Lazy day ride.

Well since I STILL haven't found out what is wrong with my stomach and its just so darn HOT out I haven't been riding or working with Levi. Well she lost her flymask somewhere in the 30 acre pasture they are in and I needed to find it so I jumped on Satin, my trustworthy old girl and started the search. The flies were TERRIBLE so don't laugh too hard at Satin's get up, she was already embarrassed enough as it is ;-).  I snapped some pictures during our ride so enjoy. :-)

Getting ready to go!

Our chaperone's ;-)

This was after we found the flymask and kept riding hehe. There is ALWAYS time to play in the water!

Some pictures of the pasture below. This is only half, the boarder horses are on the other half.

The other half of the pasture is the grassy area you can see behind the trees.

Dividing fence/tree line between pastures.

Funny thing to find in the middle of the pasture, Josie said she had no idea how it got there but her dad has been looking for that shovel so we "caught" it and brought it back with us ;-)

The front part of the other pasture is that far hill and if you look close you can almost see the round pen atop that hill!

After our ride I took a quick opportunity to do some desensitizing with Angel. She did pretty good but wasn't thrill with the fly/scrim sheet on her butt so she got to wear it for a bit and get sacked out with it LOL.

All in all it was a good afternoon.

Well no riding update but...

I do have some photos to share with this HOT HUMID weather going on.  I do want to say that it has been too hot and too humid to do any riding but I am also getting over some stomach issues that are preventing me from doing much of anything lately let alone riding.  :(

Enjoy.. I know the horses did!

All that pond and they have to occupy the same spot??

I have idea how far they can go out before it gets deep.

Nothing like a good roll in the muddy water to keep the flies away!

Angel is like "what are you doing?!"

And a shot of the fish coming up for their bread!

Stay cool..these guys are :D

We are up to ride 9!!!

Gosh we might be at 30 days by the end of the year!


I thought I was going to have a photographer to help me last night but she deemed riding dirt bikes with grandpa more important than riding. As if.

I did get this shot of her before she ran off on me though.

That is her practicing the belly up ROFL.

Now back to Levi... I caught her, ok that wasn't hard she was already waiting at the gate lol, took her up to the horse trailer to brush, saddle her and soak  her with some fly spray. The fly spray she greatly appreciated, I know this because she told me so with a nuzzle ;-)

We lunged some and did some ground work yielding fore and hind quarters, backing, flexing. She flexes good with the halter but still hasn't figured out the flexing with the bit lol. She will get it I have faith in her.

We then moved on to riding but with no photographer I will just have to tell you about it lol. Woohoo.. we trotted tonight while riding, in circles even.. and gosh is she c o m f o r t a b l e!! Well worth the wait. She did really well walking the poles and barrels again. Then we practiced  walking over poles.. telephone poles that is, we use old telephone poles for gate posts and we have several.

Also her first time with boots on .. yep she did the funny kitty with tape on the feet walk lol.





We then rode up the hill to the yard gate, and then proceeded to ride in the yard abit, doing pretty good, then the hay field. We did some wandering with turns and one rein stops then we did some sacking out by the horse trailer with big pink chunk of fabric and big 3 x 6 sheet of foam/plastic I got from work that the bodyshop takes off the new bumpers when they get shipped.

We then practiced loading and unloading in the trailer. I have some video of the sacking out exercises and trailer loading as well but I don't have them uploaded to youtube yet. Once I figure that out I will try to add them.

We then concluded our evening with a "shower" and some grazing lol.

Parade and playing :D

Ok well Josie, Jake, Satin and I had another parade on July 9th.. they are so fun but it was so hot!! We did find the trick to getting old Jakers in the trailer without any balking or fussing, lol, I threw the rope over Satin's neck and asked her load first.  Then opened the other door and Jake practically loaded himself.. ornery old fart. ;)
We get to New Virginia and parked at the horse show arena. Brushed them down, glittered them (and ourselves) up and rode over to the old school where the parade would start. Had to go past all the loud tractors, cars, kids etc to the sign up booth.. Satin didn't even flinch she is such a good girl and I think with work Levi will be just as good as her momma. :D
We then rode and threw out candy to the little kids and just had fun.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Waiting for parade to start

Jake posing before parade :)

All Levi had to do this weekend was let Josie practice jumping on bareback.. sadly no pictures of that but I do have this picture:

Take a bow Levi.

July 7th Really good ride!

Ok tonights ride started like this.

So of course we had to remove her self applied beauty mud LOL.  After we finally got most of that brushed off we saddled up and did some lunging for about 5 min each way. Then did some "control" work where she would go around the circle I would step out ahead slightly and towards her and she would turn into the inside of the circle and go the opposite direction, keeping up her momentum.  She did really well.

Then climbed aboard and we rode around our grassy pen we've been doing our work in. Now we have some pole bending poles and barrels in there for practicing our turning, we have been getting more leg yielding accomplished slowly. I apply the leg, give her a split second and follow with the rein to help her along. I think she is going to catch on fairly quickly.

We also worked on stopping, I would be sitting up straight then sit back on my pockets and move my legs forward of the girth (all kind of exaggerated right now until she gets the hang of it) and ask her to "whoa" following up with a little rein and a step or two backwards when needed for reinforcement. Again she did pretty good.

After we spent about 2 hrs just riding around, stopping, turning and weaving around poles and barrels. I then dismounted took her through the first gate, climbed on rode her up the hill to the second gate. Dismounted took her through, climbed back on after closing gate, and rode her through the yard and back to the barn to the horse trailer.  Now this is her first time doing this because she isn't used to the tractors, dozer and baler just sitting around up here but its haying season so they are in different spots than normal. :)

The horse trailer is way in the background LOL

We unsaddled and she got hosed off, I think she is starting to like that part. ;)

July 5th ride

Well my daughter Josie and I decided to go out for a ride, it was a bit overcast, humid and it sprinkled some but we decided to go anyway. This time I ponied Levi along with us.. it was time for her to learn to be ponied, go down the road and for Satin to learn to pony another horse.

When we started out Satin wasn't so sure of this adventure so we stayed around the hay field for a little bit and let her get used to having Levi led off of her. She did a little dancing, and some sidepassing away from Levi but soon settled down and off we went.

First we went up a little short dirt road right next to my house, which leads to the highway. We then decided to go up the little dead end road that is just a short bit up and across the highway. Levi did really well being ponied across there and Satin was thinking differently but she doesn't like to be in trouble and behaved herself very quickly. The highway traffic didn't seem to bother her as we waited to cross, that is a plus.

This road was about a mile long, dead ends and leads back to a cemetery. It was quiet, no traffic, lots of trees the last half the road and humidity and looming threat of rain made the bugs and sweat terrible.

Levi, Satin and I

A view of the dead end road (and Josie LOL)

Headed back to highway and across back down dirt road to the house, we had just gone 2 miles round trip. Stopped off at house long enough to apply more fly spray and get some bandanas to have on hand to dab the sweat off of us, then headed back out the opposite direction with Levi still in tow.

We went about 3 miles the opposite direction from home this time, at one point here something spooked Satin and Levi. Deer maybe, there were lots of thick trees in this area so that was our story lol, Levi did get loose for a short bit but she is so easy to catch. I also know there isn't much traffic on our road so I felt safe doing our first ponying lesson there. We crossed another highway and onto another gravel road. By this time it was starting to sprinkle again and Satin was getting tired, she is a princess after all LOL, well in her own mind anyway. So we turned and headed back and a BIG tractor pulling a big bale trailer AND a gravity wagon was coming up behind us, so we just stopped the horses to let the tractor go by and Levi acted like she was going to follow that tractor LOL! I hope she does that good all the time but then again they see our tractors all the time doing something in the pasture, this includes our backhoe ;)

Got about 1 mile from home and took saddle and bridle off Satin and put on Levi and put halter on Satin and rode Levi a very short little bit down the road leading Satin!! I didn't do this for very long because it was difficult steering her and leading Satin because Levi gets cranky and bratty easily right now and its hard to get after her leading another horse but I did make sure to get off of her when she was doing good at walking along. Satin was bothered terrible by the flies as you can tell in the picture, maybe I should call her Satan instead of Satin??  LOL

She looks a little tired LOL.

Then I climbed off and lead them both the rest of the way home which cooled them off so they could be grained when we got home.

We rode 8 miles round trip that day. :)