Author Archives: horsegirlonajourney

Rocky meets a cow

In the past couple of months Rocky and I have had only 6 or 7 sessions, not counting the turnouts in the arena where I spend a few minutes with him before returning to the office. We are proving that the Parelli method works even if you can’t live in a tent with your horse 24/7  — that you can do a lot even if you only have an hour a week or 10 minutes every other day. Rock is still jogging to the gate when he sees me coming and he still jams his nose into the halter with exuberance, so I know I’m doing enough good stuff to balance out my many mistakes.

We took the neighborhood loop walk on one of those sessions.

Loop walk map

Loop walk map

It was one of those crisp, cold, clear days that you know are going to be the Last Day Ever before the new ice age, so you must get out and experience every moment of it, work and deadlines be damned.

Jan and Salsa came with us, and we girls had some fun with our cell phone cameras. It’s funny how hard it is to get all scared and nervous when your horse hits a threshold when you really just want to get a good angle to photograph the panic. I was calm and laughing through the whole experience because I just could not get an expert shot with my phone.

I uploaded some of the photos from the slide show, in case you want to get a closer look at Rocky’s body language (and, alas, mine). Click any of the photos after the jump to get a bigger version. Continue reading

Categories: Gratuitous Pictures, Gratuitous Videos, Learning Experience, On-Line, Trail | Leave a comment

Preparing for Halloween … next year

I missed the Halloween playday on our ranch due to an unexpectedly late night the evening before. It’s okay though. I’ve been so slammed with client work this month that I didn’t see Rocky or Salsa at all, except through my office window.

But everyone else in the whole world — heheh — did devote October to preparing their horses for a Halloween playday, and they had a blast! I wandered out a bit late and talked to a few and admired the costumes, and enjoyed watching their horses navigate strange obstacles like a ghost-zombie in a black robe hanging from the arena roof.

Here is a video of the playday that happened here:

And here is our barn manager’s article about preparing your horse to wear a costume (whether for Halloween or the Christmas parade or May Day or Arbor Day or any other event).

And here are some photos of an Andalusian yearling and an American Spotted Draft foal during their Halloween prep.

I am determined to manage it next year. I did buy costume supplies so I’m actually very well prepared and have a whole year now to elaborate upon it. Or to scrap it in favor of something even more fancy.

Categories: Love | 2 Comments

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