Preparing for Mare-Wolf

Well,  I finally got it - The email from our BO saying the regumate is about to run out...

I can't believe it's been three months, but apparently it has.  Which is exactly when our supply of happy-mare-juice is supposed to disappear.

I'm sorta hoping for a Hanukkah, festival-of-lights, style miracle.  Like maybe the one day supply of regumate (/oil) will actually last us through the week (/8 nights), allowing me to enjoy a couple more rides before heading out of town...

I'm not sure how likely that is, but I am fully prepared for this to show up whenever we do run out:

That, my friends, is what a marewolf looks like.  She appears when hormones run rampant and no amount of lunging, treating, or massaging will make her happy to work.  She eats anything she can find (rocks, farriers, geldings) and can execute aerobatic bucks, but a simple working trot remains elusive.

Here's to hoping I still find P's sweet sleepy face when I show up to the barn.. If marewolf has taken her place, my plan is to give the mare a nice week off to deal with her first cycle, then see where we are at in terms of attitude.

If she's acting normal, we'll proceed without our happy-mare-juice and see how awful her second cycle is.  I think there's a good possibility that her hormones weren't our biggest issue, but they were the frosting on an otherwise pissed-off cake.  Perhaps having dealt with her feet and a few other issues, her cycles won't be the tipping point for her explosions. I've grown quite accustomed to rides without any bucking and I'd like them to continue...

But, if P's cycles do still cause her to explode.. Those ovaries are coming out.

Out, out damn spot!

Cutest nose ever... even if she's preparing for evil

Sunday Funday

After Saturday's down time with Denali's Mom, Sunday was more downtime with my mom and then the mare.  We baked cookies, defrosted left over horsey cookies and watched about 18 episodes of "say yes to the dress."  I know it's beyond inane, but something about that show is wildly addicting to me.   I can't tell if it's the trainwreck see-through dresses, or the mega-family-drama, or the crazy brides, but it's addicting.  all nicely packed into 20 minutes!  love it!

Anyway, something about the pace of the day and the on again, off again stormy weather had me in the mood to just play with the mare.  Groom her up all sparkly, let her run loose and then just sit quietly for a bit. 

The barn was quiet and dark when I got there, the horses were all finishing up lunch and it felt like all sorts of a Sunday afternoon.  I keep hoping that there will be a mini Poppet scampering around when I show up, but the mare is patiently waiting and holding that giant baby in for all it's worth.

patient mama

P was happily munching in her shed, which might be the first time I've ever seen her stand under cover while it was raining.  That mare feels some obligation to be outside at all times when it's raining (which is quite often in Seattle..).  I don't know if she thinks that she's keeping a lookout for the rest of the herd, or if she just likes the way it drips down her face.  Either way, I was surprised to see her standing in her shed.  Also unusual? the mare normally walks (or trots) up to me when I open her paddock without much of a delay.  But yesterday I clucked, and clucked, called her name, and clucked... all to no avail.  When I finally stomped down to her shed, I figured it out.

Slow Feeder.

The BO has constructed the first "corner" versions of her slow feeders for the stalls, so Riley's big bale sized box got placed in P's shed and she has been obsessed ever since.  I guess this shouldn't come as much of a surprise, since the mare is also obsessed with lick-its, hanging balls and anything else she can slowly attempt to eat/fight with.

I was pleased to see that she seems to be working with the box quite well and so far she seems to be consuming at about the right amount...  Though we will have to stay tuned, as she's a quick learner and might start hoovering the food out of the box somehow...

Once I managed to pull P's nose away from her new toy, I spent some time polishing the girl up and continuing to remove vast amounts of fur from her body.  I don't know why, but she refuses to just shed out like a normal horse.  She's trickling enough fur to clump all over pads and her girth and everything I wear, but not enough to actually get the damn job done.  It's infuriating.. but I digress.

Like I said, it felt like a lazy day, so I opted to just do some groundwork and let the mare play in the arena by herself.  She's been really respectful lately, not testing the waters with me on the ground at all, no attempts to escape, very - dare I say- obedient?  So our groundwork went well.  I took her halter off and chased her away to go play, which she refused to do.

Instead, she snorted at the mirrors (first time she's EVER cared about the pretty horse in the mirror..) and kept just trotting back to me.  So I'd send her away, she'd snort at the mirrors, then trot back to me.

She's easily impressed...

 It took a few minutes to convince her to go play by herself (but not with herself in the mirror).  As always, she ended up circling up around me and keeping herself on a nice 20 meter circle.  I dug my iphone out (excellent video I know) and recorded a couple minutes just to document her movement.

This is her right side (mostly canter, some nice trot) and I can tell that she's really starting to move a little better.  Way less tension in that right hind and more capable of stepping under.  Yay! Progress!



Afterward, we did a little groundwork without her halter, which is always affirming and exceptionally entertaining for me.  P can be such a sweet girl when she wants to.  Maybe that's why I get so offended when she's not.  :)

sweet mare behaves occasionally...

Finally, it started absolutely POURING out, which nixed my plans for a walk and some hand grazing, so instead we just waited out the downpour until P deemed it suitable to walk back to the barn.

Not impressed with the weather.

It was a nice afternoon.  I have pangs of guilt for not actually riding, but I keep telling myself no one else cares, least of all P...

Remind me to Read This Post...

The next time I'm feeling like I'm at the end of my rope, would someone PLEASE make me reread this post. Ok thanks.

Friday was lovely. It was sunny and warm and since I dropped the Boy off at the airport for a boys weekend away, I had nothing scheduled but playing with the pony and catching up on sleep, which was a beyond exciting proposition.

The barn was abandoned when I got there which sorta surprised me, but meant that I would get to see if P's good behavior from Wednesday would hold up without a buddy in the ring to keep her calm.

P didn't seem to mind and aside from one hairy eyeball she gave the mounting block...

She. Was. A. Gem.

She didn't stop once when we were warming up, she 'bravely' trotted past all scary spots in the ring and her ears stayed soft from start to finish.

It wasn't our most spectacular work, but it was a really productive ride. I felt like I was able to ask more of P in terms of transitions and figures instead of sticking to big, sweeping, looping movements.

I threw in some simple changes that would have caused a mini explosion back in December and even worked in some leg yields maintaining a fairly soft and low frame.

It was satisfying to feel like even with my increased demands and working the entire ring (scary parts and all), that Pia never felt 'on the edge.' I felt safe, secure, and totally in control.

After one excellent zig zagging leg yield, I pulled my tack and threw the mare out to graze in the last bits of the sunshine. She shoved every bit of fresh grass she could find in her fat little lips as her totally normal and not at all anxious sweat pattern dried out. It was a nice quiet moment, that is until mosquitoes the size of small crows started swooping in relegating me to the role of fly swatter. :)



Happy mare. Happy human.

Afterward, It was back to my folks place for a nice big pasta dinner and gorgeous Seattle sunset. Having just gotten our loft up on the market, we're back in the parents basement which makes me feel a bit like I'm home from college again.

I'm not complaining mind you- a girl can get used to living in this house, and since we're preparing to move into the house next door, we can also get used to the view....



Back to the barn today!

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Wednesday's Test (and MAMA pics)

Man, the details that fade when I don't blog regularly..

I haven't been ignoring P all week, but it has been spottier than I'd like.  Wednesday I finally got out (that made for a total of two days off since our "meh" ride on Sunday) to ride the mare.  The real excitement was that somehow the sun broke through the Seattle clouds and gave everyone a false sense of springtime.

It didn't feel false though, in fact, it felt downright LOVELY and even my craptastic-rental car actually showed me the temperature (not sure how, it hasn't done that before) and confirmed that it hit that magical 60 degree mark.

Crappy car likes the sunshine too..

I was glad to see that another boarder was pulling in behind me, which meant that P would likely have a buddy in the ring, and since Pia respects the "buddy system," life and the arena are generally less scary when another horse is in there to help her battle the demons in the corners.

Since our last couple of rides were squirrley, I popped the mare into the arena to buck around on her own for a few minutes.  She was cute and cantered in a couple circles before coming into the middle and sticking her nose in my hand.  I sent her out a few more times, but she wasn't very rambunctious and kept returning to me and shoving her nose in my hand like "mom, I'm done, let's do something else now thanks."

So, I trusted her, and took her back in to tack up.  Her eye seemed soft and the fact that another pony was getting ready appeared to be very calming, frankly, so was the warm breeze and the fact that for the first time this year I wasn't tacking while wearing my extra puffy barn jacket :)

My chicken self still lunged P before I got on, but she was nice and slow (maybe a little mincy to start).  Her ears and eyes were still soft so I popped on after about 5 minutes.  Since another horse was working I decided to walk a lap or two before starting our trot, just to suss out any new scary spots in the ring.  Not too surprisingly, with her trusty buddy there to protect her, P was suddenly not upset about the scary corner, scary wall or even the scary mounting block.  When I asked for her to trot, she did so without hesitation.  There was one sticking point on the gate side of the ring (ugh, MARE!), but after that she didn't protest too loudly.  It took longer than normal to really get her engine revved up, but she wasn't outright ignoring me which was a nice change.

Since she was being good, I tried to focus on a few things like straightness, getting her in my outside rein, and staying between my legs on smaller circles.  I've been so focused on moving forward, that I haven't been too picky about drifting through my aids which hasn't been helped by the fact that I really haven't school anything smaller than a 20 meter circle in a month.

The small circles made P cranky, and she tried to pop her shoulder and blast out of them, but we got a few good ones and then moved on.  After some decently balanced canter work totally absent of any freakouts, I pressed my luck with some babyleg yields.  Starting at the 1/8th line and nudging over, I was trying really hard to keep the mare relaxed and moving off my leg.

I'd really like to start reintroducing some lateral work to get her paying more attention to smaller aids, but when we left off with our lateral work, it was causing some serious ear pinning and chest biting.

I'm happy to say that we accomplished decent leg yields in both directions without changing our frame or getting too stuck.  I worked up to the quarter line in both directions and then called it a day.

Again, probably only 20 minutes under saddle, but she was so consistent and polite it seemed only fair to let her go graze and enjoy some of the sunshine.

This weekend looks like it's supposed to actually be sunny, so I'm planning a full attack of the barn. :)

Also, Denali's Mom and I are adventuring to a local schooling show to catch up, watch cute kids on ponies and sneak some crappy horse show food.  Yahoo!

Also, as promised here are a couple shots of Miss Poppet in all her massive preggers glory.  She's so furry and bulging I love it.

Hunting for more snacks.. I'm pretty sure she maybe would have eaten me if I let her

BELLY