Where did that week go?

 It has been a week of family stuff, not much going on with the horses. They are all on pasture, and about all I have had time for is teasing Ruby. 

Not ready

I did manage to finish setting up my garden and even got pole beans and wax beans transplanted. 

 

I have some cantaloupe and broccoli sprouted but not ready for transplanting, and will be putting lettuce seeds in later today. A trip to the greenhouse on Thursday for tomato plants and maybe even a rose (you know I gotta have at least one rose!) and then dig a spot for a few carrots and it will be done. 

We finally got a great soaking rain last evening, complete with some thunder that had Beamer heading full tilt for his barn. It was amazing to see how fast he can go with those stiff front legs. I really think that having him on straight grazing has helped him to move around and limber up those knees. 

Thankfully the smoke cleared with the rain. Ted's family have come back to their evacuated homes- and I was sad to hear that some of the businesses in that town were looted. What a bunch of greedy jerks. Probably druggies. 

On our way home from the family gathering we went through an area where there are wild horses. These two stallions were grazing together beside the road. 

A couple of very impressive dudes!

They wintered well

I will do my next post on Ruby and the new saddle. 

Chickory, continued

Today I spent a lot of time with Chickory, as I have to work the next 5 days so won't have a lot of time to spend on her. This morning she came up to me and sniffed me, which she hasn't done before. I got her in the little pen and she let me touch her- just barely- and it's like she has a wall that she won't let me past. So I got the rope around her neck again, and worked with her til I could get both my hands on her, for the first time; one over her heart and the other on her withers. (Thanks, Twila). We ended the session there, without the rope, and getting her to circle me so that she was looking at me out of the right eye.(Thanks again, Twila.) So every session, we are making progress, but she is only allowing me one small step at a time. Which is fine with me, because I want to give this filly a forever home, and I need to gain her absolute trust. She behaves like a wild mustang, so I can really appreciate all the work that people like Tracey at Mustang Diaries goes through with all the horses she works with. My hat's off to them!This is the look she gave me after we finished and I was sitting quietly in the pen with her.

Australian research

I found a really interesting post on Fran Jurga's Hoofblog about research being done with the wild horses in Australia. It is about a team who is spending time in the outback researching the condition of the feet of these horses, and also says that they have the largest number of feral horses in the world. It's a good read, check it out!