The last weekend of 2007

Travieso feeling good, stretching his legs a bit, loving life. One could never tell that just a few months ago he came so close to death. His scar is merely a cosmetic imperfection on his neck. Now barely visible under his coat.
He is a marvelous horse.

Madeira cuddling with Travieso. That only happens at certain time of the "month." Poor Travieso is all confused??? He cannot figure out why sometimes she is so loving and other times she kicks at him with flattened ears.
It's a female thing. He will get it in a few years.

Travieso was very interested in the baby though. He came galloping over when I brought the little one out.





And then, of course Madeira came slowly and calculatively, and chased him away from HER charge. She has adopted the role of a foster mother.

A good roll in the slobby mud does a body good!
Always remember to roll on both sides!

Look at my beautiful lady. She looks like she was molded out of clay.

A very relaxed and content Madeira with her little "mini-me" shadowing behind her.











Steal back to work. What a tough life. He is not lame anymore, but still weaning off the medication, on a special diet and now all he needs is a bit more exercise.

Steal's front hooves. If you look closely you can see the horizontal groove almost exactly in the middle of his hooves. From the coronet to the groove is the growth of his new hoof. Note the dramatic change in the degree of the hoof angle. This is the product of barefootedness and Good trimming after being in badly shod shoes, that stretched out his toes for so long. Laminitis is not caused by bad shoeing, but it definitely aids the illness. If the toes are too long and stretched out there will be separations of the lamina from the hoof wall. Then all you need is some endotoxins in the blood stream and BOOM... worst case scenario.

Baby was shy to come close when I was ON Madeira.

But she is a big girl now and it was time she came along on a "big horse" walk out on the trail.

Madeira was such a good helper.

There was so much to see on the trail.

Baby enjoyed it very much. She felt like an important big horse.

And of course we had a little snack on the way. Madeira really changes color in the winter, and it's not just the darker winter coat, she becomes a greyish mud brown.

Visiting Cruiser and Fire on the way back.

Raul cozying up the stall for my mud pony.
Now all I have to do is brush the dried up mud cakes off my lady's beautiful fur.

Momma bobbed her head into Madeira's stall to say Hi. She is happy in the pasture, made a lots of friends and ranks quite high in the herd.
But she comes to hang out and say hello to us and her baby all the time.

The dusk at the ranch is my favourite time. When all is quiet, most everyone else has gone home. The horses are peacefully munching their evening hay, birds asleep on the branches, and I just stand there lulled by the relaxing sound of the ocean in the background, taking in the last of the sun.

Check out the bottle of wine we had at aunt Kaija's holiday dinner. (I just had to take a picture of it.) It's "Madeira." So sweet, rich and red, almost liquor like strong. Madeira.

Wonderful couple of weeks have gone by. I missed a weekend at the ranch while I was visiting my favorite family in Bonsall, close to San Diego, for a long weekend. And if you would never believe that I could have fun without my horses, well, I had a fantastic time! I had a special spa treatment. We had coffee at the famous Hotel Del Coronado. We went to the beach, had Hot chocolate at the Pannikin (my favourite.) I got to watch Daniel at the art of fencing. And Just hang out with my favourite people in the world; Heather Daniel and Isabelle. Certainly I missed Madeira, but she is always in good hands when I'm away.


Well Back at the ranch this past weekend Madeira and Steal got their hooves trimmed, and Little Candy too received a special, complimentary trim from our trimmer.
Her hooves were curving up badly and I had been asking for the ranch shoer to trim her for the last two months, in vain.
Afterwards we all went for a walk, Candy in tow.




Virpi rode Steal on the way out just a little. He is doing well and can be ridden slow at walk for short distances now.

Beverly came along with Cruiser. His main agenda was to get as much of green grass on the way as possible.

On the back gate we met Irene walking Jet.
















And White Chocolate and Fire came to greet us over the pasture fence.

Afterwards we all hung out in the arena, including Baby.
Baby is such a big "horse" now. She wants to be part of the herd so badly, and she is so curious about the other horses. We can't of course leave them in without supervision, although baby is very respectful of her elders, and moves out of their way quicker than they can think. But as long as the humans are in charge, the horses won't have to challenge each other.






I did let Baby say Hi to Madeira. Madeira is so gentle and loving.









Steal in the other hand was jealous when his human was playing with the little rascal.

But the baby can Fly!
It's as is she's got wings...

Baby had to leave the arena before Tuff came in though.

But we let then socialize over the fence.

Steal the trooper.

Another great weekend passed by so too fast. I snapped this cute photo of Steal an Madeira on our walk Sunday, when we didn't make it all the way to the creek as we usually do, because I had decided to walk Steal without the Caballo boots and he was a bit ouchy. So we ended up taking a brake early and I took off his muzzle so he could take a few bites of grass. He lives for those moments now, that he isn't allowed to eat much extra outside of his regular daily feed, which remains 100% grass mix with no alfalfa.
So Steal has gotten his walk routine down so well that he actually needs no one to hold his "hand" to get himself to the creek for a bite of grass. (I would say that the point to point game has worked.) No barn sours allowed. He walks enthusiastically all the way to the creek and waits till Madeira and I arrive, to take off his muzzle. We are of course right behind him, but Madeira is a slow walker. In order to keep up with Steal she would have to trot lightly, but since her newfound confidence and trust in me, she puts absolutely no energy or effort into trotting after Steal.

Group of riders passing us on the trail.

Unlike Travieso, who trusted me to crawl into his stall and sit with him while he layed down after just a couple of weeks from his arrival, Madeira used to never feel comfortable to lay down to even roll when people were around. Getting close enough to snap a photo of her rolling was a difficult task. You had to be fast and have a great zoom. However for a few years now she has liked rolling on the beach while I hold the leadrope, and slowly she has started to roll in the arena with me standing close to her.

She is an extraordinary horse. She is totally hyper sensitive about everything (which I have successfully developed into a great lightness) and her innately right brain horsenality is extra flighty. But now, here she is completely comfortably laying down after a roll while I go and sit with her. It is a great compliment for me to have her trust me this much, knowing that not just anyone could have accomplished this with her type of horse.

I want to greatly stress the point that I did not make, or even ask her to lay down. (I don't have that savvy yet.) I simply allowed her to roll because she felt like it and as she layed down I calmly walked up to her, gave her a treat and sat down stroking her gently. I also did nothing to hold her down, but allowed her to get up immediately when she wanted to. And after the treats from my pocket were gone, she did. One day she will lay down from a request, and it will be completely from her own will without loosing any dignity. Until then, we savvy up!

I hopped on her afterwards for a bit. One of Madeira's favourite thing is to herd the other horses around, and she will readily do it with me, which is great, because that way I can exercise two horses at once. Here we are moving Travieso.



And afterwards they kiss.

I had to get on Travieso too. He is much more comfortable to sit on than Madeira.

Baby is still coughing badly, and looking more lethargic than last week. All that desensitising last weekend payed off, and I was able to easily take her temperature which was 101.0

A little on the high side I thought, but I was assured by the Ranch manager that it was OK for a foal.

Raul told me when I called on Monday, that the baby is now receiving antibiotics. So hopefully she will soon be OK.

Momma was ridden last weekend for an hour and did great.

Momma returns to pasture

On Sunday it was time for momma to return to the herd life in the pasture. It rained all day on Saturday and the pasture was an ugly muddy mess, but momma walked out there with a calm confidence, as if she had never been gone.
The other horses remembered her immediately and came to greet her with curiosity. She moved some of them away and some of them moved her. She seemed to be well in balance with the herd.

Feather surrendered his pile of alfalfa for momma without a discussion, and later she challenged Thelma for a spot on the feeder. Thelma didn't mind. She is too big to fit under the shelter anyway.

She is such a beautiful pony and so smart. She will do well where ever she is. But it was great having her right next door to Madeira for just a couple of weeks. Madeira tried her hardest to boss the pony around, but the pony pinned her ears back at Madeira and stood her ground saying: "Is that all you got miss thoroughqueen!" Miss Queenie was a big bluff anyway. She whinnied longingly after as I walked momma out to the pasture.

Poor baby has had a bad cough and her nose is running with yellow stuff. People say that it's just allergies, but I'm very worried, that she has gotten a cold. Her resistance would be low because of all the stress of separating from momma so suddenly.

I will be calling the ranch every day this week to ask how she is doing and hope, that they will call the vet out if she worsens.

Separation anxiety

Madeira saying goodbye to Sunrise. Yes, I know, we will all miss him like crazy. It's just not going to be the same without the old guy.

So on Sunday Sunrise moved to live closer to the city where Joe can go and see him every day, instead of just once a week down here in Half Moon Bay. Joe e-mailed last night that Sunrise was settling down finally after the initial shock. He will quickly make new buddies there, I'm sure, but hey, don't forget about us!


The trailer was an easy gig, until the doors closed. That's when the poor guy got really worried.

Well perhaps we will trailer Steal and Madeira to visit at Mar Vista sometime. We will go for a stroll on the beach. But for now, Joe, lay off the liberty stuff out in the open, Sunrise will trot right back to Sea Horse.

Sunrise isn't the only one having separation anxiety. Baby and momma were separated a week ago. For a few weeks I had been turning them out separately.

The first day I turned momma out first leaving baby in the stall, and waited until they both had calmed down, before turning baby out with momma. I took exactly 57 minutes.

The next day I did the same, only it took them just 10 minutes to calm down. The next weekend I did the same thing and they were both calm immediately. I left momma out for an hour anyway, and then brought baby in and put momma back in the stall. That stirred up emotions again. It was harder for baby to be out in the arena by herself, than in the comfort of her stall. But as long as I stayed with her she was fine, and momma was calm. From then on I turned them out in separate arenas without a worry, they knew they would see each other back in the stall again.

Finally last Sunday I left momma into the round Corral at the end of the day with her food and her water bucket. They would be just a few feet away and still see each other. I felt really bad. I felt like a horrible tyrant. Momma looked at me with those soft large eyes underneath her bushy forelock asking why she couldn't go to her baby. We humans are incredibly cruel. But momma settled down to eat her dinner after calling each other a little while. So I left feeling better. Although I still didn't think it was the right thing to do.

The next day I learned, that momma had been moved to live next to Madeira at the other end of the stalls. They wouldn't be able to see each other any more. I made Raul swear and promise to me that he would turn them both out every day that week, threatening that the mom's milk was going to back up and she would get terribly ill if she had to stand in the stall all week until I got there on Friday, and so he did.

Momma and baby were so happy to see me this weekend. I have become their favorite and trusted human. Momma gets to hang out with Madeira, Steal and us, and Madeira even tosses her empty food bowl under the fence to momma after she is done eating, and momma licks it clean. Baby had complete trust in me when I walked her over the bridge on Friday, and to the front to get her first little hoof trim (which was way over due) on Sunday. Just a few quick strokes with a rasp and we ended up on a good note. What a good little girl.

Samuel brought a new thoroughbred filly to live next door to the baby and they buddied up immediately. So we turned them out together on Saturday. Look at them go. Happy babies.

Well. this was my view on Sunday afternoon. Madeira and I just mosied around in the arena. She was so relaxed under me, that I could just feel impulsion building. She is not scared or reluctant to carry me anymore. She really doesn't mind. And she is trying so hard to do everything I ask of her. We have turned yet another page in our relationship, and this is a good one. She is my partner, my girlfriend. There is nothing better than that.

The fog swallowed Half Moon Bay at the end of the day on Sunday and it has been gray ever since. Armando & co. took Travieso and Faith out on a long trail ride. And he is not taking it easy anymore. Travieso's wound is closed and forgotten, and it is back to being a normal horse now. Too much so, what is called normal around here.

I keep telling the horses to pray the spirits to line up my lottery numbers so that I can buy my own ranch and take them all with me.