More Horse Training

I usually work with Otoelene but since she is suppose to be J's horse he needs to get use to her too.  He has ridden horses all his life but never really trained one.

 Lunging is like a foreign language he has to learn.

 He has been doing great with Otoelene.

 One occasion however,  getting a little like he's halter breaking a steer.

 V got a good laugh.  She said it looked like he was trying to reel in a big fish.

 J did not appreciate the comments from the peanut gallery.

All in all, I think they had a pretty good day.  I always enjoy being together with family and horses.

Construction Has Begun

I'm a nervous wreck wondering if we're doing the right thing.  J said it's too late now.  I'm sure we'll enjoy it when it's done.

 They came out yesterday and laid off the barn.

 They also got a few of the holes dug.  Looks like they aren't hitting any rock.  If we had put the house here we could have had a basement.  Oh well.

 The supplies have started arriving.

 This is what I saw when I got home from work.

The posts are 16 feet high.  It's a big barn.

Virginia Academy of Science

V's science fair paper got accepted to be presented in Richmond for the Virginia Junior Academy of Science.

It was a 3 day convention with about 500 other presenters across the state.  Her abstract was then published in a scientific journal.  She said her project (can horses develop a resistance to dewormers) seemed very simple compared to other people who had been researching cancer.  We are still proud of her for getting this far. 

She asked if she could do something with cancer in dogs next year.  "Like What?"  is what I would like to know.  I thought maybe a retrospective study on the types of diets/dog foods dogs with diabetes were getting prior to their diagnosis.  Any other ideas?

Horse Heaven

The weather yesterday was perfect for a trail ride.  V was off to the Regional Track meet.  She had qualified in the 2 mile. (she got 10th at regionals), and E had spent the night at a friends house so that just left me and J. 

 J called his dad to invite him and he said he'd be right over.

 It was his first ride back on Lady since returning from the winter in Florida.  He's 77 by the way.

This spring we read where there was going to be a controlled burn on the trail. We could see the smoke from our house.  They burned a lot of the undergrowth on parts of the trail where we rode.

 This kind of thing really bothers me.  I hate seeing the discarded beer cans.  J says he doesn't see the point in drinking and riding.  To quote J, "You can't enjoy either one."

 The rhododendrons  were blooming.

 We had a short lunch break.

 Then back on  the trail.  J is still bragging on how well Jessica did.  I see another endurance ride in his future.  Hank got a little funny acting after lunch.  At first I thought it was the saddle bags.  But after transferring them to Lady he still seemed jumpy.  Then I realized he knew this trail so well he wanted to speed up to get back to the trailer.  The trail is an 8 mile loop, up the mountain, over the top, down the other side then along a gravel road back to the start.  It took 3 hours at a comfortable walk.  I can do it in one when we were training for the endurance ride.

The mountain laurel  was in full bloom too.

Minnie (i.e. The Yak)

I thought it was time for an update on the yak (see The Yak )  She now has a name "Minnie".  I advertised her on Craig's List and got an offer of $200.  J I think is a little attached to her and didn't think that was enough. He keeps saying "I think she's growing."

 She is currently out with some leftover yearlings so they are a little older than she is.  She was born in the fall.

 She has shed off and lost the yak look.

 Isn't she big?

That is until J in in the background to give some scale.  Looks like she'll hang around here for awhile and see what she makes.

Oak Burl

We have this interesting tree on our farm.

 It can be barely seen from the gravel road.  It is nearly inaccessible from the house.

 I didn't even know about it until a couple of weeks ago when someone asked to buy it.

They know someone that turns bowls out of burl wood and is always on the look out for trees.  Anyone know what this is worth?

Training Otoelene

I've worked a few times on getting Otoelene to go across a piece of plastic. 

 The first day I just introduced her to it.  I didn't expect her to walk across it right off.

 The second time she was more interested in it and with a little encouragement did walk over it.

 I think this is the third time we've tried it.  It's been a couple of weeks since she last saw it.

 O.K. so she's not perfect.  She still doesn't seem to like the noise it makes.  It also doesn't help that when she hears the noise she drags her foot backwards which makes more noise and moves the plastic.

 After about five minutes she'll stand on it with her front feet,

 then walk calmly across.

 After that I can send her over on her own.

 I like the relaxed cocked leg.

Finally, she'll stand with her back legs on it.  The next step will be moving it to different locations, then getting a larger piece of plastic.