Well, I’m back where I was a few months ago, but with a healthy horse to ride. Sara isn’t here for a few days, but I wanted Apache to keep getting the exercise he’d been getting lately, so he will have more muscle and less fat.
I have no pictures of me riding, so here is a picture of the big dogs swimming.
So, this evening I went out to release Apache from the dry pen and took his beautiful groomed self out in the round pen for a lot of trotting. That’s also good for his muscle building.
Yep. That fencing is moving right along.
Then, well, I got on, even though I hadn’t done so since the winter, when we had our last scary ride. Luckily, this ride went pretty well. He did his thing where he tried to turn around, but not too many times. After that, it was a nice ride.
We have the pretty yellow flowers of the water primrose again around the pond.
Apache and I even walked by the two younger cattle dogs and a bunny with no issues. It’s so good to have him feeling good and focusing on what we are doing. Maybe I do have a future learning more with him.
Hey. We’re still here.
Also, for your information, Fiona is also being a superstar. I no longer have to go get her and halter her when we’re done riding or exercising. I call her, and she meanders my way. I stick my hand out with a treat in it, and she happily follows me. My stress levels are so low now with these guys.
And that’s really how I’m back in the saddle again. Just having fun with my animal buddies.
[Somehow, most of this post got deleted when I went to publish it before. THIS is the real story!]
I’m excited to have permission to share this story! Yesterday I got to head out to a horse breeding and training facility in our area to visit Sara’s new love interest, a large Andalusian gelding named Aragorn. She met him last week and instantly bonded with him.
True love. (He has sweat marks from being ridden)
It’s a beautiful property, and we were surprised to see a beautiful colt on the road, prancing and dancing like a fairy animal. We said we bet he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure enough, Glenn, the ranch owner, came running up to get the little guy. He was back in and coming into the barn to eat dinner by the time we got in.
That’s the culprit at right.
All the mares and foals just walk in and line up in stalls to be fed. All so well trained, and the foals were very friendly.
Dinner time!
Aragorn’s current owner bred him, so knows his history. Glenn told us lots about him and was very honest about why he is relatively affordable for a very well-bred European breed. He coughs when anxious, for example.
Getting ready to ride. These horses start our some other color, then turn gray. He looks like he was originally chestnut, like one of the colts above.
Once he got all saddled and we learned a lot about appropriate bits, Trixie showed up, and we watched Sara get a lesson in riding in the style Aragorn is used to. Sara is such a quick learner that I could tell Glenn was having fun telling her stuff and watching her figure out exactly what to do.
Teaching and learning
And, obviously, Sara had a blast as well. I got a lot of photos of the lesson that I’m going to send to her just to study her positioning and stuff, but my favorite pictures have to be the ones of Glenn gesturing, Sara working, and the two dogs who are exactly the color of the dirt, just sat and watched.
This may be my favorite
Just in case you are interested in what Aragorn can do, here are a few more pictures to click or ignore. To be honest, I just like looking at the beautiful setting of this ranch and its facilities. They are nice but not insanely fancy or anything. It’s “just right.”
Learning and enjoying her future friend.
Trixie has known Glenn a long time, but even she said she was learning some things watching him show Sara things, explaining the origin of the moves in Western dressage, and sharing history of equestrian sports. It was fascinating. And he is such a nice and generous man!
You can see the other geldings behind Sara. They were annoyed that their dinner was delayed.
The Amazing Part of the Story
After the “test drive” in Sara’s tack, we were just talking to Glenn. She asked if he did private lessons, and he said he hadn’t before, since he just retired from being an ER physician. Sara sat on Aragorn for a minute, thinking. Then she asked him, “Were you an ER physician in College Station 21 years ago?” He replied that he was.
When we were chatting (sorry for bad lighting)
She then asked if he remembered a blue roan paint colt named X that he trained. He didn’t quite remember, but said he could look it up. Sara said that was her colt she’d raised to work with before she married her children’s father. She mentioned her married name, and Glenn said that did sound familiar. So, we are pretty sure they met all that time ago when Sara had her precious colt that she had to later sell. Wow!
Back to Work
After we got over our surprise, Trixie got to work and adjusted the heck out of Aragorn. Just like with my horses, he ended up extremely relaxed. It’s always extra educational watching her work with a horse and diagnose where it has structural weaknesses and what could help it. Sara took a lot of notes.
Working on his neck
Meanwhile, I bonded with the dog and looked at all the other beautiful horses. I had no complaints whatsoever, and took lots of pictures of how they arranged their tack house, their tying mechanism and such, for reference when we get to setting up our new one.
Woof the guard dog has been busy guarding. He is very friendly to humans, though.
I knew Sara would like some “glamour shots,” so we went out and took some, even though Aragorn still had the sweat marks from her saddle pad. He is obviously fond of her already. They really had an instant bond, like he’d been waiting his whole life for her to show up.
A whole lotta love
At the end of the day, we all got to go take a look at the young stallion who was in the paddock next to Aragorn. He is most beautiful, like someone’s dream horse. They are hoping he will have a baby soon from a mare that was brought in to be bred.
I’m doing my trick. Where’s my food?
He’s been trained that he has to stand on that stump to get dinner, because he used to be pushy about his food. He was not thrilled that his food didn’t immediately show up, but he was gentle as a kitten, and apparently is a great riding horse. I’d love to see him in saddle!
The horsie gals.
We were pretty exhausted and sweaty by the time we were ready to go home, but had to take a selfie of us horse lovers in our unplanned coordinated shirts! We are a bit disheveled, but happy. I hope you enjoyed our love story with a nod to the past. I know you look forward to Aragorn coming home to Sara’s property and watching them progress in their skills.
Hooray. I’ve got my horse back! It’s sure been a long road for Apache. Last night, I saddled him up for the first time since the dang abscess, and I made sure he was doing okay in the round pen by trotting him a lot. He was deemed okay, so I mounted him while Sara got on Spice, who really didn’t seem happy, though she behaved fine. I’d say the ride wasn’t a complete success, though it wasn’t a failure, either. Apache indicated what he wanted to do instead of what I wanted, fairly strongly, a couple of times. Still, I got through it and did a good job getting him on my schedule before I got off. I did give him a nice rinse-off, which delighted him.
This morning, we got out bright and early. We were delighted to see that there were clouds in the sky and a breeze. That made everything much more pleasant. I was happy to see that he was still clean, even though I KNOW he rolled in the pens.
Today, Sara decided to see if Bonnie Pumpkin, the horse who’d hanging out with us for a while, would be ridable, and she put the bareback pad on her. I decided to use the hackamore with Apache today, and apparently, that was a good decision. After a fine warmup, Sara carefully got on Bonnie, and she was fine! Hooray!
A happy moment for all.
I got on Apache, and off we went. He was a different horse today, very responsive and calm. He didn’t break into a nervous trot once, nor did he start spinning around if I dared to ask him to turn right. He must be feeling better. We went through the dreaded line of trees, and neither horse did anything other than walk, and occasionally stop to look at something. None of the usual spots bothered him. We made an entire circle, walked over some obstacles, and then, in a shocking display of obedience, I got Apache to walk past the barn before turning to go back.
Fiona wanted to be in a picture, too.
Sara and I both had FUN. That was so great. I felt so good (and not overly hot) that I decided to clean all my tack. I got all sorts of stuff off the saddle and got it gleaming and not all scuffed up. Apache’s girth was also really dirty and covered in hair, so I cleaned it, as well. The worst thing was the poor hackamore, which had been sitting since Apache was last ridable and had gotten all yucky and moldy, so I cleaned it all up again, too. I’m ready to go somewhere, once I have somewhere to go with him.
Everything got saddle soap except the suede parts, which just got wiped off and brushed. Horse people, this is a hybrid saddle made by Parelli back when I could afford such things. I intend to use it the rest of my life (it is SO comfy), though I’ll probably have to get a Western one at some point.
I hope that will be soon. Now that I am not spending so much time in Austin, I hope to be able to take lessons and fix some of my riding gaffes, then work on Apache’s horse gaffes. We both have a lot of work to do, but we do love each other!
He, being Apache. Tonight it was finally not too hot or too busy, so Sara and I checked on how Apache’s feet were doing since his abscess.
He’s shiny but chubby again
Sara says he’s as fat as he ever was. Sigh. I really need to get him in his pen half the day, but I blew it by going to the auction today. Tomorrow will be another day.
He does clean up well
Anyway, I took him out in the round pen, where he walked and trotted just fine. He did buck on the way to start circling, which was not so great. But otherwise, he was a gentleman.
Sara put the bareback saddle and bridle on him and rode him around. He was pretty darned good and did nice turns and back ups. Sara diagnosed him as fine for walking, so I’ll try riding 15 minutes or so tomorrow morning.
Look at my summer coat!
The other good thing is that Fiona has finally gotten rid of her winter coat. She’s one fine looking long-eared gal.
Snakes
To make a long day even longer, as I walked home from the horses, the hay bailer was hard at work. It scared up two rat snakes who didn’t even notice me as they slid across the driveway.
Then, after dark, when I finally came in, this fat and sassy fellow greeted me in the porch.
It’s a snake.
Not to worry, it’s a diamondback water snake. Check the head and lack of rattles.
Best I can do in the dark, but you can see the pattern.
Okay. Enough scary stuff for one day. Oh no, there was a dead scorpion next to where I keep my boots. Hint: always check inside boots for spiders, scorpions, or even toads (happened to Sara once).
I noticed an ad in the Facebook Marketplace yesterday saying there was a large building full of stuff that was for sale near Milano (20-something miles from here). It sounded like it might be a thing the builder in the family might enjoy, I thought.
A beautiful place.
So, in a work break, we headed out somewhere in the area near Milano, Texas (mil-Ann-o). We hit a couple of bad train tracks, which was fun, then found the place. What a beautiful property.
And there were dragonflies!
While one of us patiently went through a treasure trove of old tools and equipment, I wandered around and took pictures of the plants I found.
There were lots of these Cuban jute plants
This is legit post oak savanna territory and the plants were right on! Gosh, the trees were beautiful.
Post oak.
Meanwhile, the building full of tools was fantastic. It had so much cool stuff, including some antique tools and a lot of wire we can use to make fencing. We both had a great time!
Some cool chains from today.
So. We each got what we wanted out of that expedition! A bunch of tools and equipment and plenty of iNaturalist observations!
The guy at the sale liked me, so he gave me this old lamp.
After all that fun, it wasn’t over! Later in the day, more fence poles went in. You can really see the pens taking shape.
Fence poles at sunset.
I also had a blast this evening helping with Sara’s family, who wanted to give their toddler his first horse riding experience.
I feel pretty.
We did a group grooming on dear Lakota so he’d look good. The poor horse was like, “No one pays me any attention for a month, then, boom, three people are grooming me!”
Sara had fun.
The little fellow really enjoyed his ride, but I think I enjoyed watching his parents and Sara’s sister the most. It must be so great to have grandkids! So many firsts.
This evening I went out to check the new pullets, because I wondered if they’d roost in their cage. Sure enough, I found five pullets in the cage, but Babette was even higher, on top!
We are all up here.
The other chickens were ALL on one branch. I love how chickens sleep together.
Sleepy time.
All in all, it was a fun day. Things are fine. I’m just not letting things outside my control bother me. Maybe my philosophy is actually sinking in.
I knew those two relatively dry days in a row were flukes. Last night it poured and poured, right after Trixie showed up to do Apache and Ace’s feet. She was running late due to some car trouble, which gave me lots of time to love on Apache and Fiona. That is always good.
Pet me more.
And I got to love on Sara’s heelers, including the charming and smiling baby Bess. She melts your heart.
I’m a very happy puppy.
Sara had asked Trixie if she had a horse that needed miles on it, and that prompted her to bring her small fancy stallion along with her. He’s gray, and named Archie.
Here comes the man horse.
His arrival sent all equines into a tizzy (except Fiona). Much neighing and prancing commenced. Archie, on the other hand, but on a show like he was a Lipizzaner. Yow. He leapt in the air, twisted, bucked, yelled, and otherwise made his presence quite obvious. I’m hoping he settles down.
WTF?
I made it home after Apache got trimmed, barely asking if his feet looked okay, and hearing Trixie say they looked real good. Two minutes after I got home, the skies opened up. I worried about the rest of the gang, and texted Sara my huge thanks for letting me go first.
Good thing I got all these eggs earlier! One per hen.
It rained all night, hard. It’s the most rain in one day that we’ve had during this long rainy spell. Many days it just drizzled and rained for short periods, so we only got one inch one day in May; the rest were small amounts that did add up to puddles.
First time the pond has filled and spilled in many months.
Last night we got over two inches, so June already has a good rain total! Lee’s stats will be fun to see. I’m hoping to get to Austin this afternoon, once some of the creek flooding is down and before the next round starts. It’s also really wet there!
The newly expanded “little pond” filled for the first time, too, sending its runoff down to the bigger pond. That dirt will be used on another project soon.
Have a good June. I’m ready to support all my LGBTQIA+ friends during PRIDE month!
I don’t even know where to start telling you how cool our new fencing is. The craftsmanship is incredible. My gratitude is immense. But look, here’s one completed run.
Harvey is trapped! Not really.
The fence may look like normal horse fencing (not all barbed wire like cattle fencing), but what you can’t see is that all the parts were fabricated by one person and the whole thing was installed by one person, not a team. Plus, many of the tools used to make this a one-man show were hand-made, as well.
The industrial-strength auger
All the heavy braces required deep holes filled with concrete. You can’t dig those with a shovel! Luckily, the nephew happened to own a big, yellow auger that attaches to a tractor. But, what to do with it in between uses? He fashioned a way to hang it from the rafters of the future stall roof, then dug a hole for stability. Cool!
Daisuke at work
But, how the heck will all those t-posts and the metal support poles get dug? Well, I wish you could have seen it in person! First, each post got spray painted to show how deep it needed to go. Then they all got started by hand, which involved climbing up the front-end loader forks and pounding them down with a huge mallet. One mallet made the supreme sacrifice and separated from its handle during the process. Always have a backup!
Doing a wheelie. Some posts didn’t go in as easily as others. I forgot to edit this one, so the world looks sideways.
Then, one by one, Daisuke, our “big helper” tractor did the work of sinking all the posts. It is really fun to watch, especially when a post hits a rock and won’t go any further. Daisuke’s front tires go off the ground. We may have to break out the bigger tractor for some fine tuning.
Just getting started, but a good photo of the fencing on its spindle.
So, how do you string all the fencing by yourself? First you make a spindle kind of thing. It’s like a record player, and goes round and round. You put a pole on it, then put the roll of fencing on that. You can then attach to one end, and just slowly drive Daisuke backwards and unspool the wire. Ta da!
The tensioner, right after it was finished.
Great, so after that, you have a length of fencing, but it’s pretty loose and wobbly. You need to tighten it, which is much easier with a helper. However, if you’re a master welder, you “just” (easier said than done) make yourself a tensioner to attach to the tractor. There are the same number of hooks on it as there are spaces in the fencing. You hook them on the end of the fencing, and gradually tighten it, then fasten. That’s really clever.
Getting ready to stretch. Pretty cool.
Before the afternoon was over, there was an entire length of fencing, which confused the heck out of the cattle.
Fencing row number one.
By the end of the day, two rows of posts were laid out, and the top strand of barbed wire was up on the second row. Once there are three rows (we are making two pens to rotate the horses between, for parasite management), the more detailed work of putting in the fencing around the stalls, adding gates, and setting things up will start. There’s plenty of work left for our one-man crew.
Two rows of posts, and fencing ready to be strung.
And the cattle aren’t being ignored. There’s a shiny new gate that holds their heads in place so they can have their shots and other things done to them. That should work with these fairly docile cattle. We’ll still have to borrow the fancier equipment over at the Wild Type area for palpitation and anything that requires no movement. (I say “we” but I mean “he.”)
A head gate, I think it’s called.
We are glad it didn’t rain yesterday, so all this stuff could get done! Since it’s a US holiday to honor people who died in wars, I’m off work today. That means I can do my own physical labor and help with cleaning the tack room. Sara did the floors yesterday, so I get to do everything above floor level today. I’m not complaining; it needs doing, very much!
All clean and shiny, and no longer limping. Hooray! Patchy may not be as pretty as some of those fancy horses, but he’s beautiful to me.
Plus, I’ll get to hang out with Apache and Fiona. Apache feels good enough to do ground work, and Fiona is finally shedding, so I’m working on her coat. She does love attention!
I hope you are having a fun time, whether it’s a holiday or a “real” Monday for you. Life feels so much more “normal” now, with everyone home and doing stuff (and I even had a traveling friend drop by yesterday!). I’m savoring every moment.
That’s right. I’d never been to a horse show until yesterday, when Sara and I returned to the beautiful McClennan Community College Highlander Ranch for a working equitation competition. Fun was had by us, and we sure learned a lot!
Amazingly beautiful grounds with immense oaks.
It was hard not to drool at all the gorgeous gaited horses, Gypsy vanners, and giant warmbloods. but, thanks to the very welcoming people at Heart of Texas Working Equitation, we did learn what was going on, what the goals of the dressage and obstacle competitions were aiming at. What fun.
Here are Pam and Jed in the dressage part of the competition. They won!
We lucked out in that two really experienced women were sitting near us, and they were nice about explaining what made a good horse, what made a good rider, and the history of some of the competitors. That made it lots of fun.
Our favorite of the many great stories we heard during the day was about Pam and her gray paint/something fancy Jed. It turned out he had a year like Apache did last year, only worse. His feet were so bad that they recommended he be put down, but they managed to nurse him back to health. This was their first time in the arena since 2019 (well, they didn’t compete last year anyway, but he wouldn’t have been there).
This is BEFORE she got the overall best rosette! We were all so happy for her.
He is such a great horse that I see why she didn’t want to lose him. He basically slept between his events, breathing so heavily on Pam that her shirt was wet. Then, when she put his bridle on, he perked up, went out, and won the obstacle course, too!
I just cut the nice lady’s head off, because all I cared about was her horse. It’s the family pet, raised by them, and with an incredibly laid-back disposition. He also aced every move and won the more advanced class.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I was very happy to get to see my first Gypsy vanner horses in person. These are small but robust horses that were used to pull wagons, but also had to be very tame, because they were always around children. They are a perfect “Suna size” horse. And of course, there is the hair. The glorious hair. Brush, brush, wash wash, braid braid. Sounds like a good retirement hobby to me.
This one is their stallion, doing the gate opening activity. The judge is behind them. Can you see how long the braid is that’s keeping his mane out of the way?
Naturally, these are really expensive horses, so I will admire them from afar. But, they are living My Little Ponies!
See how short they are compared to the thoroughbred on the left
This is a photo from their previous competition, which had better lighting.
Tail swish.
This one’s tail is light on the outside and dark on the inside. So cool.
It was also fascinating to watch all the gaited horses, which have a different, smoother “trot” than quarter horses and most other horses. The horse looks quite busy when gaiting, but the rider is smooth as if they are sitting on a couch. I am really tempted to get one of those, since Apache has a really rough trot (one of the horses in the show did, too, and its rider was bouncing around at both trot and canter). I’m afraid I was too enthralled with the warmbloods and hair horses, so I didn’t get any photos.
I did enjoy one little quarter horse, mainly because she was such a great size. This is the one where Sara asked if she was a former brood mare, and her owner said no, she was a nightmare. But, she did pretty well considering her history of not doing much until she was older, and was a very friendly girl
They are in Western dressage attire.
It was exciting to watch the experience riders, who were on Lusitano and Andalusian horses. Those are the big ones. They are able to do all sorts of collection moves, fancy walks, snazzy trots, and things I will never do in my entire life, but are fun to watch.
This lady had TWO giants, this one and a gray
Doreen backing up
Zipping around the double slalom
The experts
The final part of the day was where they ran the course as fast as they could. That was a lot of fun. Two of the most fun were when Doreen, the woman who did yesterday’s clinic, didn’t go fast, but did the whole course as smoothly and with as few extra steps as possible. She wasn’t getting scored, because her gaucho pants had knocked over something and disqualified her in the obstacle course. She was a great example of taking one’s mistakes with grace, and showed that even the experts have mishaps.
They are backing up.
But the most fun one to watch was a woman who raises Australian stock horses. She and her horse ran that thing like a race, and it was a hoot to watch. And in this part you are allowed to cheer. It was a great way to end the day!
Zoom!
I look forward to doing some of these obstacle things with Apache, if I can ever ride again, and to taking some lessons to become a better rider, even if I’d never get past the first level of this stuff!
Thanks for bearing with my horse love. I am moving on to another topic soon, I promise!
Today Sara and I went back up near Temple to watch a working equitation show. Fun? Yes. Nice people? Yes. Pretty horses? Drool. Yes. I’m just going to share two pictures of two beautiful horses. I’ll write more tomorrow.
Today Sara and I went and did something together! What? Yes! We ranch ladies went off and did a horse thing somewhere near Waco. We hadn’t done anything together since last year!
One of the horses and riders we met.
We went to a beautiful facility and audited a working equitation class. The clinician was really nice and let us stand close enough to hear her. It was tons of fun learning all the things horses and riders do in this relatively new sport in the US.
The hay thing simulates a cattle chute. the barrels and sticks you do a turning pattern through.
The idea is that working equitation includes aspects of cattle working from European, US, Mexican, and South American traditions. There are dressage elements (fancy horse steps), cattle working elements, finesse, and speed.
There were lots of different horse types and riders.
Another cool thing about it is that riders wear apparel from their own tradition. So you see all kinds of saddles, tack, and riding outfits. Some horses are big Andalusians, others are gaited horses with fancy walks and runs, while you also see quarter horses, too. Sara and I sure enjoyed all the beautiful animals and skilled riders!
This rider on a deep brown gaited horse is working the barrels.
My favorite of the things the students learned was picking up a pole in a barrel, snagging a ring on it and depositing it in another barrel. the gate opening task was fun, too.
That’s the pretend gate you have to open and close without “letting the cows out.”
I can see why Sara is interested in this sport! We learned all the patterns and figured out some of the skills we’d need to learn (me way more than Sara). Now we just need horses that are healthy and can learn with us. I still have faith in Apache.
Tomorrow we’re going to watch a show, which also will have dressage. This is all new to us cowgirls, but everyone was so nice to us, supportive of each other, and eager to learn. The horses all seemed to be having fun, and most of them were sweet animals, too.
I had to take this, because the flowers will get mowed soon.
In other news, there were more floods and rain today, but some fence work did get done. And I got to play with Vlassic much of the morning.
Vlassic enjoys his newly enlarged pond.
Another fun thing this morning was watching how curious the cows are about all the fence work. They are compelled to explore each new piece.
We’re fascinated.
And the little steer has been so cute and friendly. He kept coming up and licking my hand with his rough, black tongue. I can’t wait until Haggard joins the friendly cattle (hoping that will be tomorrow, since he is officially cleared).
I want to kiss you.
Anyway, despite the rain and more rain, it was a fun and educational day. Hope yours was, too.
The Hermits' Rest 