August 2013

Thursday 29th August

A lovely day with Mark, brother Paul, nephew Alex and the horses ;)

 Stormy liberty with Mark

 Me riding Solly...ankle still sore but determined to ride :)

Solly and me getting connected

Mark and Holly playing at liberty

 Flag play ;)

Jump 1

Jump 2

 Jump 3

Jump 4

Jump 5

 Jump 6

 Jump 7

 Jump 8 ;)

 Mark BB&BL with Holly ;)

 Mark BB with Stormy....

 ...FIRST canter bareback with Stormy ;)

And canter again ;)

And canter 3rd time.....

 ...yeehaa ;)

Brother Paul having a lead ride on Stormy

Stormy being a perfect lead pony today ;)

Cool ;)

Paul and Mark together make Stormy seem
smaller...Paul is 6'4" and Mark is 6'2" ;)

 Nephew Alex has ridden before with us, but not for a long time.
He finds his balance pretty quickly on big Stormy ;)

 Alex doing great at bareback trot ;)

Stormy posing for picture ;)

The boys ;)

Monday 26th August

Nice weather, ankle still very sore but ibuprofen taken, ankle bandage on and it's out to play/ride horses ;)

LIBERTY w/SOLLY

BITLESS RIDING w/SOLLY

BL&BB for MARK AND HOLLY

LIBERTY w/MARK & STORMY

BB and BITLESS w/MARK & STORMY

ME RIDING TARA BACK UP THE HILL :)

Tuesday 20th August

Not a bad day today, dry, calm and not too many flies....all the biting ones seem to have gone now thank goodness, so that's a welcome change. I have been doing a little bit of ragwort pulling each day to get the horses field clear and today is no exception. I managed to do 2hrs of pulling and also finished the dreaded task ;) The horses field is now ragwort clear. If I get some time, and energy, I will try to help out pulling it in the fields and wood around the horses field as there is quite a lot there this year.

In between pulling ragwort I managed to put some obstacles together in the Horse Agility arena. Two need putting up when needed or Stormy may break them when he ventures into the arena when we're not there (the curtain and the arch/hoop jump) but the others are in place and ready for play.

I look across at Stormy when I finish the obstacles and he is looking at me, curious to know what I'm up to, so I call to him and he comes over and seems eager to play with the fun obstacles so we do just that ;)

Here are some pics from our play session:

Touch frisbee with nose

Touch frisbee with foot

Touch hulahoops with nose, then foot

Two front feet into hulahoops

Four feet in to hulahoops ;)

Walk along hulahoops, trying to place feet in them ;)

Trot over tarp

Forward over pole between barrels

Back over pole

Fully forward over pole, between side poles

Back over pole then place foot over side pole

Now sidepass over barrel ;)

He's so cool...and SO TALL ;)

Trotting circles

And jump ;)

Friendly game with flag

Touch the flag

Touch/eat the folded umbrella

Touch the umbrella open and high up

Pick up the opened umbrella ;)

Sidepass over drainage tube

And sidepass the other way too ;)

Touch the spinner

Touch the flag

Touch the small spin tube high up ;)

Walk through the scary flag flapping corner.....

...touch all the flags along the way
(try not to eat them though! lol)

and through the scary corner

Walk the pole 'S' bend...

...moving hindquarters and forehand seperately
to keep inside the poles!!

...almost did it without knocking the poles BUT
the poles are rather short for him so the 'S' bend
was pretty tight...impressed he did it at all really ;)

phew...good boy ;)

The last pile of ragwort from our field...

Ragwort now safely on the tip ready for burning ;)






Sunday 18th August

Not a bad day today, enjoying the slight coolness of the days as I love wearing my nice comfortable jackets ;)

Here's some pics where I rode Tara bareback, Holly without stirrups (ankle still not mended well enough for pressure of stirrups), Mark played with Stormy at liberty, Holly online for a bit and then rode her.

Mark running with herd! lol ;)

Riding Holly without stirrups, great practice

Holly and me ;)

Bareback with Tara ;

Solly at liberty doing a very low 'bow' ;)

 Sol liberty jumping 1

Sol liberty jumping 2....higher than usual ;)

Good landing there too ;)

Stormy at liberty with Mark...fabulous back leg
stretch there in the sideways move;)

 Sideways: and a pretty good front leg stretch there too ;)

 Mark cantering to jump and not a bad jump either ;)

Mark and Holly jumping....getting better each time

Mark and Holly enjoying their cantering

Yeehaa together ;)

Saturday 17th August

My ankle is still very very sore but with some pain killers and an elastic brace on it I was able to drive down to the horses yesterday and today on my automatic quad bike (no gears) and pull some ragwort. I drive right up to the weed and pull it and throw it into my quad bike trailer so not putting much stress on ankle.

Whilst doing this today the boys came down to have a small chat and to see what was going on. They both decided that they needed to check out the bag I was pulling.....these pics show the difference in their natures, one extrovert, one introvert ;)

Stormy (extrovert): straight up, sniff, sniff some more
then walks straight off, back to grazing ;)

 Solly (introvert): eyes it up for a while before anything else,
making out he's grazing and not interested BUT is checking it all out!

 Gets brave and walks up to it as it's not moved
or tried to attack him so might be worth investigating

 Sniffs it with skeptism

 I move bag, he follows and has the courage
to sniff it in new place ;)

 After a LONG, LONG, LONG time looking at me for
guidance on the 'bag' matter, he finally has the courage
and curiosity to try touching the bag with his foot....
note how his head is back and ears flat to the sides!!!
He's ready to run if it attacks him, his whole body was
straining backwards.

I praise him lots last time and another long, long, long
time passes and he tries to touch it with his hoof again...
still not totally convinced it's not nasty but trusts me
enough to give it a try ;)

He got LOTS of praise and a treat for this, once he moved away
from it his whole body relaxed and he stopped looking so shut down.



Sunday 11th August

Unfortunately I twisted my right ankle quite badly yesterday so I've been laid up on the sofa most of the last 24hrs with my ankle resting, iced up with some compression and elevated (R.I.C.E) so not much fun being had. I was SO wanting to get the Horse Agility area sorted for some fun and to get started on the ragworting but the universe has different ideas for me this week ;(

BUT today Mark drove me down to the horses field in the car and I took a load of pictures of him playing at liberty with first Stormy and then him and Holly together. His horses wanted some big fun yeehaa play with him and he managed to keep up with them most of the time and had some very nice moments with them together ;)

Then, not to feel left out, I played with Solly online. I sat on the white barrel for it and we did pretty well even if I was a leg short. lol

Lastly I managed to get onto Tara bareback and rode her up to her paddock and putting in some nice ridden weaves around the cones laid out in a circle on the way. I used my short training stick/string on my right side for a leg aid as my leg/foot is pretty much out of action ;(

So, as always we got some lovely pictures of the day....here they are:

Mark and his beauties - Liberty

 hehehe...run off his feet ;)

Me and Solly - Online

Me and Tara - Ridden

Monday 5th August

Another nice day weather wise and Mark goes out and plays/rides Stormy and Holly again. All this work is really helping Mark and the horses with their balance, lightness and body aids and I love watching the horse/human partnerships get better and better.


So, here are pics from today....enjoy ;)

Mark and Stormy

 S2M, forward and back together ;)

 Sidepass away

 Sidle up for mounting....posing for the camera too! lol ;)

Mark and Holly

the 'moving mount'...lol ;)

 Learning 'neck string riding' ;)

Happy smiles all 'round ;)



Sunday 4th August

My shoulder is bad (slow recovery but feeling slightly better each day) so Mark had another lovely session this time with Stormy...liberty followed by bareback riding, this time with a bitless bridle in as Stormy isn't quite so well trained as Holly ;)

I then really wanted to connect back with Solly as he keeps following me around the field wanting to play and connect with me so I decide to do some liberty, at least with liberty I don't have anything to hurt my arm, I start off with no tools at all and only finally use a light weight training arm and string for some circling...really enjoyed it and Solly did too ;)

Here's the pics from today...enjoy...we did ;)

Mark and Stormy at Liberty

Mark and Stormy Ridden

Me and Solly at Liberty

Saturday 3rd August

I've been out of action this last week, should have been out teaching in Aberdeenshire BUT damaged my right shoulder doing, of all things, some decorating! ;( So, with that going on I've not been able to do anything with the horses at all.

Today was Mark's day, he played with Stormy, trimmed his feet and then played/rode Holly and he rode her bareback and bridleless again. Was nice to be able to just sit back and take pictures of him with the horses ;)

Here's some pics of Mark with Stormy and Holly, oh and with my new 'rainbow' flags....yeah ;)