Where has the time gone?

The move to the new barn in January was a great decision. Cody has settled right in to life at the barn--he is in his stall with a fan during the hot part of the day, and is out in a field from afternoon until morning.

We've been riding! It was a slow start as I still really needed to build my confidence back up but we've made progress. I found a gal to take some lessons from and that helped a lot--just having someone there to not let me chicken out. We have gone from being nervous to trot all the way around the arena to cantering laps confidently.

Fun stuff lately is that we've gotten to go on a couple trail rides with a nice lady I met at the barn. She has this great QH gelding named "The Town Buzz", aka "Buzz". He's been a great trail buddy for Cody. Although, first time we went on a trail ride Cody decided Buzz was walking too slow and took off in the lead at a nice forward walk. The trail we've been on is just a nice, shaded (important in Florida!) loop around a lake. We've been there twice now and plan to go back again tomorrow. Fun thing about this lake is that there is an area where you can ride (or lead) your horse down into the water.

A view of the lake

Cody and Buzz

Hubby climbed on Cody and went for a pony ride

Cody and Buzz get their feet wet

The week around Memorial Day, my mom came to visit!  Hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving.  We had a great time :)  On the way home from picking her up at the airport, we stopped to see Cody.

Mom says hi to Cody

I found a dressage saddle, not sure I'm totally happy with the fit, but it's hard because it still seems like he has no topline.

Cody was mesmerized by his reflection in the glass

That gives you an idea of what we've been up to :)

Oh!  Hubby and I have also been working on losing weight, I've lost almost 40lbs so far!  Still have approximately another 40 to go, but hey, it's progress :)

Just for the heck of it, here is a couple pics from riding today.

Trying to get to a spot for a pic

Love that brand!

It's Summer already

Where has the year gone???  I have been terrible about updating this this year as you can obviously tell.  Tomorrow I plan to have a good horsey day so I will take pics (what is a blog post without pics?!?) and write a nice update.  Now, however, it is nearly 1am and I am sleepy!  So good night and see you tomorrow :)

The New Year

Okay, so it's a few weeks into the new year, but thought I was overdue for a bit of an update.

Design of blog needs work but the template designer was driving me nuts so I will tackle that another day.

Cody spent about three and a half months at the self care barn. I was able to get some weight on him and he was looking good--just one problem, nowhere to ride unless I just wanted to ride in a big field. Now, if he were further along in his training I suppose that could have worked if I didn't mind riding in the dark all the time. In the 3 and a half months he was there I think I climbed on him twice, maybe three times for all of five minutes.

So the hunt was on for a barn with an arena and lights! (Actual covered arenas seem very rare in south Florida). Looked into one place that had an arena but no lights and was sort of co-op type situation, but it was further away. Looked at another barn that was more than I'd really thought to pay in board but they had an arena and a round pen and best of all, they had lights! So I took a closer look at what I was actually spending on my partial board situation and when I added up the cost of board, feed, and gas (plus the time to go there twice a day) it actually came out to basically the same as the barn that had what I was looking for. So arrangements were made, a trailer ride was found, and on January 1st Cody moved to his new home.

He spends the afternoon and all night turned out (they are working on finding a good fit so he can go out with a buddy in a field with more grass), there is a fan in his stall, he gets fed well (no skinny horses here!) and I can go to the barn after work and ride!!!!

Now for the riding part. In the 4 weeks that he's been at the new barn I have ridden more than I had in the last 6 months. We can walk, trot and canter in the round pen, and I have walked and trotted in the arena (I know, I should just canter out there, but it's a big arena and I'm working up to it). We have been practicing one-rein stops, flexing left and right, backing, going over ground poles and all that fun stuff.

I am trying to find someone I can take some lessons from to help build my confidence and give me some direction with Cody but in the meantime we continue to plug along.

Now if only I could figure out my saddle dilemma! More on that in my next post :)

Cross your fingers

I am looking into moving Cody about an hour north of where he currently lives. To make that work, we are also looking into moving to an apartment complex closer to that barn. If all goes well (we have at least three apartments to go look at this Saturday) I will live 10 minutes from my horse instead of 30, he will have a stall that is open to a nice sized grassy paddock, and we will have an apartment that has a washer and dryer! I plan to do partial board so I can know just how much he is being fed and adjust as needed. I wrapped a weight tape around him tonight and it came out at about 840 lbs. I think he could easily stand to make it to 900 if not 950. I'll have to keep track to see how he does.

Tonight was the fourth time I have lunged Cody in side reins. I'm working on rigging up some shims so my saddle doesn't sit low in the front so I have just been doing stuff on the ground lately. He is on the thin side but I figure we can work on building some muscle in his topline to help him fill out. He's doing fairly well, just needs to reach down and forward a bit more, but we're getting there.

A couple weeks ago I was trying to hose him off and he was being a dork, something spooked him and he took off into a field that had an open gate. The rope dragging behind him and sometimes wrapping around a leg was totally freaking him out and he was running mad laps around the field. Once I got him to pay enough attention to stop I tossed the rope at his legs (like I've done a zillion times before) and that was no issue, he just didn't like it wrapping around his legs and/or dragging while he was moving. So...tonight I also clipped an old cotton leadrope to the top ring on the surcingle so that it was dragging along the ground as he trotted around. The first lap he freaked a bit but half stepping in front of him and saying whoa got him to stop for a moment and let his brain settle back into place. After that he trotted around and around with the rope dragging alongside him. He was often at a bit of an angle so he could keep an eye on the evil rope but all in all it went well. I think I'm going to do that a few more times.

I have been terribly lax lately in updating this blog about my goofball of a wild pony, but with all the hopeful changes coming I'm going to try and keep it more up to date :)

Wish us luck in the apartment hunt!

Daydreams

When I was little, my older cousin and I used to draw designs and make plans for a place we were going to have someday that we dubbed "Dream Ranch". We had drawings of barns, trails, a 3-story octagon shaped house, and sheets and sheets of horses we were going to have. I think at the time we had planned to breed Quarter Horses and Trakehners, lol. I'm sure a lot of horse crazy girls have dreams like this.

That dream has never left me. My mind often wanders to day dreams of what I would make Dream Ranch today. There are thoughts of mustangs, of having an after school "homework and horses" program, a dressage ring and an "extreme" trail course, well, you probably get the idea.

I haven't given up on my idea, but lately I am torn. Right now I am in Florida, down in Miami. Dream Ranch isn't gonna happen in Miami and we don't plan to stay here more than 3-4 years. The talk after that is to possibly go back to Washington or to go north in Florida up between Ocala and Orlando somewhere.

I miss the mountains and I miss friends and family in Washington. What I worry about, is there any where to build my Dream Ranch in Washington? I don't want to step on anyone's toes and I fear I would be laughed at for such an endeavor.

Ocala is definitely horse country. Rolling hills and horse farms all over. From Thoroughbred farms to Friesian breeders and everything in between. My mother-in-law keeps sending me links to property for sale up that way. They hope to retire up near Orlando in about 5 years and would like their children and families to be nearby.

Could I build my daydreams in Washington?

My first trim

So...I got it into my head to try trimming Cody's feet. I want to keep him barefoot and so I've been reading about it and I emailed Andrea at Mustang Saga for advice since she trims her horses' feet. So far I have only attempted his front feet. What do you think? I figured if I didn't take too much off I couldn't screw up too badly, right?

Before, left front (he has always had that line you can see on his right front, there is an old injury on his coronet band)

Before, left front

After, left front

After, left front

Left front done, right front still to go

Perfect Day

More pics when I get them back from the photographer :) Cody was a star! This was all of the third time I have ridden him outside of the arena or round pen. He went past cars, people, small screaming children, with only a second glance at a flapping table cloth for about 5 seconds. It was a wonderful day, not only did I get to marry a great man and best friend, I have an awesome horse :)