Saddle Up

Today was a really fun day (cold, but fun).

When I ventured outside to feed this morning, it was 21 degrees. And they say that tonight is going to be even colder!!!! It didn't make it into the 60's, so it was a chilly day. But we did get some sunshine and had no wind. So all of that really helped.

The folks came again today after church to help work off their "horse debt". Kim worked on the lights in my barn and arena, verifying which ones were good and which ones needed replacing. He's going to buy all of the new bulbs and photo sensors at a place in town where he can get them at wholesale. That works for me. After all, some of these lights haven't worked correctly for quite some time. What's another week or two.

We put the daughter to work cleaning up bot eggs on "her horse" - MILLIE. For those of you that don't know, bots look like flies in the adult stage. They lay (or a more descriptive term would be "cement") and attach their white eggs to the hair of a horse. The horse then bites at it, which causes the egg to enter the digestive tract of the animal. The larvae can cause extensive damage to the stomach and intestines of the horse.

Anyway, after she removed all of the eggs and brushed her, I suggested we do a practice run and put a saddle on Millie. Turns out that my lighter saddle was just fine for me to put on. I had no trouble at all. Of course, I know that I'm still not quite ready to get up and ride one of my horses, but it was fun to get Millie all saddled up. Then we went out in the arena and took turns moving the horse through a few basic procedures. She hadn't been handled in probably 7 or 8 years, but she did fine. After about 45 minutes, I asked her dad if it would be okay if the daughter got up on the horse if I just led her around. Dad said okay, so up she went. Millie didn't move a muscle. GOOD GIRL!!!!!

It was definitely fun to see a horse that you have previously spent hours and hours on, remember all of her training. I think horse and new owner will do really well together. I'm still having my trainer come over and do a little tune-up, but he won't be able to get here for a couple weeks.

Yeah for good experiences. Yeah for the outdoors. And year for girls and their horses.