Tuesday, March 2, 2010

What a "fantabulous" weekend!

Saturday morning I borrowed David's truck as I didn't feel like unhooking my SUV from my horse trailer to go get a round bale. Got to the barn, wormed my ponies as they were in much need of a good worming, hooked up my barn owner's round bale picker upper trailer thingy (did ya like that? hehe), and headed to the feed store a whole mile and a half away from the barn. Got a round bale loaded on it and headed back to the barn with Summer's buffet.

While I was doing that, Barb and June headed to Rio Vista and picked up 60 square bales of some of the most beautiful hay I have seen in a long time. 10 of those bales were mine so when they got back, I helped unload and stack them all. My little feed room is now full and I have enough hay to last me hopefully till the first cut of the year. My ponies only go through about a bale a week and Summer's round will last for approximately 5 weeks.

After we got done with the hay, I realized it was a few minutes after 1pm. I loaded up Summer and headed to our sort lesson. Got there, unloaded Summer (and she was very good doing that), tacked up and Robin and I headed out for a few minutes in the pasture. After about 15 minutes, we saw James heading to the arena with a tacked horse so we headed that way ourselves. He brought 10 head of what appeared to be Angus cross cattle up to the pens. He got them in and Robin and I assisted him the best we could (without getting in the way) getting the cows in the squeeze shoot and placing the numbers on them. Before we got started doing this though, James warned us that these cows had never been worked before and we were to watch ourselves and be careful. (James also told us that the cows we worked the weekend prior, were also like the ones we were preparing to work and that is why folks were having a bit of a problem).

Once we got started, we had a good lesson. Summer was a bit spooky on her first entry, but wasn't a complete idiot. Being that these cows had never been worked before, they had no clue to the rules of the game. But that really gave me some learning and I loved it. Another good thing about these cows was, once you pushed them through the hole, they wanted back to their herd and since I had that same problem the last two SWTPA competitions, it gave me a chance to learn to watch the cows behind me while working the hole.

4 of us showed up for the lesson and it was a very nice day. I got to make one run with Allison and we did very well. Allison is the partner that I placed with in January and I think if we had more pratice time, we would do really well when competiting. Praying that Roy starts the Friday nights back up!

Robin's little mare Taz, has learned a new trick that terrifies me every time she does it, and she is doing it a lot. Rearing straight up and pawing the air. I have lost a friend to this and I will not loose another. James is going to put 30 days on Taz and I really hope he can stop this. I can tell this is breaking Robin's heart as she really cares for this horse and loves sorting. I pray that James can stop Taz from this dangerous habit.

All in all, it was a productive day for Summer and I. For the most part, we did better this day than the previous Saturday. But now I know what to watch for as the cows we are preparing to work may have never been worked before this day, and to not just go in balls to the wall. James also gave me something I can work on at home too using our barrel racing barrels.

Sunday was a semi work day at the barn. Barb, June, Tracey and I moved the dressage arena over. Now, you may think this a simple task, but this is not a normal arena, everything has to be precise. So that took a couple of hours, just moving markers on the ground, but it is done! Then I got my few chores done, saddled up and went for a nice ride on the trails with Tracey and another boarded.

It was a great weekend filled with horses and horse activities!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Sounds like you're off to a great start!

Yikes on that mare! Rearing is the one thing that would make me walk away from a horse immediately. I hope she comes around.