Drama, drama,drama...

For what ever reason, this week is deemed to be the most exciting of the summer so far, and not in a good way. It all started with a phone call. Around 6:00pm on Tuesday night I get a call from a nearby neighbor (their fields are separated from my pasture by a river) *slightly annoyed voice* "Your horses are in our field"
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry we'll be right over, thank you."
So we go and fetch Louis and Gumby, no big deal. The back gate looks like it had been opened, weird, but probably a fluke, maybe I forgot about it (there are 5 gates in the pasture). So we put them back don't really think about it.
Fast forward to 10:30pm I go out to check the PP's in the barn, which is up by the house. This truck pulling a landscape tractor stops on the road in front of my barn as I'm walking back to the house, well thats weird so I hang out to see whats going on. Well the guy gets out and walks up to me, asks if I have horses... Well I am standing next to a barn...
Anyway he tells me that there are two horses, that look like mine, about a half mile away on the main road.
Holy fuck are you serious! (not my exact words)
Lots of thank you thank you and running to the house. My parents and I go out in the car, armed with a bucket of grain and halters and leads. We look everywhere until midnight. Go back to the house, call the state police get a lead, find a man who saw them, look for another hour. Finally we decide that there is no way we are going to be able to see them when its this dark regardless of our giant floodlights, which were probably waking everyone up... We go back to the house, that was a great night of sleep *sarcasm*. Get up at 5am. Start over, find them perfectly happy grazing in someones side yard, ugh. Thankfully neither one was hurt, and they didn't cause any damage to anyones property.
As if this was not enough excitement for a couple months already, this morning I go out to feed, clean stalls etc. Get the ponies their grain, clean Toby's stall and start on Lily's when Toby starts acting odd. He takes a bite, walks in circle, takes a bite, walks in a circle. Then he stops eating and starts to act more and more agitated. By now I'm standing in front of his stall watching him, when he lies down and tries to roll, grreeeaattt, just what I need a colic-ing pony (how the hell do you spell that?)!! UGH!
So I grab him and get him walking, find dad, call the vet, call his owner and of course no one answers. Dad finds my cell phone for me and I call my friend who is heading to vet school in August, she says she will get there as soon as she can. I finally get a hold of the vet and she says she will be there in under an hour. My dad has to leave, so for 15 minutes, I'm alone, with someone else's pony who is trying to violently throw himself on the ground. Thrashing around, sweating, ugh. Finally he gets to the point where he is too worn out to throw his weight around and instead leans on me so I'm holding up his front end, I tried a couple times to see if he would stay down but of course he won't lie quietly so I have to get him back up.
Then of course, as soon as a witness gets there (soon-to-be-vet friend) he is fine, obviously uncomfortable, but more rational. She looks him all over, he has no gut sounds but otherwise is okay. The vet gets their about 10 minutes later, blah blah does all the regular stuff ($192 bill) gives me some banimine for tonight if he needs it. Then through casual conversation learns my horse is up for lease...
Apparently she has been looking for a quiet horse for an autistic man (who has been saving his money since he was 5 years old!) Well there is a little girl looking at him on Sunday but...Now they are going to come sooner. Haha terrible market, not for a cute, chubby quiet all around horse! So at least something good might come from the ponies extremely melodramatic bout with colic, which by the way turned out to be slight impaction but most likely gas. I have heard of gas colic being super dramatic but jeez, was it necessary to bust the latch on the stall by throwing yourself into it... Ponies, god.

About that goal...

So I didn't get a whole lot done the last couple days... I did lunge Lily fully tacked-up, bridle, saddle and a single loose side-rein. She did quite well, although she is still having issues with separation anxiety, ugh, hopefully this will continue to get better.
We went to visit family an hour away for the fourth and watched the parade in their town. They have a cute little bazaar that gets set up in town, but it wasn't as good this year as it has been in the past, didn't find anything I couldn't live without. When we got back the boy un-willingly helped me get some conformation shots of Louis. They came out quite good if I do say so myself.
lol the boy thought this next one was rude, hehe. Everyone knows my horse has a super sexy butt!Well I just went give the skinny horse his hay cubes and late night meal, and check on every one because of the fireworks. I LOVE MY HORSES! They are awesome. Simple as that. Skinny Saddlebred is alone in the barn (because anything under 15hh, especially project ponies, are to be eaten) and he doesn't care, barely flicks his ears at them. Louis and the little ones outside were hanging out by their tree, just chilling. All this with the fireworks not in town, no, not down the street, nope. 10 FEET FROM MY PASTURE! Directly across the road! Ahh I love having amazing horses.
Well tomorrow I am dragging my Mom to the tack store, she is getting helmet, boots and half chaps. Hehe. Then hopefully I will have time to make the barn spotless and get everyone worked. Oh and I have a little girl interested in Louis for the end of the summer (September or October)! But I will get into that tomorrow...

Pictures!!

Worked with all four horses! Okay well technically my mom rode one of them... But still, all four got some form of exercise. Ponies are really lunging well, although Lily is quite a bit more intelligent... Prophet is steadily improving and mom and Louis are getting up to some sort of fitness level together.
So, Lily first. She is very quick to pick-up on new concepts. She has voice commands down even with all kinds distractions around her (half brother whinnying, bobcat moving pallets, etc.). I think she is rather cute, especially now that she is gaining weight. She is still rather shy and a bit hard to catch but she definitely has more trust in me then she did a couple weeks ago. What do you guys think, cute?
Then there is Toby, he's a little slow... It's not his fault I promise. Actually I don't know that he's stupid, because some times he is a little more conniving than Lily. He is just kind of dull, to aids, to other ponies, to just about everything. I think it might be partially because he is a year younger and has the attention span of a gnat. Either way he is catching on slowly (don't have a good picture of him yet sorry).

Then there is the saddlebred. Prophet. He was quite good tonight. He can go up and down banks!!! I don't know why this was a problem to begin with he just randomly decided that it was way too scary for him. A month or two ago I went riding with a friend and when we tried to cross the river, he had a conniption going up the far bank. So after a bit of a fight and trying to follow Louis across, I decided maybe I could lead him up... Bad idea. He ended up changing his mind at the last second as I was trying to climb back down the bank and he jumped, landing on the back of my right knee. Ended up with a really nasty cut/abrasion/bruise on my leg. It is still a funny shape. See... That was 2 days after.

Then there is Louis! I love Louis! My mom rode him, she hasn't ridden more than twice since she was 13 or 14. We are slowly getting into the habit of riding every other day, which is awesome in my humble opinion! Here are two of the cutest ever pictures of Louis!
Hehe it looks like the telephone pole behind him is coming out of his lip. Lol, photoshop anyone?
Okay, guess I'm done for the night. Plans for tomorrow, lunge ponies with the bit. Dosen't sound too complicated. Wish me luck!

alright, alright...

I'm updating! Yay! Time for a celebration! Ok sorry, done with the fake sarcasm. I am updating purely for selfish reasons, to brag about how amazing the projects ponies were last night!! Both the young ones experienced a lovely cold piece of metal in their mouths for the first time, and dealt with it quite well. Although the "this strange object won't come out of my mouth" faces will never fail to amuse me, they put up way less fuss then my silly saddlebred did.
Also during last nights learning extravaganza was the cementing of voice commands on the lunge. Both solidly listen to "walk on" "whoa" and *kiss*. Which is great, especially when a certain naughty pony goes under a certain stall guard and proceeds to hightail it out the barn door, stopping on a dime at "Lily! Whoa!" My favorite lesson of the night however, was when I say "eh eh" or "HEY!" It transfers to stop what your doing immediately and await further instruction. Best used when someone is trying to come in from the pasture before their turn etc.
It has just occurred to me that I haven't even introduced the project ponies... PPs consist of Lily a 3 year old TWH/Haflinger and Toby a 2 year old Belgian/Haflinger. Their owner wanted both of them "started" however when they got to my house neither was in any condition to start any sort of work, and Toby in particular has a lot more growing to do. So both of them have learned everything else that will come in handy as a respectable equine citizen. I.E. how to stand for bathing, mane pulling, fly-spraying, grooming, tacking-up, clipping and how not to be an idiot when separated from their half sibling for the first time in 2 years, ugh. Lily looks like she may be gaining enough weight to warrant an additional 30 days training of actual ground driving/under saddle work. However I haven't decided on this yet. No matter what Toby will be going back out to pasture for another year, with his owners new found information on young horse nutrition.
Their dad does have a full haflinger who is 6 or 7 years old who he wants started undersaddle as well, I've met this one, he is corpulent and could definitely benefit from learning a new job. He will probably be up for sale in September or October if every thing goes well. Anyone in New England looking for a green broke 14ish hand haffy gelding? He is quite cute actually, hehe and his name is Tom.
Ok so, hopefully there will be less time between updates in the future. I will try my best. Maybe next time I will update on my actual life, although that is a much less exciting subject. Apologies in advance...