I'm Officially a New Mom...

It was a decent weekend weather wise. After the recent warm weather that melted the majority of our snow, we had a couple days of intense wind, that dried everything out really well...which meant time to ride the ponies!!!

No pictures from the weekend, but we had a grand time. On Friday, Olliver and I just hung out. Spent a lot of time just grooming, picking up feet, etc. He picks his feet up at my verbal "up" now. He's so smart. Good boy, Olliver!

On Saturday, we went riding. I got to ride Talon. He's really starting to settle in and is being more attentive to the people in his herd. He lets us catch him now and will come to us without the offer of food. He and Tubby are getting along better. Most of the squabbles come at feeding time...typical men!

After the ride on Saturday, Olliver gave a good scare. I noticed he was a little off. Not exactly lame or gimpy. But off. I was able to localize the issue to his left hip, in his stifle area. For those who may be horse-illiterate, that would be his hip area, but it's where his kneecap is. Scared the b-jeebers out of me. I was so scared. He didn't want me touching his stifle, kept moving away from me. Olliver's way of dealing with stuff he doesn't like is to walk away - and he kept trying to walk away from me. I sat in his stall and cried.

I called LaDel (his breeder). We decided to give him stall rest for a couple of days to see if that helped. With the somewhat icy footing in the pasture, and being turned out with big boys, he may have mis-stepped, or gotten kicked or something. Of course, as a new mom - I imagine all sorts of horrible things and completely freaked. Thank goodness for the ladies at HT - they helped calm me down and sent good vibes our way.

Of course, Olliver made me look like fool come Sunday morning. He was as good as new after a night of rest. Picked up his leg. Squeezed his stifle. Stretched his leg and did some range of motion. He was fine. I made him stay in all day. That made him a little hyper...all of that little boy energy cooped up all day. What was I thinking???

We went for another ride on Sunday...rode Tubby this time. After riding Talon, I felt like I was on a pony ride at the carnival. He's soooooooo lazy. He's gonna be in for a rude awakening once spring really hits and I get him working in the round pen. Gonna get that laziness out of his butt!! Gotta get him in shape so that he can keep up with Talon. God, Talon can really move out. He's a goer and rides like a DREAM!

So...back to Olliver. I was hanging out in his stall with him when we got back from the ride. He decided that my hat looked like a good snack and tried to nip it off my head. I snatched it back from him - and gave him my "ears pinned back 'here now!'" ("HERE NOW!" is what we say to the herd when someone gets unruly - they all now what that means). Olliver immediately went into his submissive "baby face" posture. I love his baby face. And was so touched that he gave it to me. Really showed me that he sees me as a leader of the herd.

Okay....I've babbled on long enough and have probably bored my reader(s?) to tears...but I'm having a REALLY bad week at work, and talking about the horses makes me feel better :)

J.

Semi-frozen but still alive

I've survived the start of the 2009 ice age. It was -25 degrees this morning...but a balmy 1 degree right now, with promise of continuing to warm up overnight. I really think that Al Gore should visit Minnesota in January before he makes anymore a sequel to his movie about global warming. UGH!!!!

I went out to the farm to chores for Traci tonight. The little trooper did chores every night this week. Including hauling water one night when the power went out and the automatic waterer froze up. It was SO GOOD to see "the Boys". WOW. The dynamics have really, really changed with Dancer gone. We took her down to Iowa last weekend to get some training before she's sold. There are two teenage girls (sisters) who are really interested in her...and they'll be good to her, so we're happy that she'll be going to a good home, instead of being sold at auction.

I hated to see her sold, but she had gotten all "hormonal mare" and evil, witchy mean. She tried to go through a metal stock gate to get at Olliver two weeks ago. She was beating up on Shadow (her son)....she was causing much unrest in the herd. Traci was ready to let her go. The trainer in Iowa is the person that Traci bought her from and will make sure that she goes to a good home.

In the meantime, there is nothing but peace and love at the farm now. Nothing but geldings...well, technically, Olliver still has his little testiculars, but he's young enough that it doesn't matter a whole lot yet. There is no tying up at feeding time...they respect each others space and food. Ahhhhh.....Shadow told me tonight that while he misses his mom, it's pretty cool with just "the Boys"...they can fart and scratch their butts all they want to...and drool over the cute little mares down the road...and not get smacked around for it. Tubby just rolled his eyes, "Kids..." LOL.

Olliver was happy to see me tonight, and I him. I missed the little bugger something awful this week.

Introduction - Part 5 (last intro post)

Since we're pretty much up to present time...I thought I'd share the pics that have and let you know that I am living my dream. Olliver is wonderful. He's smart. Patient. Infinitely patient. And he's going to need that patience, since I'm learning just as much as he is. I'm really limited with how much work I can do with him right now. It's winter. It's cold. Footing is bad. The wind can blow really hard at the farm. Spring can't come soon enough. Ollie and I hung out yesterday. We did a little work, but mostly we just hung out. It was 40 degrees...but foggy...misty...yuck. He's learned how to take a treat from my hand. He knows his name now and my car. He comes to the gate when he sees me pull in at Traci's. I noticed yesterday that he has grown a lot since we brought him home. He was avrunt...but he will catch up. We'll have to watch the protein levels in his feed - we can't let him grow too fast or it will damage his joints--the vet warned me about this. That can happen to Friesians. If they grow too fast, they can get problems with their stifles or OCD (no, not that kind)...or other bad things. We'll probably need to cut back on his protein levels.

Taggart has forgiven me for bringing Olliver to Traci's. See....Tubby hasn't been my best buddy since I brought Olliver home. I think I hurt his feelings. He was my best buddy. He'd let me hug him and breathe in his horsey smell for as long as I needed to - which could be a really long time after a bad day at TWRMC. Yesterday, when I was checking everyone over for scrapes and bumps, I noticed blood on Tubby's chest. He had 3 nasty cuts on his chest. Poor Tubby. They had stopped bleeding, but looked pretty nasty. I cleaned them up, put some Fura-Zone on. I gave him a hug. Lately he would tolerate a hug from me. And just that. He tolerated them. I hurt his feelings. I brought home another horse. Not to replace him, but he doesn't know that. Yesterday, he leaned back into me. Wrapped his neck around me. Hugged me back. He hasn't done that since I brought Ollie home. He's forgiven me. Thank you, Tubby.

Introduction - Part 4 (Meet the Herd)

Before I go any further, I should introduce you to the herd at Traci's. I don't have pictures of Windsor "The Old Man"...he's too scary looking to take pictures of. He's a 30+ year old Quarter Horse that is so gray he looks like an Appaloosa. He has almost no teeth. He's a literal bag of bones. And he HATES Olliver. Olliver gets to stay inside at night. Old Man doesn't. Enough said.

Here are Traci's horses...

From left to right, Taggart (Tubby), Dancer (Mama), and Shadow.

Taggart (Tubby) is my bestest buddy. He's the horse I spent the summer riding. He smart, a little lazy, but overall a good guy. He's a 12 year old POA gelding that out grew his POA status. He's just under 15 hands.

Dancer is a QH/Paint cross. I think she's around 9 years old. She's got a white spot on her belly that you can't really see unless you are underneath her. Which Traci can attest to, is not a good place to be. She's the only mare on the place.

Shadow is a coming 2 year old. He's Dancer's baby. We were hoping that he and Olliver would be grand friends...note the usage of the term "were."

This is Winchester (Olliver is grazing behind him). The last horse in the herd. He's a 16 year old QH gelding. I use the term gelding loosely. He's a little under 15 hands (he looks smaller in the picture because I'm standing uphill). Traci is holding him. Mik is up on his back. Taking her first ride!!

I love Winchester. I've always had a special place in my heart for studly geldings. The poor man was a breeding stud for the first half of his life. Then he was gelded. And Traci bought him. And somewhere in his brain, his neurons were burned into the studly pattern and there they remain. He doesn't get along with Tubby. Ah heck, he doesn't get along with most of the horses. We were most worried about him and his reaction to Olliver. Honestly, we were afraid of what he would do to Olliver.

We gave everyone a day to get to know each other over the fence. Olliver inside. The herd outside. It seemed okay. Tubby was very curious about him. He stood at the fence, ears perked, breathing in Olliver's smell the whole time. Dancer was being a little snotty - but she's a mare, she can't help it. Shadow laid his ears back at Olliver. Every time he looked at him. Shadow lays his ears back at everything though. Shadow is a teenager. We're trying not to hold it against him.

Traci took some treats and led everyone down to the opposite end of the corral. I let Olliver out of his "house." All hell broke loose. Dancer wheeled around and took off full speed, teeth bared, screaming after Ollie. She seriously wanted to kill him. Seriously. OMG. I've been a horse owner for all of 24 hours and my horse is going to be killed. Ollie took off running. Jumped over a hay tub (beautifully, may I add) - and I jumped in between the raging mare and my baby. Luckily Dancer still had half of her brain working. Traci opened the pasture gate and I chased Dancer out...she was followed by Tubby, Shadow and the Old Man. We closed the gate. Uh Oh. Where's Winchester?

We just knew Winchester was going to be the problem. He was sneaky. I knew he purposely stayed back just so he could be alone with Olliver so he could be the one to kill him. I whirled around. There was Olliver and Winchester. Nuzzling. Olliver doing his cute little mouthing thing. Submissive. Winchester eating it up. Dancer walked up the fence line to get as close as she could....ears pinned...teeth bared. Winchester swung around so that he was between Dancer and Olliver. Defensive posture. O....M......G......!!!!

Olliver got happy. Running, bucking...prancing. Did I tell you he has the cutest prance? And the most gorgeous trot?? Moves like a dream??? Okay, okay. I love my horse.

Traci was really nervous about leaving Winchester with Ollie. There is always the chance that he could change his mind about Olliver and kill him. We haltered Winchester. Led him into the pasture. Haltered Shadow. Brought him in with Olliver. Opened the side gate to the small paddock behind the shed. Major trouble. Shadow's pissed. He's separated from his herd. Shut in with the interloper. Olliver wants to play. So Shadow kicks. Nips. Olliver isn't too phased though. He kicks back. We decide to let them work it out.

I spent the day watching. Olliver spends much of the day at the fence with Winchester. When I go down to the fences, Shadow won't let Olliver anywhere near me. Attention hog.

The first part of the week is nerve-wrecking. By Wednesday night, Olliver won't even try to approach me - because when he does, Shadow attacks. We have to catch Shadow just so Olliver feels safe enough to come into his "house" for the night. On Thursday, I tell Traci I can't take it anymore. Olliver is stressed. He kicked at me Wednesday night. It isn't fair to him to keep having to put up with Shadow's abuse. We've got to do something different.

Since I don't work on Fridays, I asked Traci if we could leave Winchester with Olliver in the morning and turn Shadow out. She agreed to give it a trial run since I could be there in case Winchester changed his mind about liking Ollie. When I got Traci's Friday morning, Ollie and Win had been alone together for a couple of hours. Olliver was relaxed. He was able to
greet me at the gate without being punished by his pasture-mate. There was finally peace...