oh elijah

Today we started off class reading our articles, if we hadn’t already read one yet, and I talked about the importance of Foal Hoof Management.  Great article, I thought!  After that, I helped Hannah trim Jay-Z’s back hooves and then we fussed with the horses trying to get the perfect pose for their sale shots.  That was interesting, haha!  Though Eli didn’t mind at all, because he got to basically hang out all class period being a bum and weed-eating, literally, the arena, while I helped position legs for pictures.

Tuesday be ready for swimming pictures! Whooo!! It’s getting so hot lately that we’re dying to go back to the pond, or at least us humans are!

Eli and I went through the normal routine, grooming, clippers, hot walker, lunging, etc.  Eli (I think) is much too lazy and slow to keep up with the hot walker. Haha! It’s quite funny, because he just lazily scoots alone while the poor machine whines and groans, pulling his slow butt around the circle. =) We’ll get there though.  He just has to figure out that he needs to walk  juustttt a little bit faster than a crawl. =D

He also got to lunge over a little jump today too, and no, he will never make a really awesome jumper, but he tries! =)

Then we went back in the barn to help Hannah trim Jay-Z.  I held Jay-Z, Eli inspected the perimeter and then I inspected Hannah’s handy work. =) Though it was close to the end of class, so Hannah decided that we would only work on his front hooves today and then finish with his hind hooves on Thursday.

Eli ended up finding a sunny spot to snooze in.

PS. My baby girl turned a year old today! Whoop! Yearling time =)

(picture of her at 4 months old)

Well it’s back in the ring for us now. Eli got to work with the saddle on today, he did good and didn’t fuss at all about the saddle or having to tote it around every where.

He was also a very good boy and stood tied up like a champ while I went off to the bathroom =)

Then we went and joined everyone to play with the big red ball. We looked like little kids in a “kick the can” circle haha!

Here’s the lovely Alice playing with the ball!

Fun Fun day! We got to take the horses out to the pond and “swim” them! =)

We started out today with imprinting the new Thoroughbred colt by Tricky Prospect and Jay-Z’s Mom.  Solid dark bay except for the smallest of white markings on his right hind heel. =)  Then we all loaded back up and came over to work with the yearlings.

I decided today he could wear all of the tack today and work with it on the whole time.  He didn’t fuss too much about that, except for whenever the bit was first put into his mouth. As we were walking to the arena to work on lunging, we got invited to try out the horse walker.  Sounds fun!  So I tied Eli to the walker and away they went.  Except for a little bit of confusion about walking with the machine in the beginning (and walking without me), he did AWESOME for his first time! =)  Very proud.

After going around on the walker for about 10 minutes or so, we spent the rest of class being stubborn and trying to work through some lunging frustrations.  Even though he has been taught over and over again, he still “brain farts” and forgets that whenever I put pressure to the left on the lunge line, that means go left, or to the right, that means go right, etc.  We were also having issues not with actually walking when I ask for it, but walking an entire circle or two.  He walks half way and thinks that’s good enough then doesn’t seem to “understand” my cues to continue on.  Oye, he was very stubborn today with lunging.

After that, we untacked and got a nice shower. =)

After our test, the only thing that got added to the “list” was getting them used to walking on the hot-walker, but in the end, it lost electricity so really no one got to test out their horses on the walker.  Eli’s hooves were needing a trim, so we spent some time working on that and after trimming we went out to the arena to practice lunging.

Eli did great lunging today, I didn’t have to even pick up the lunge whip, but we have got to work on listening to me whenever I say walk!  Sheesh that kid does not like to walk, just trot and canter.  =/ Towards the end, he figured out that I would jerk him to a halt if he took off trotting or cantering whenever I was asking for a walk and decided that walking was the better option.  Either way, I’m very proud of him for listening.. for the most part.

Next we worked on trailer loading a few times and by then it was getting hot so we went back to the barn to work with the clippers and the bit.  He’s still fussy with the bit, but he’ll get over it soon enough.  The clippers were not so fun, as usual.  He’s still tossing his head around whenever I hold his ear and then turn on the clippers.  Frustrating! Though he does just fine with clipping his bridle path, face, muzzle, and even his fuzzy neck!  Just those darn ears are very sensitive, though I don’t think I’d like it too much either if this really loud buzzing thing got stuck into my ears. =/

After that, we hung out with our friends at the wash rack, waiting our turn to hose off and cool down, and that’s about it.

Since we got.. rained out of class on Tuesday, today was our exam.  Oh goody! Eli hasn’t been messed with in about a week now, this should be lovely!  Started off just awesome when the little booger did NOT want to bend to the right.  He would brace his neck and go everywhere (and into everything) backwards, and even almost ended up bowing because he just would NOT bend around to the right.  He’s definately never fought me like this before, but thankfully, he knew when to quit, gave in, and we ended up bending rather nicely to both sides for the test. Go figure!

Clippers were still pretty bad, =/ but he lunged really good today! On voice alone, whoo!  Course he self loaded easily, wore the bridle and saddle, and yup.. I think that was the whole test. After the test, I hosed him down and man I guess he was ichy because he rubbed his ENTIRE body alllll over me (until I told him that was enough and to stop that and be a good kid, hehe).  Good day today.

There totally was a tornaderr in Commerce… yeah so we didn’t have class =D

ITS MY BIRTHDAY, WHOOO!!! Anyways, I missed class today due to a field trip to Ft. Worth for AI class.

Today was the perfect day for a trail walk, clear skies and a nice, almost hot temperature.  Sadly, I was looking forward to getting to playing with Eli on the “cliffs” (little natural up/down banks on the side of a hill), but we went to the usual places, the woods and creek.  So, Eli and I set off to explore on our own as I didn’t want to stay where we always stay and just be bored.  When we got to the woods, we jumped our way through the brush over the fallen logs in our path and kept going deeper, following an old trail, since we hadn’t been that way before.

Eli was quite the trooper and just trudged along beside me, going wherever I went and never questioning. =) I’m quite excited to get to teach him to ride and take him out for some nice trail rides next spring.  We ended up finding ourselves in a slight bowl and having to climb up the hill to get out of the area we were in, so up we went and we got to see an old bulldozer!  Course Eli didn’t care at all, so we kept walking, with the woods down below us to our right.  We walked around the whole outside of the woods until we came across this washout area where it looked like the rainwater cut out the ground on the way down the hillside.  Perfect for schooling up and down the bank and going through the small gully by himself. He did super freaking awesome! Cantering through the gully/bank thing like it was no big deal. =)

Finally I get a phone call from Rachel asking me where in the world I was and that they were all leaving the woods and going to the creek.  No fun!  So we left our fun little gully/bank and headed towards the creek.  And that was pretty much our day…

Eli and I leading the pack on the way out there.

Hanging out in the woods =)

jumping out…

trotting dowwnnnn. =)

We’re totally going to do that whole Extreme Cowboy race some day lol