am thinking for changing that to Lucy.

She now has a friend.  This one was a twin the cow rejected. 

He has been an aggressive eater from day one.  Maybe he should be named Ricky. 

 

Hugo’s training is still progressing.  I have ridden him over almost all of the farm.  I have had to stay away from the very ticky areas though.  

And yesterday we ran into a new varmint.  

 It is tough to tell from the picture because I didn’t want to get too close, but that is a skunk.  

And it is not Flower from Bambi.  

Sadie’s First Show

First, happy 3251 blog post, another prime number.

Today was a beautiful day for a horse show.  Unfortunately, I did not have a chauffeur.  But I decided to take Sadie to watch so she could see what a show was all about.  She has been lining up her play horses and saying they were at a show. 

This show lineup was very kid friendly. The first class was stick horse.  The daughter of a girl at work was there.  Sadie had met her before at the clinic Christmas party.  Isabella has been to a lot of shows.  I told Sadie to just follow her.

They made a very cute pair.  

And even though we didn’t take a horse, Sadie was still able to go in lead line.  Another girl that I knew said her nephew was supposed to ride in lead line but didn’t come, so Sadie was welcome to ride Joey instead.  I actually met Sarah, Joey’s owner, several years ago when I found her blog.  I recognized the arena in her pictures and found out she was a local.  Funny how things work out.

Joey was a dream and Sadie acted like she knew exactly what to do.

But we might have to step up our show attire to keep up with Isabella.  She was so adorable with her mini and she even did the costume and driving classes.

Sadie will be talking about Joey for a long time.

She got two ribbons and two $2 bills!  

She wanted to wear her ribbons, so I pinned them onto her jacket.  We ate lunch from the food truck in the back of the car.  We stayed for a few more classes.

And I left before Sadie got too worn out with the show.  Then, back home, she wanted to ride Otoelene.

This time I let her hold the reins and start to learn how to steer. 

Next time she wants to take her own horse to the show.

Another Tiny One

Our fall cows are calving now.   Last week when he was checking, Joe found a cow that had calved and only had one tiny calf. He never found a twin. The first couple of days everything looked ok but then the calf started getting weak. It looked like the cow didn’t have any milk.  

So he ended up putting the calf in a sack and bringing it home. 

She might weigh 30 pounds. 

She has been drinking from a bottle ok but probably didn’t get adequate colostrum. The next day after getting here she started limping. I started her on an antibiotic to treat joint ill and she has improved. She has a long way to go before she gets a name. 

 

Sadie and Allie Labor Day

Virginia took me up on an offer to keep the girls for the afternoon to let her and Mike do something on their own.  It was a win-win for both of us.

We played in the playroom.

Of course we picked flowers.  And no pictures because they didn’t have bathing suits playing in the blow up pool on the back porch.  Sadie’s hair was in a knot afterwards and she was so good to let me braid it.

Then for the main event, the fire pit!  Linda and Terry came over and we grilled hot dog and had corn on the cob, tomatoes, cucumbers and chips.  But the biggest hit were the s’mores.  

I think Sadie ate two.  Allie made a mess with one but enjoyed eating the plain marshmallows. 

 Now they will want to have a “camp fire” at every visit.

10 Days In

It has only been 10 days since I decided to start conditioning Hugo for a possible limited distance endurance ride, but I can already see some changes. One thing that has not changed is how long it takes to catch him.  He still runs around in the barn for 10-15 minutes before he decides to stop and stand still.  I just count that toward getting him in shape. 

Today I went to the outdoor arena to work.  I have been doing some hill work but flat work is good too.  The area where the ride will be in South Carolina is pretty flat. 

But first, in order to be able to use the arena, we had to move the cattle out.   It turns out Hugo isn’t bothered by cattle antics. 

He is not much of a looker, but I think you can already see an improvement.  The picture on the left was August 24th and the right was today, September 1 st.