Shoni's 2nd "ride"

Last Saturday was a nice sunny day and I spent the afternoon grooming the horses. They all ate it up but Shoni enjoyed it the most. She kept chasing Tabasco away when I brushed on him or she pinned me in between the two of them so that I had to brush two horses at once or be squished!

Once I was done she decided to chomp on the brushes. Her favorite was the comb (maybe since it fit in her mouth so well?). I managed to snap off a couple of pictures with it hanging out of her mouth before I had to take the comb away because she was vigorously brushing the ground with it.

A little later in the afternoon the wind kicked up and cooled things down a little. I fed the horses and was planning on going inside when I noticed that Shoni was eating her hay right next to the panels. I decided to play with her a little by climbing on the panel and putting my leg over her back. She didn't say boo. After a little bit of that I decided to be bold an actually "sit" on her. I had my foot and hand still on the panel in case I needed to bale (especially since she wasn't wearing a halter or anything) but she still didn't care. Then I took my foot off of the panel (but was still holding on with my hand) and got to enjoy sitting on her for the first time. She even let me lean down on her to rub her neck and chest. We worked on that for about 10 minutes then my neighbor came riding down the driveway on his horse so it was time to call it a day since the horses got all excited.

On Tuesday I weaseled mom into coming outside with me to take my picture on Shoni and see if I could climb on her again. Shoni was more crabby that day (she didn't get pampered this time) but she still let me climb up. I was nervous to take my foot off of the panel because she kept stepping away from it and I didn't want to get stuck on her or scare her if I had to climb down. She did great though.

We are hoping to get the round pen back from the neighbors Sunday so I can start working with the horses again. I'm really excited about getting it set up so that I can actually separate the horses to work on them one on one. It's hard working with horses around each other because horses are so nosey and like to be right there to lend moral support.

A self portrait of me and Shoni. Look how grey her face has gotten! I bet in a couple of months she will look completely black again.

A delayed post from 3/29

Another delayed post...

We finally had some nice warm weather and I decided it would be fun to run out to the horses with my NEW surcingle and see how they do. Shoni isn't too big on new things if you push them on her and since I wasn't sure how the surcingle was going to work for sure, I decided to let Tabasco be the guinea pig.

I didn't tighten it much, just enough to hold it in place then I walked Tabasco around a little and he could care less. If I would have had a round pen set up I think I would have broke out the saddle and cinched it up.

Then Shoshoni had to come over to lend support and investigate the new device, all the while Tabasco made pitiful faces.

Then he chewed on the rope to ease his pain!

THEN......

............. it was Shoni's turn!!!

I was lazy and didn't put her halter on but tied the rope around her neck just in case she went crazy on me. She didn't like the jingling noise the surcingle made when I was walking around with it (still a side effect from her short stay at the trainers in 2007). Not to worry though once it was on her back she didn't bat an eye either.

She walked around a few times and turned around to look at it (or maybe to read the tag that I forgot to cut off).

Then she had to chew on the rope to ease her pain!

We got some grooming done too but I had to take my coat off because it was getting warm. The babies could not concentrate after that and were busy trying to knock my coat off of the panels (and into muck) so they could kill it.... so we called it a (good) day.