One lazy weekend...

Madeira, the queen on her throne. It's taken me awhile to get her to stop and stand on the tire, like Steal. She would rather just sort of walk over it quickly and be done with the madness. I mean what's the point anyway? From her point of view??? Well, let me tell you, the point came to her in a form of a carrot. And a good point it was! From her point of view.

Madeira synchronizing with Virpi and Steal.

After some horseplay in the arena we decided to let Steal and Madeira visit the pasture, which they have not been in for at least a year. We thought that they would exercise themselves to great extends running around all happily with their old buddies at least for an hour. All we would have to do is stand around and watch.
(Humf! Huff!...rolling of the eyes ...%$#^*%*^&...) They ran exactly fife strides and stopped to eat!
Steal with a mouthful of alfalfa?? NOT ALLOWED!!!
At least Tuff was useful and helped us pick up the "toys" from the arena. Tuff boy

Bath time

Finally last weekend the weather was warm enough so we jumped on the opportunity to bathe the horses. Kim has been the first on the list of horses to bathe since December. I started with her on Friday with help from Stefan, a ranch volunteer. Kim enjoyed every moment of scrubbing. She has been so itchy, that she has scratched herself to blood on several parts of her bony body. I don't know why we never thought of it before... but scrubbing her through to the skin surfaced tiny little white particles, which looked like dry skin. Soon her entire body was covered with this white stuff that didn't come off. I had NEVER seen lice before so I had to call Raul to come and heck whether this could be it. Raul said that it indeed was lice eggs. Then he parted the hair just enough to see the lice on her skin. Not lying Kim had more lice on her body than hair. No wonder she has been so permanently dehydrated. I cannot even begin to describe how disgusted I felt. They say that humans can not catch horse lice, but I was itching all over from the mere thought. We bathe her with a microbial shampoo on Friday and afterwards I sprayed her with anti-fungal spray since she does have fungal problems also. On Saturday we bathe her again, with lice shampoo this time and sprayed her afterwards with a heavy fly-tick-lice repellent, that we got from "Feed n' Fuel" for her that morning. On Sunday I groomed her with a metal curry and she stood there untied with a lip quivering, so totally loving me scratching her. I believe we killed most of the lice, but this certainly isn't the end of it. Her face and ears were the difficult part. The lice were stuck all over the inside of her ears. Virpi dampened a towel with the lice spray and rubbed the insides of her ears as much as she could without hurting her.Needless to say, That Steal and Madeira got a nice bath too. Luckily they didn't have any lice. Afterall Kim has lived right next door to Madeira for the past few months.Check out Steal shaking. His ears are bend.Madeira sparkling after her bath.

Rodeo

Couple weeks ago We went to see the Grand National Rodeo at Cow Palace. Ronda and her friends competed in the color guard representing the San Francisco horseman's association, and they took home the blue ribbon. Here are a few exciting photos.
The next day at the ranch we practiced some of our own rodeo tricks.
And the baby gave us a private bronc show.
Virpi and Steal played with the ball.
Kim took a walk on her own. Her ribs and hip bones are SLOWLY disappearing.The baby is so attached to Kim that where ever Kim is grazing, that is where baby hangs out.Can't see, but I sense you.Summer sneaked into Faith's stall and pretended to be a private horse. Notice the open latch on the stall door. She knows how to go in and out as she pleases. Some horses in the act of begging.So angelic...Madeira was teaching me how to roll...And then we just hung out.
I love my horse.

The three musketeers. We finally saddled up to go on a trail ride. Just a short one. It's funny how the world wheels around. I used to think that people who hardly ever rode their horses were so weird and not doing the right thing for their horse. And now I've become one of those people. I wonder if those people I saw not riding understood the importance of groundwork and the undemanding time spent with a horse??? I may have judged the book by it's cover. However, I am having a blast playing with Madeira on the ground, and better yet, she is having a blast too. The other day she got really "wild" and what looked like completely right brain behaviour, but she was so in sync with me it was unbelievably incredible! Several of the ranch hands came over to the fence to watch and were totally amazed at what we were doing. (And a little jealous I might add.) Paris Wallace, our professional ranch photographer happen to be around too and took all these awesome photos of us.

I send Madeira out on a circle and she ran around wild until I disengaged her and she cantered over halting exactly on front of me and as I signaled her she reared. (The guys think, that the strange orange stick has magical powers.)

Then I asked her to "heal" like one would ask a dog, and she walked when I walked, trotted when I trotted, cantered when I cantered, stopped when I stopped and backed up when I did. We also moved sideways in harmony, towards me and away. And imagine, all this stuff is quite easy for us these days. Yep! We had a fun play day.

Then on Sunday I went back to Moss beach Ranch to watch some friends of mine competing in a small show. Here are some photos of Penny on Prince, Ronda on Iris and Gloria on Iris.

King of the wheel!

Steal climbed up all the way on the big tractor wheel last weekend. He felt like a much bigger horse.
And of course there was a treat involved. Since his laminitis treats for Steal have been in a very short supply, so these days he will do just about anything to get one.
Climbing up on a tire certainly was no trick at all.
Madeira kept sneaking over to flirt with Jake who was in the arena.
They used to stay in the pasture together.

On Saturday morning Virpi and I visited a fiend of ours, Joanna who bought one of my favourite horses ever, Joe. Joe now lives at Moss Beach Ranch. Look familiar? Yes, that's where my beloved Cody used to live.
The place is so beautiful and awesome, and Joe looked so happy and comfortable. It was great to visit and see him enjoying his new home.

Baby Turned one year old on the 15Th of March. She has really matured nicely. Her and I went for a special walk, just the two of us that day, and spent a lot of time hanging out. We have been doing lots of preparation for trimming lately, since the last trimming time with Samuel didn't work out as smoothly as I had hoped. But last weekend I actually trimmed her a little myself and she stood still tied into a post as if she'd done it for years, and let me rasp her little hooves.
Then our trimmer came on Tuesday and I had him trim baby. He was really very impressed with her manners, she was a perfect little girl, and I was so proud of her.
It's really amazing to work with horses. You can perform all sorts of "magic" with just one ingredient: trust.

Momma Came to hang around with some of her pasture buddies, Summer Jupiter and Snowflake. They wanted their share of the goodies. We have a ton of oranges from a Friends of ours tree and the horses all LOVE them.



Especially Kim, who can smell them miles away. She enjoys her days feeling better by the day, and she gets so excited to come out for little walks and to graze whenever she hears us coming.

She really is looking much better already, but it is her attitude that has totally flipped around. She is full of life and taking everything out of it.