The Tarp

No pictures today, forgot to take my camera out with me and then it was getting dark.

We worked on the rope being around his rump, as yesterday he was reacting a bit much to it wrapped around his rump. Took it nice and slow and the word to describe what I am trying to say is escaping me at the moment, lol. Sort of...a flossing motion? around his hindquarters. But watching Kitty Lauman's Ranger video again, saw something that would probably be good to work on, have the rope around his body about where his legs attach and do the same.

But on to the fun stuff. (And I wish I had gotten a couple pictures!) I had taken a "break" to go work on clearing some blackberries. Got maybe a 16x16 patch cleared and hauled to the burn pile and burned. I probably have at least 10 times that left to go unfortunately. Maybe even twice that estimate. But the burn pile was burning (it's maybe 30-40 feet from his pen and the fire doesn't really seem to bother him at that distance at least) and I decided to go grab a tarp. Hadn't introduced him to that blue bit of fun yet. He wasn't too sure about that crinkly horse-eating monster at first. We started with it in a heap on the ground in one corner. I was just lunging him in a small circle, trying to see how close he'd go. Starting with "OMG I can't get anywhere near that thing" we progressed to "Okay, I can walk past it without crowding you but I'm still not going to get very close". So I picked up the blue monster and bunched it up and touched his shoulder with it. Just touch and off and touch and off while he's standing there all bunched up and shaking in his boots. He started to relax a bit and I gave him a bit of a scratch on the withers. Long drawn out tale, but he was able to wear it draped over his back and walk with it on, he was able to step on it and finally walk across a couple of times and probably the funniest thing was when he picked it up in his teeth, and it moved, so he backed up and IT FOLLOWED HIM and he scared himself before he realized to drop it.

I also found a smallish log in the blackberries last night and after peeling the bark off of it (it had stuff growing on it) I drug it out in the yard and we practiced walking over it. Just starting to be able to trot in hand (he thinks I'm crazy) so will trot him over the pole at some point.

I ordered the round pen today! That was a big chunk out of my savings, but it will be worth it. It will probably be a couple weeks before they have it in to be picked up but that's okay.

They sure have some colorful horses on the internet adoption this time around! Funny thing is, one of the ones that catches my eye is an 8 year old mare, listed as a red roan but looks dark bay/seal brown in color. She just seems to have a kind look to her face. I wonder if she'll get adopted?