Once in a Blue Moon

 

Last night I rode my Apache mare beneath the bright, full, BLUE MOON.

As we all know, the moon wasn’t actually blue in color. But it was still a very special moon.

August is the only month in 2012 that has two full moons. The only time one month can have two full moons is when the first full moon happens in the first few days of the month. This only happens every 2-3 years.

This full moon ride was extra special for me because it happened just 4 days before my 46th birthday!

 

And for my birthday, my hubby bought me a something I’ve been wanting: my very own, custom-made Hide-a-Helmet!

As most of my friends know, I love to wear helmet covers to decorate my helmet. Usually they are just stretchy, lycra with fun and colorful patterns. Except I've been wanting something that looked more like a hat. And I searched for over 3 years, but nothing came even close to what I was looking for.

But just a few weeks ago, while doing a search for helmet covers, I stumbled upon this new home-business, created by a lovely lady named Latina. She had finally designed a helmet cover that actually looks like a real hat.

Latina knew exactly what would look good because she is also an equestrian. She drives a cart and competes in cart-driving shows. And she likes to be safe and wear her helmet, but also look stylish, too.

(At one point in our ride, Apache refused to take me out to our back paddock behind the barn. I asked and instead of complying, she tried to back up or turn around. So, after a couple minutes of me making her do just that, she was finally convinced that exploring the back paddock was a good idea.)

It typically takes Latina 2-3 weeks to make a helmet cover and have it shipped to her customers, except when I told her that my helmet cover was for my birthday, she got my Hide-a-Helmet to me in less than a week, once she received my check! I was so excited!!!

(I was still very proud of my Apache mare for doing as I asked without putting up too much of a fit. Apache received loads of praise and then we wandered around in the back paddock for about 10 minutes and then came back out. Good girl Apache!)

Latina sent my Hide-a-Helmet on Tuesday and it arrived on Friday. Just in time for me to wear it for the full Blue Moon event!

It was a thrill to be riding my Apache mare under such a bright and beautiful moon.

I kept singing “Me and My Shadow”, because the shadows we cast on the ground and trees were very vivid and well-defined. It was so bright outside, that I could have read a book! lol!

Got my horse and my dog, and a moonlit night…….life is good!

I only rode my mare for about 30 minutes around my property, but it was such a joy and a privilege. I’m so thankful to my sweet Apache mare for allowing me to fulfill many of my dreams. (And thankful for my twin son Jeremiah for taking photos, so I can go back and enjoy the memories of this night whenever I want to).

And yes, there were cookies and a late night hay-snack, for my Apache mare, after the ride.

 

Mountain Trail Ride

 

Following up from my previous Pony Playday post post……

After playing with the obstacles in my paddocks and backyard for almost 2 hours, I asked Kendra if she’d like to go for a trail ride. She of course was pretty keen on the idea and was wondering where we would be riding straight off my property to go trail riding. This little adventure was a pretty big deal for me, because I hadn’t ridden on these trails for 3 years. The last time was on Christmas Eve when I still owned my mare Baby Doll…and that trail ride ended with a visit to the ER followed by my ACL surgery.

And just to cause even more trepidation about riding on these trails, my neighbor friend Val had ridden them last Spring and she and her horse Scout had been attacked by another neighbor’s pack of loose-out-of-control dogs, which caused Scout to fall over backwards on top of her and break her ankle and injure her tailbone.

But it was a gorgeous day and we were riding during the week, the time when most of my neighbors are at work and their dogs are kept inside or safely in a pen under control.

This was also the first time I had ever ridden my Apache mare off of my property and on the trails surrounding my house. Sure, in the over 2 years I’ve owned her, I’ve trailered her to quite a few clinics, lessons, trail rides and ACTHA rides and she always seems to enjoy herself and does great, but this was still a first experience for the two of us. And I was glad that my friend Kendra and her gelding Bailey were joining us, too.

We left my property and rode through my neighborhood and headed out to the land behind my house. Some of the trail is along gravel and dirt roads, while some is on a dirt trail created by one of our neighbors who is very welcoming to all of us who want to walk or ride around the perimeter of her property.

I was pleased that my Dobbie Girl wanted to come along for the trail ride, too, as Apache really seems to enjoy my little Chiweenie’s company.

 

Kendra and Bailey were enjoying our trails and seemed surprised that they were accessible right off my neighborhood. Apache was relaxed and calm as she always is and seemed very happy to be out exploring the trails with me. She truly is the perfect trail horse for me.

Kendra and I took a lot of photos, well at least until her camera died. :(

 

One section of the trail travels onto another neighbor’s property and goes uphill onto a ridge.

 

It had been over 3 years since I rode my mare Baby Doll on this section of trail and I was pleasantly surprised at how the owners of this land had cleared such a nice trail for anyone wanting to ride or hike on it. I had met these neighbors a few years ago when riding up the ridge with my neighbor friend Val, and the landowner apologized for the trail not being cleared. I was quite surprised about the apology considering we were basically trespassing, but I was also touched by the generosity of my neighbors to welcome us to ride and hike on their land and trails. 

 

These neighbors don’t own horses, so of course, some of the higher branches could use some trimming, and Kendra and I had to dodge and lean out of the way of some of them. At one point, I had to hang off the side of Apache, ‘Native American Ambush style’, but I still ended up with a number of scratches on my arms.

 

Still it was such a beautiful, challenging, and fun trail, that we were just grateful for the opportunity to ride on it.

 

Once we reached the top of the ridge, we rode around and explored up there for a while, and then Apache and I led the way back down.

 

We stopped a few times to enjoy the views from our ridge, to the ridge across the valley.

 

I’d like to bring some loppers back up here on horseback or with my llamas, and trim up some of those higher branches.

 

I was so proud of Apache. She is happy to lead or follow, and it was fun to ride in front sometimes as well as in the back. Dobbie seemed to enjoy the ride, too and did a great job at keeping up with our horses.   

 We soon reached the bottom of the ridge and continued on down the trail towards the big meadow. Bailey is such a handsome boy!

 

It was a gorgeous warm day with beautiful cool breezes. Perfect day for a mountain trail ride. The grass sure has been growing with the rain we’ve gotten lately.

 

 

We were happy to let our ponies enjoy the yummy green grass.

 

Kendra and I, and both of our horses were thoroughly enjoying the gorgeous day and our beautiful mountain trail ride.

 

It was really nice to have my Dobbie Girl on our trail ride, too. Apache is quite fond of my Chiweenie. And, it’s no wonder. Dobbie is very respectful of horses and never harasses them.

 

And I really enjoy Kendra’s company. And Apache and Bailey get along really well, too.

 

Apache was in nirvana with all the fresh green grass to eat and she made me laugh when she tried to take additional bites of grass when her mouth was already stuffed full!

 

On the way back to my house, we rode through the neighborhood and on my neighbor friend Val’s (Fantastyk Voyage) road that travels beside her arena. I’m very appreciative that Val doesn’t mind me riding through here because it’s the safest path to the trails behind our houses. I was also thankful that she had her dogs safely in a pen so they wouldn’t try to run around or harass our horses. Annie and Yalla! both ran around and whinnied at us as we rode by. I told Yalla! that one day she will have the opportunity to carry her human and ride out on the beautiful trails behind her barn, too.

 

It was a great day and a wonderful trail ride. I can’t wait to take Apache back out on our trails again soon.

Pony Playday

 

Last week, my friend Kendra hauled her gelding over to my house for a full day of pony fun!

I got Apache mare all tacked up and ready to ride.

And Kendra brought her Bailey boy up to my barn and tacked up, too.

And soon we were playing with the silly obstacles in my paddocks and pasture.

We rode through the vine obstacle.

“Jumped” over a log.

Practiced our Side-Passing and L-Backs.

And got pretty darn excited when our ponies did them well!

We also trotted and cantered around the paddock.

And competed in our own silly version of barrel racing:

Yucca Barrel Racing!

We even left the paddocks behind and practiced the stairs in my backyard.

And did some desensitization training with the Bouncy, Squeaky, Child-Jumping-on-Trampoline Obstacle.

No worries, Mate!

And Kendra made sure that Bailey had remembered his first introduction to llamas and Llama Desensitization Training we had here at my house back in late March. (At first he seemed alarmed, but within minutes he calmed down and went to greeting my two llamas and wanting to hang out with them.

Well, all that was mighty fun, but the day was still young and we both were yearning for a trail ride. So I offered up a trail ride option that I hadn’t done with any horse for over 3 years. Back then I used to ride Baby Doll on the trails behind my house, both with my neighbor Val and also by myself, but I haven’t wanted to ride back there ever since one of those neighbors allowed her dogs to attack Val’s horse causing him to fall over backwards on top of Val and break her ankle.

But there aren’t a lot of options for riding from my house and I figured that a trail ride during the week would be a pretty safe option since all the neighbors that allow their dogs to run loose seem to work on the weekdays.

To Be Continued……….       

Llama Drama Lesson and Pony Playday

 

Ok……so I’m still not quite back in the blogging vibe yet, but I do miss it sometimes. So, perhaps I can try to randomly post and read my favorite blogs every so often, instead of feeling like I must post every day and keep up on a daily basis with reading blogs, too. It seems overwhelming even when I think about doing that again, so I’ll try it this way, so as not to place any pressure on myself. And maybe, just maybe, I can still be considered a real blogger, even if I’m only part-time? *grin*

Ok, so where was I?

Oh yeah. A Llama Drama Lesson and a Pony Playday!

I invited my friend Kendra, over to my house again for a Pony Playday on Wednesday, but with a twist. This time she was going to bring her own pony, Bailey Boy, too. And not only to ride, but to somehow convince him that llamas were not horse eating monsters who were waiting to swallow him up and spit out his eyeballs!

And since I do in fact have two llamas of my own, it just made sense to have those lessons at my house.

(Does this lovely creature of mine look like she could eat a horse for lunch? I snapped this photo when I was sitting on the mounting block and she and I were watching Bailey and Kendra at the bottom of the hill)

(Kendra and Bailey just unloaded and on the way up to the barn. Notice the little sprigs of grass poking up???! Yay! Spring is finally here!)

They pulled up at 10am (why am I telling you this? Well, in this way we can keep track of how long it took Bailey to eventually overcome his fears of banana ears!), got unloaded and made their short trek up the hill to my barn. Ooops! They have to pass the llama paddock to reach the barn. Wasn’t gonna happen!

Bailey Boy gave Kendra quite a bit of trouble with snorting, dancing, prancing, spinning, pulling back and trying to bolt the second he saw my 2 llamas staring at their new visitor. And with the galloping and whinnying commotion on the other side of my pasture, from my neighbor’s 4 horses, who were just as excited to meet this new visitor and potential friend, Bailey was finding it very difficult to concentrate. It was just a little too much over-stimulation.

It didn’t matter that my sweet mare Apache was waiting, calmly and quietly up in her barn stall, Bailey was not going to go up there where, *gasp*, llamas were waiting, too.

(Apache wasn’t interested in Bailey’s Llama Drama in the least. She was more interested in hoovering up the last dregs of her breakfast hay and wondering when it was time for her to be saddled up for Pony Playday)

 

So Kendra walked him down to the fenceline that I share with my neighbor friend Fantastyk Voyager and allowed Bailey Boy to say Hello to the other horses.

And that is where Bailey decided it was safest to be, and no amount of persuading was going to convince him to take more than a few steps up to the barn.

So, I decided to bring my Apache mare down to him, hoping that Apache could help bridge the gap between Bailey and the llamas and barn. And she was able to persuade Bailey to walk up the hill about halfway, but that was it. So, I returned Apache to her stall and told Kendra, I had a new plan: Halter my friendliest llama and bring her down to Bailey.

What’s the worst that could happen, right? We predicted he would probably just lose his mind and go running helter skelter all over the pasture.

(There’s Fantastyk Voyager’s Yalla! on the right and Scout on the left. It was a cloudless, sunny day in the upper 70’s with some gusts of wind)

But good ‘ol Bailey Boy surprised us. Yeah, he did go running around, but only just a little bit, because he soon realized that my neighbor’s horses weren’t joining him and they weren’t worried about the llamas in the slightest. So, of course, he had to come back, because that’s where the safety was. And the llama. But at least he wouldn’t be facing the llama alone.

While Bailey kept his distance, snorting and blowing, my neighbor friends’ horses got a little bored and started looking on the ground for something to nibble, so Bailey decided to calm down and relax, too. And I started asking my female llama to walk in circles, so we would be doing a Approach and Retreat tactic, and then I handed the llama lead rope to Kendra so I could man the camera.

And this is what happened next:

But, as Clinton Anderson says “When you think you have only one horse, you really have two. Because what you teach on one side, you always have to teach on the other” And that proved right for Bailey, too. After he seemed desensitized to the llama on one side, and then he switched to the other side, he acted as if the llama was a brand new scary monster he had never seen before, and he even ran off! So, it was time to introduce the llama to his other side before he could be truly llama desensitized. (Note: Llamas may still give him a spook in other locations, but they should not be as big of a deal as before he was introduced up close to a llama)

Kendra was having fun, too. It was her first time to ever lead a llama or pet one. Cataleya was being a fine and well behaved llama ambassador and seemed to enjoy the job we had given her.

 

And then we switched back just to be sure that Bailey’s other side still remembered the llama.

And he did! He decided that he even liked the llama, to the dislike of Cataleya who felt Bailey try to groom her and take a nibble of her wool!

And you know, it always comes back to butt sniffing.

After we felt like Bailey was comfortable with Cataleya we wanted to move on to the next step: getting Bailey to walk willingly up to the barn so that we could eventually have our Pony Playday. Bailey was very willing and seemed happy to have Cataleya to walk with, too.

Until at the last minute, my male llama, Catlinite popped out from behind my horse trailer. Ooops!

Catlinite is larger and white and more intimidating than Cataleya. And he knows that, too. He is a well trained guard llama and used to enjoy charging other animals, including horses. He used to charge my neighbor friend’s horses when we first bought him 6 years ago, and they would run away. But one day, one of her horses (can’t remember if it was Nadia or Annie) decided to stand her ground and charge right back, and Catlinite never charged them again.

So Bailey spun around and headed back down to the bottom of the paddock where he felt safe. Kendra went back down and walked him back up. Once he realized that my mare Apache was up there at the barn, too, and he recognized his new friend Cataleya, too, he decided to stay with all of us. He even stuck his head over the llama/goat paddock to say Hello to my Catlinite, which really threw Catlinite for a loop. *grin*

He was feeling so confident, that Kendra and I felt he was finally llama desensitized!
(Note: This does not mean that he won't ever spook at the sight of other llamas. It just means that he is now aware of llamas and future confrontations should be less drama-filled.)
It only took about 2 hours from start to finish to get Bailey Boy desensitized to llamas.

Afterwards we decided it was time for Pony Playday time!

There aren’t many photos of this because we were just focused on having fun with our horses in my pastures and paddocks. We trotted over cavalettis, side-passed to the mailbox, ducked under the vine obstacle, rode through the tree tunnel, practiced turns on the forehand on the Big Black Hole trampoline tarp, desensitized Bailey Boy to spinning pin wheels, and practiced Figure-8s and Backing around natural obstacles like baby Pinon trees and yuccas. We rode our ponies for about 2 1/2 hours laughing and just having a great time.

(Kendra on her Bailey Boy)

I had a few moments of Apache testing me, when I would ask Apache to attempt a task, and she would back up in answer to my request. And then when I squeezed her to move forward, she would just back up more. I thought it was odd that even though my reins were loose, and I had never asked her with my hands to back up, she would continue backing up. I figured it out on my own that I wasn’t placing my legs back far enough and was instead asking her to keep backing up, so she did teach me something new that day, too.

(Wake up, Apache! Taken with Kendra’s cell phone, so not the best quality)

Also, a few times when I asked Apache to move forward, she would just stop, like when we got back up to the barn or when she would try to head over to, or back up to the mounting block, but I wasn’t planning on dismounting, and still wanted to continue riding around the pasture. So, without any more arguments from her, I told her to keep moving and she’d continue on.

At one point, one of my neighbor’s dogs snuck underneath our fence and ran into my pasture and tried to chase our horses. She was running around Bailey’s and Apache’s feet to upset our horses. Kendra and I just kept circling our horses, so they were always facing the dog and then I yelled at the dog “Go Home!” and then I made Apache chase the dog back under the fence into my neighbor’s arena!

It was kind of fun controlling that naughty dog like that with my horse. And it must have scored some brownie points (or is that carrot points?) with Apache, because afterwards, I noticed a distinct change in Apache with any request I asked her. She was much more willing and ready to comply.

(And here’s a very funny video that Kendra took with her cell phone, of Apache and I making a Figure 8 around the baby Pinon trees in our paddock. lol!)

I was also able to get my mare into a trot easier, too. We trotted around the pasture both with Kendra and Bailey, and on our own, too, and when we’d get up to the barn, it was a big deal to me, that Apache didn’t pause, but instead she kept on moving right past the barn and mounting block. Good girl!

But she wasn’t such a good girl after Kendra and I had finished un-tacking our ponies and were just hanging out chatting. I had Apache on her lead and she looked like she was asleep, when Bailey, also on his lead with Kendra, decided to get a little too close to Apache’s rear end, and Apache, quicker than lightning, double barreled him in the chest. Ouch!

Thankfully Bailey was none the worse for wear and wasn’t injured (As for me, my memory of those hooves on my face over a year ago, sure came back!), but Bailey kept his distance from Apache after that.

It was odd, though, because Apache did seem to like Bailey and when we were standing around talking while on horseback, both horses tried to sidle up to one another as they rested. And when they bellied up to the water tank to share a drink, they did so nose to nose with no issues. Of course, when they first met over the stall fence Apache was sure to squeal at him. Horses! You just never know what they will do!

Well, finally the day was coming to an end. It was 3pm and time for Kendra to take her Bailey Boy home. We had such a fun Llama Drama Lesson and Pony Playday and I can’t wait to do it again!

(And best of all, Bailey Boy was able to move past his Fears of Banana Ears!)