Here is one of the few pictures I have with me and Gracie in the same frame. I’m not normally in a position to get pictures of both of us, so the few I have, I treasure.
This is also the grooming area of the old barn.
She’s adjusting well to the new one, has a gelding on one side of her, and a pretty paint filly on the other.
I got to meet the owner of the hanoverians (!!!!!) yesterday, and he is really nice. His wife was a little quiet and reserved when I met her a couple nights ago, but apparently they are impressed that I ride english in the middle of cow country.
Getting Gracie to the new place was interesting, to say the least. She was aggitated to begin with, because she had been kept from the herd the day we moved her. I got her semi-calm and got a halter on her. We walked up to the trailer, and I let her examine it, and asked her several times to “touch it”.
The “touch it” concept has been monumental for her. I have her “touch it” with everything new I bring around her. By allowing her to explore and sniff the world around her, it is a slightly less scary place.
Anyway. She touched the trailer in several different places, and I thought we were good to go. I took her around to the back and positioned her so she was looking straight into it. We stood there for a few minutes, absorbing what she was seeing, and started walking to it.
We got to the step in the back, and I had her “touch it” one last time before going in. Going in wasn’t a problem. STAYING in, was.
She went into orbit once she realized she was supposed to stay. She thrashed a bit, and wound up headbutting me in the face. It hurt for a few days and Marvin was scared to death she had broken it. I’m fine, and there was minimal bruising.
Yesterday evening it was warm enough for me to want to spend more than the obligatory feeding time with her. She’d been in her stall for a couple days, getting used to the new smells (the new barn is also home to about 40 head of cattle and 30 or so miniature goats. I want a goat. As a pet.) and sounds, and so I took her out of her stall for a bit and brushed out her mane.
She’s a registered morgan, and her mane is typical for the breed. It is thick and heavy, and the envy of most horse owners. (Her tail would be the envy of the western show ring, if I still rode western) They envy it until they see what going a week without brushing it will do.
Can we say “Dreadlocks”, ladies and gentlemen? Her mane naturally dreds. It will twist and matt, and wow, normally it takes a few hours of honest effort to get it to the point you can run a brush through it. I use a regular human hair brush for her because it is so thick. On a good ole quarter horse their manes are so sparse you can get away with a wide tooth comb. Not my Gracie. Oh no, she doesn’t seem to do *anything* halfway.
I didn’t use anything on her mane to brush it out yesterday, and it only took an hour. Normally I use Rio Vista, soak her mane in it, then set about brushing it out and it takes 3 hours. Maybe I’m onto something here. At any rate, it is looking like someone loves her, again.
We go out twice a day to feed, and I pick her stall in the morning. When the world puts some effort into warming up, I’ll start putting effort into working her in the round pen and pick up her training where we left off. “Left off” as in “the last time I was allowed to go out and really spend time with her on MY schedule, not someone else’s.”
Oh. My standing martingale arrived yesterday. I finally found one that will work with my girth. I also have my steel toed boots, and they are breaking in well.
I’m on my favorite website for horse sewing patterns, and will be placing an order shortly. I will probably be adding english saddle pads to my sewing catalog after I make one (or a few) for myself. I hope that in the future I can get the show clothes avenue off the ground. My latest order to the pattern site is $68…before shipping. I have most of their western patterns, and I’m excited to get the english ones, saddle pads, and blanket patterns I just ordered.
Well, the time has come to don the coveralls and go feed Gracie and break the ice out of her buckets. Brr! I can’t wait for it to warm up!
