Trailer training and other news...

Had a great weekend! Rain and all....

Friday I took Summer and my rig to JB's to work on Shelby's sardine can trailer training.

I got there and took Summer out and put her on the hot walker. Of course she had her helmet on and I am sure was wondering what the heck was going on.

I went in the barn and got Shelby and Summer was like, "who's that, and why are you leading her my way?" I then pulled out Shelby's very own shipping helmet. Now both my girls are safe and will be safe in my little, rolling bear cave. At least that is how I see it. They see it as looking like dorks and they just know all the other horses are laughing at them.

While they were tied to the walker and staring at each other. I went over and got the trailer all opened up and put some alfalfa in each hay manger. I then walked Shelby over to JB's trailer and tied her off. Went back and got Summer and asked her to please load good for Shelby's sake. And she did. I then asked Shelby if she was watching. It took maybe 5 minutes to get her in. I used the learning that my friend Toni gave me and it was wonderful. I would "tap-tap" with the whip on her rump and everytime she took a step, I stopped and praised her. Then more "tap-tap", another step, stop and praise. Then she just hopped in and didn't try to blow out. I am thinking that the alfalfa was a nice surprise for her. I closed them both in and walked away for about 5 minutes. Just enough time for them to finish their treat.

When I unloaded her, she was very good and quiet when she backed out. Lesson done.

On Saturday, Tracey and I worked the trails and got some awesome trail photos and burned some serious calories. Once we were done there, it was lunch time. When we got back, I wanted to do some gate repair on two gates. Tracey held the gates up and steadied them while I fixed them. Then it was time to go running around. We went to check out a couple of trailer places. No luck for her. Went to this huge yard sale and I bought me some very old tea glasses that were exactly like the ones my great grandmother used to have. I got a set of 12 for $10. These exact glasses were at an antique store for like $3 a piece! Score! Amanda was so excited when I showed them to her. We love surrounding ourselves with memories of our family. Everytime we will drink tea out of them, grandma Ballou will be in our thoughts.

After that we did a little more running around then went back to the barn.

I wanted to take Summer and my rig back to JB's for another trailer lesson with Shelby. We repeated what I did Friday. This time it took about 2 minutes and Shelby was comfortably in her trailer munching on alfalfa. We saw JB, Katy and Travis in the arena heading cows so we walked down so Tracey could watch. After about 10 minutes, I unloaded Shelby and she sort of blew out. Nope. Not what I wanted. I was only asking her to put her front feet back in so that I could ask her to come out slower. Well, she got all the way back in. Okay, I'll accept that. I then asked her to back out slower and she was an angel. After I put her away, we headed back to B-Tex.

Once back at the barn, David wanted me to bring my trailer home so he could put a new piece of wood in it on near side as it was rotting horribly. We finally got done with that and dropped the rig back off at the barn at 10pm.

No riding this day, but it was a very nice day. And it seemed long. But what better day to have a good, long day on than a Saturday!

Sunday was rain. All day. But that is okay. We needed it.