WordPlay

Patty Wilber  

Summer is winding down.  Sunflowers (Genus Helianthus) decorate the roadsides and snake week (Genus Guitierrezia) is blooming in the fields.  I have a little stand of sunflowers by the hay barn where the horses are usually Not Allowed.  They eat the flowers.  

Sunflowers with the Sandia Mountains in the background.

Snakeweed. Note the MOSS in the background. That's how wet it's been.

This spring was emerald green with the non-native annual grasses (foxtail and cheat grass).  Then, there was little rain and the whole place dried to a brown crisp.  Along came the monsoons (which typically run July 4 to early September) and the perennial grasses, summer wildlfowers and the invasive weeds are all going beserk.   

Kochia (from Russia;  introduced as a hardy drought  and cold resistant forage plant that no one really loves to eat–someone forgot to test the palatablity factor, I guess) is out of control!  Just add water!  

Mouse up to her ears in Kochia!

Cometa and Zeke. Green green.

 This week has been a fun one in the horse training business.  

I drove a carriage!  

Anni is a Fjord and she was a tough nut for me to crack.  I swear, she hated me for the first 3 months I worked with her.  Ear pinning when I arrived.  Sulling up (refusal to try) when ever I asked her for anything new.   

My typical horsey client can be convinced to try a little something with a kind word and a well timed cue.  Not Anni. Asking got me nowhere. Up the pressure? She shut down completely. I contacted Beth Beymer at Starfire Farm for Fjord training tips.   

To teach Anni to canter, Beth suggested cueing in the same spot of the arena each time and rewarding a faster trot.  Really?  A faster trot, was not, to my mind a “try”.  But ok.  Will do.  

In addition, because Anni did canter in the round pen and on a lunge line without a rider, I had Sue (Anni’s mom) cue Anni for the canter while I rode as a passenger in the round pen.  

These two things worked and eventually,  Anni began to look forward to seeing me!  She fretted when I worked Paul (Sue’s other Fjord) first.  She began to try to out perform him each ride.  What a change.  Still gives me goosebumps!  

I do the riding training and Sue does the driving training.  This week I drove (!) and we compared cues. For turns, I use steady rein pressure, wait for a response, then release.  I sometimes ride without reins and use a whip to cue turns, stopping and backing.   Anni carries her head a bit low, but I am asking for more elevation when riding.  All of these are directly applicable to driving!   

For more tips on carriage driving (as opposed to wagons or log pulling), a good resource is Cuffy and Winkel. 2003.  The Essential Guide to Carriage Driving.  

Excitement #2:  Zeke:a 6 year old Arabian with a young brain.  He is gorgeous!  He is uptight!  He is here for a little tune up: softer, more flexible response to the bit and canter nicely in the arena.   

I couldn't get him to stand far enough away from me to get a good full body shot. He does like sunflowers though!

 When a horse is soft in my hands and soft to my legs, it is like merging into the animal; becoming one (cue music and dramatic lighting).   

In our six rides, Zeke has shown he wants to be there!  Unfortunately, he also has a lot on his mind (That tarp moved!  The gravel hit that barrel!  You repositioned the bridge!).  This tends to get in the way.  

Allowing his confidence to build and rewarding his efforts so the soft can emerge is the goal.  I have felt brilliant flashes, AND he is letting me set him up for and picking up the canter. Whoo whee! Almost better than sex.  Almost.  

Excitement #3:  The girls and I went to the Manzanos, a nearby mountain range.  I wasn’t planning to go, but the Back Country Horsemen project was short a pack animal and needed Risa.   

BCH'ers Paul, Madelyn, Richard and Chuck working on a log that was blocking the trail (using the 2-man saw Risa packed in).

 It was WET.  At Red Canyon, the creek was running full (first time I have seen that in August since…forever.)  The trail is steep and has lost 6-8 inches of base in some areas due to the intense rainfall this summer.  Roots and rocks are exposed everywhere.  

In addition, the path crosses back and forth then forth and back across the water.  Penny forded everything.  Sometimes I heard her sigh in dismay (REALLY? Again?), but her attitude was graceful, even when Risa’s was not. (Balked and then rammed Penny with a pannier full of tools, but only 2 or 3 times.)  

Miss Attitude, SLEPT while we packed her! She did need to be pushed a bit over some of the water on the way up  (Terri rode Olympia up to Risa’s heiny and clucked at her).  On the way down, Risa crossed everything smoothly!   

The waterfall was stunning (but my camera ran out of batteries, so no pics).  It wasn’t too hot, but it was humid. It didn’t rain until I got in the truck to come home.  

Next week the fall term begins at the college and I will be back in the classroom part of each day, but this week….well, I love horse training!

Tags: adventures, happy sigh, horses, land, New Mexico, The Write Horse

This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 04:00 and is filed under The Write Horse. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.