Beware the Two-headed hell-hound!

Sure, they look cute now…

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This evening the barn held a session for volunteers to get together, socialize a bit, and then get some lessons on handling the horses. We got a demonstration on working with the horses in the round pen and ‘joining up’ with them, and then we got to try it. I got to try it with Ashley, one of the horses I work with regularly. Then another volunteer got to do the same with her, and we could see the difference in how she reacted because of the differences in the energy we put out – I’m a very calm and quiet person, and she reacted differently to that than she did to the young man’s higher energy motions.

Then we got longe line demonstration, and talked about handling the horses on the ground. It was all very good stuff that I hadn’t heard before, so I was paying close attention. Then we all got a chance to ride. I sat out the first round to let the teens go first, and most adults rode the second round as well. I got to ride a horse that was new to me because he belonged to one of the staff, and he was just visiting to help out with some big events they were having this week. I had a bit of trouble getting him trotting – his mom said he was lazy – but once we got him going I really enjoyed it, and felt like I was starting to get the hang of riding the trot. I wish I could have kept at it! But since the horses had already worked all day toting kids around at the ranch, we didn’t ride too long before giving them a break, cooling them off, and sending them out to pasture to relax for the night. They have a full day of work to do tomorrow 🙂

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This is the ‘weather bug’ from my desktop. I saw the symbol for tomorrow and actually thought ‘what the heck IS that?!’ – I guess that tells you what kind of Spring we’ve been having!

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This has been a particularly wet and cool spring, which has been perfect for blackberry vines. They have been growing up everywhere around the yard. Over by the trailer, next to the chicken coop, and a massive wall of them towering across the backyard, threatening to creep over the deck and moving ever closer to the house.

I should have taken a ‘before’ picture – this was after we’d already spent a couple hours cutting them back a good five feet from where they had been. To cut them back required several tools, including my new Stihl electric weed trimmer (which I LOVE), loppers, hedge trimmers, and my scythe! Last year I used the scythe on grass and I wasn’t too impressed with it. I knew it was a brush scythe, but I thought, if it can’t do grass well, how can it do anything else? Turns out I was wrong, it cuts through blackberry vines like butter! But it’s tiring to use, and extremely sharp and dangerous, so I’m very careful with it. But it certainly has a place in clearing vines.

And after a couple more hours of work (over a couple days) we had beaten them away entirely, and we could see the rest of the backyard again!

 It seems like everything in our backyard is out to hurt us. The Blackberry vines are covered in these awful little thorns, and of course you can’t cut them down without a few whipping around and hitting you.

And the trees are Thorny Locusts, which have these terrible stiff thorns on them which will go through anything – pants, leather gloves, lawnmower tires. And the locusts send up little baby trees all over the yard so there are lots of tiny saplings mixed in with the blackberry vines, just waiting to jab you!

The chicken coop/shed was about to be swallowed up again by vines, even though I had beaten them down just a few weeks ago.

After an hour of lopping, scything, and raking back the debris, it’s looking good. Nothing to do but figure out where to haul the debris to.

Winning the blackberry war is just one of the projects I am using my new-found energy on (yay for weight loss). Another is reclaiming the planting beds around the house.

When we moved here there were planting beds extending out from the foundation for about 4 feet, but the grass has invaded and taken them over. I sprayed roundup today to try and reclaim them.

The other project is refinishing the decks, but I’ll save that for another post.
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They made this great video to help explain what they do for kids. I’m proud to be able to help out here!

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Today Dave and I worked in the yard for an hour or so, cutting down blackberries, fighting with the lawnmower, and using the new electric string trimmer. So my back was getting tired by the time I left for the barn in the afternoon.

I got to the barn and no one had cleaned the stalls yet, so I got to work on that. My back was aching a bit, but I just remembered to lift with my legs. Cleaning stalls is good exercise! I got the stalls done just as my boss came out and she started sweeping up while I did the water buckets – more heavy lifting.

We got the stalls all ready and were waiting for the kids to show up for afternoon riding, and since there were only going to be two kids, and they already knew how to ride, she said we could ride with them and we’d just do some follow-the-leader in the outdoor arena. At first I was like, oh, I don’t need to ride, but she encouraged me to give it a shot, so I said ‘which horse?’ She said I could use Ashley, because she is pretty big and stocky. Since I had been helping little tiny kids ride Ashley last weekend, I knew she was very mellow and well behaved, so I said ok. She said if Ashley senses you aren’t a skilled rider, she just goes slower, instead of taking off with you.

Well, the kids didn’t show up, so the four volunteers ended up just saddling up and heading out and riding around for about an hour. It was fun to just be free-riding around, doing figure eights and walking around the arena, watching the horses and cows out in the big pastures. I had to convince Ashley to trot, maybe she thought I wasn’t up to it! I’d say that’s good judgement on her part – I need a lot of work on riding a trot! But it was fun to try a little!

I took it pretty easy because the riding wasn’t much easier on my back than the rest of the day had been! It was great fun, that’s definitely a fringe benefit of helping out at the stables! When I’d had enough I let someone else ride Ashley and I took one of the other horses back to the barn and got her un-tacked and ready to go out for the night, then I helped bring in the horses who were going to spend the night indoors, and take food out to some of the ones that were staying outside. There’s always lots of work to do, but it’s fun too. All in all, a great day!

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I got to go mentor at the stables again today. My student was a 6 year old girl who had come once before, and she got to ride the little welsh pony gelding, Lightning. He’s a bit of a pill, though I’m told that’s typical pony – he’s always trying to see what he can get away with! I had a go-around with him last week when I went to halter him and he managed to make it difficult and shake his halter off three times before I could get it fastened – so I was ready for him!

First we went and got him out of the paddock, and he met us at the gate. I haltered him up with no problem and then I let the girl walk him back, while I walked on the other side with my hand on his halter so he wouldn’t take off on her. We tied him in his stall and then the girl started grooming him. She was so excited to ride him again, it was really cute, but she also wasn’t putting up with any nonsense from him – if he nudged her she told him to back off! She did great! We got him all cleaned up, and then I held each foot for her while she picked them out, and I helped her when needed. Then we got him saddled up and got his bridle on and walked him over to the arena.

Inside the arena they had set up cones and some logs to walk over. We started out with the kids leading the horses around with the mentors holding onto the halters (there were 4 horses in the arena), and then the kids got to handle the horses alone, but with mentors right nearby. After a couple laps they mounted up, and got to practice some balance exercises while we led the horses, then they went on to directing the horse themselves, then we were able to take off the lead ropes if they were confident and let them ride, while we walked alongside. She was scared to trot because he takes off with a little hop, but her mom kept encouraging her, and on the final lap we talked her into trotting for about 20 feet with me holding his halter – and of course she loved it and wanted to do it again so we did one more lap so she could trot again before dismounting!

Afterwards we brought all the horses back to the barn, then the kids helped take hay to the horses that were staying in the paddocks all night. They all seemed to have a great time helping out with the chores. It is so rewarding to help little kids get to play with horses – I wish I could have done this when I was a kid, but it’s great to help other kids have that experience now, and I think I’m learning as much as they are, and building my own confidence at the same time 🙂

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I think I forgot to blog that last weekend the evil alpacas moved out and went to live at the rescue. This made me very happy, because they HATED me, and all I had to do was walk up to the fence and they would start working up a gob of spit to spray at me. They also didn’t like the dogs, and the black one in particular would run back and forth along the fenceline stomping and kicking when the dogs were out, and I was afraid if the dogs ever snuck out into the pasture that alpaca would have at ’em! I was glad to see them go!

I don’t plan to have any more llamas/alpacas at our house. Though Dave has already said he liked the sheep. I liked the sheep too. I could handle having sheep again. They never spit on you 🙂

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Today I got to the ranch and they hadn’t taken the horses out yet, so I got to help do that. The volunteer coordinator told me which horses to take and made sure everything was done safely. She gives me little tips about how to handle the horses, and different horse personalities. She let me walk out one of the friskier horses, but she walked along with us in case he gave me any trouble (she said he likes to see if he can get away with stuff with new people). I got to walk out one of the adorable ponies too 🙂 Then she went into the office to work on the computer, and I stayed out in the barn and started cleaning stalls.

It had started out as a sunny day, but as I worked I heard the wind picking up, and the sky changed to a sort of dark, slate blue. The little birds who live in the barn rafters were getting restless and fluttering around. The sun disappeared, and the rain started coming down, pattering on the metal roof of the barn. I looked down the aisle and saw the wind was blowing stuff around pretty good, so I went down and closed the big door. As I continued cleaning, listening to the rain and wind, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of peace, doing something people have done for thousands of years – cleaning the stables, while the wind howled and the rain poured down outside.

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I’ve been reading a lot about ‘standing desks’ – desks that are tall enough to stand at and work. It sounds like a good idea. I spend entirely too much time at my computer, lulled into a trance, following link after link, reading articles I’ll never remember. I could use to be a little less comfortable at the computer! Plus if you’re standing you’re making your muscles work to hold yourself up, instead of slouching into a lump, chin on hand, semi-comatose (I’m just describing myself – not necessarily anyone else!)

So I went out in the garage and stirred up a few scraps and built this in about 20 minutes, just to see how the concept works. I can already tell it’s a little tall – I could take about 4 inches off of it and it would be more comfortable to type.

Not that this will stop me from taking my laptop out to the couch and vegging out!

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