Category Archives: horse

Long ride of the year

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I took a few days off work this week to get some projects done around the farm and have some relaxing time too.  Since all the kids were at school/preschool on Tuesday, Anna and I planned a nice long trail ride to explore more of our access to Pachaug State Forest. I have been studying the trail maps and we had plenty of options for our ride.  So we saddled up King and Calli and went out for what was planned to be about 2 hrs.  In the end, we covered 8.5 miles in 2:40.  While galloping up a hill, King managed to overreach and lose one of his hoof boots.  Post accident analysis indicates his hooves are probably about half a size smaller than in the spring.  Good thing we have more boots in inventory.

Here are some pictures from the ride.

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Amanda hits the trails!

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When Amanda was 18 months old, she went on her first trail ride in a buddy saddle on King.  Since then, she has logged many hours in the buddy saddle.  Earlier this summer, Huey, a 12yo, 11hh Dartmoor pony joined the herd and Amanda immediately claimed him as her pony.  Since then, Alex and Vicki have been allowed to borrow Huey for some rides and to help train him, but Huey is Amanda’s pony.

At 3 years old, Amanda is more dedicated to riding than both of her siblings.  You can’t get a horse out of the barn without Amanda grabbing her helmet and following along.  And Huey is a rock star for little kids.  Amanda has gotten to the point that she can ride Huey by herself in the arena at the walk and trot.

So today, Amanda got to trail ride on HER pony instead of on the buddy saddle.  I rode Calli and had a lead line connected to Huey’s halter so Amanda didn’t have to do any steering.  A nice short 45 minute ride through the forest with the whole family and all 5 horses/ponies.  Amanda and Huey did great.  And Calli, my 6yo TB mare, did awesome with me riding western and a lead rope wrapping around her side and butt to Huey.  It was a great afternoon.

I’m sure by the spring Amanda will be insisting she can ride without the lead rope!

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Training Calli – Breakthrough!

Calli and I have been having a tough time lately.  I have been busy working on projects and just wasn’t making progress (read – wasn’t riding).  I finally broke down and hired a friend to do some training with her.  The first ride went well and the trainer agreed that Calli has potential and is willing to learn.  The second ride – Calli was lame.  This was a lameness in her back/SI joint area.  I saw the exact same lameness in her last fall after a few days of harder work.

In frustration, I actually listed her for sale on a Facebook group.  Of course, when I read my own ad, there is no way I would buy her.  I guess that’s why no one was interested.

So, I had some massage work done on her, which helped some.  Then a Chiropractor came to visit.   I hope she appreciates her spa treatments…

Tonight, I took her out for a ride.  My instructions from the Chiropractor were to take it VERY easy.  That was my plan.

About 7, I left for a trail ride.  Alone.  Just before dark.  Without my trail pack/saddle bags.  Without a trail map.  Calli. Ok, it doesn’t sound so smart when I write it down.  I did wear my helmet, protective vest, and did let some friends know I was going with a return by time.

So, with Calli’s Easy Boot Gloves on front and back, we headed out and decided to scout a different trail that we hadn’t ridden before.  Did I mention this was the first time I had ever ridden Calli on the trail by herself?  It turns out, turning right, instead of left is not a good plan.  We ended up on what is probably the most technical trail I have ever ridden on.  I know it was the hardest trail Calli had ever been on.  We definitely couldn’t go faster than a walk, because it was extremely rocky.

Calli was AWESOME.  She got nervous a couple of times, but trusted me and kept going.  There was one point we when she was clearly too nervous about crossing some large rocks, so I hopped off and she followed right behind me.  Then we started climbing a hill.  This is when it got interesting.  We had been riding for about 30 minutes.  I was pretty sure I knew that we could keep going and connect to trails that would bring us home.  Or go back through all the rocks.  The problem was, if I was wrong, we were going to be out in Pachaug after dark without all the things I mentioned earlier.  So, on we went.

Once we got to the peak, the trail became more open and only average rocky instead of crazy rocky.  I gave Calli some rein and she picked up a trot!  That was a very good sign because I was worried the rock work might have been too much for her to handle.  As it was starting to get dark, I discovered Calli was unsure about going down rocky hills in the shadows of dusk.  Not wanting to push things too far, I just jumped down and we jogged down the trail.  It was actually good for me to stretch my legs.  Eventually, I recognized the trails and we connected back to the gravel road leading towards home.  Based on Calli’s nervousness in the quickly fading light, I decided to just ride the road home.  We had enough success for the day.  Calli was feeling very good and kept trotting down the road.

Overall, I was thrilled with the ride.  First, Calli was completely sound.  I guess the chiropractor visit did some good.  Additionally, she was a champ on some very challenging conditions.  I did learn a few lessons and I don’t think I will be trail riding without my pack again. I also plan to add a few things to the pack just in case something happens and I get stuck out after dark – headlamp, reflective vest, snack food, etc.  I’m looking forward to another ride this weekend!

Countryside Organics feed

Imagine you walk out to feed your chickens and spill some of the chicken feed on the ground in an area where the chickens can’t get to it.  If you came back a few weeks later, what would you expect to find?  Well, if it was commercial feed, you would probably find a pile of moldy feed.  What you wouldn’t find, is sprouts.  Just like the potatoes you bought in the grocery store – when was the last time you had to remove a sprout?  More and more chemicals are being used on the foods we eat, and on the foods we feed our animals.  Soy is cheap and has become a MAJOR component in animal feeds.  One REALLY big problem with that is almost all of the soy grown in the US today is GMO soy.

For quite a while, this topic has concerned us.  The problem is, commercial feed is cheap, and organic, GMO free, soy free feed is NOT cheap.   However, we have decided the time has come to shift our farm to a product line that is GMO free, Soy free, and organic.  We have chosen Countryside Organics because they offer feed varieties for all the animal types we currently have on the farm (and are considering in the future).  The down side is cost.  Our rabbit feed will be more than 2x as expensive.  The chicken and goat feed will be about 80% more.  However, in gathering info, another farm told us that their goats consumed about 3o% less feed and produced more milk on the Countryside product.

Since we know others in the area may also be interested in some of the products, we are starting a co-op.   There are no resellers nearby, so we will be buying a full pallet at a time and having it shipped from VA (that’s not cheap).  By coordinating a co-op, we won’t really save any money, but it allows us to order more frequently and not have to worry about exactly figuring out the next 3 months of feed needs.

If you are interested in joining our farm in the co-op, let us know.  The first order will be going on Monday, 8/12.

North Stonington fair weekend

This weekend was the North Stonington fair. We had rabbits that spent Thursday-Sunday at the fair. Vicki showed Devil and WON the walk trot division on Saturday. I showed King; we had fun and won a class, but didn’t do great overall. Unfortunately, King was lame after the show from a coronary band injury, likely sustained while evading Huey in the pasture.
Sunday was the goat show. This was only the second time the kids showed goats; the first was the same faerie last year. After a difficult showmanship class for each of them, things improved. They both had fun and resolved to learn more to be better prepared for showmanship at the 4H fair in 2 weeks.
Here are some pictures from the weekend.  027  Rob and Amanda on Devil for lead line029 Rob and King  042 Vicki and Devil 047 Vicki getting awards 051 Vicki and Amanda 062

Rob and King

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Vicki and Amanda with Devil

Alex and Onyx

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Vicki and Pocohontas

Alex and Diamond

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Alex and Vicki with Poco and Ruby in the Daughter and Dam class

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Alex and Diamond

King has been dethroned

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A few weeks back, Huey joined the farm. After an adjustment period with Devil and Precious, we turned him out with King and Calli too. The result was surprising. Huey, the 11 hand Dartmoor, drove King away from the other ponies. Calli was allowed to stay with King initially, but once she came into heat, Huey claimed her too.
Now Huey keeps his band at close hold while King grazes alone. Huey was gelded late (around 5 or 6) and clearly knows how to be a stud. While King spent many years in charge, life in nature, sometimes a younger stud takes over.

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Mondays are for recovery

Mondays need to be a day off to recover from the weekend.  Especially when Friday is a day off.

I had planned for Friday off work because who wants to work on Friday?  Friday morning, I worked with a new client and her horse.  The short version of the story is the horse has navicular, had a neurectomy 2.5 months ago, and continues to get worse.  It is a very complicated case, but hopefully we can get him back to soundness.  Then home to cut the grass and Alex’s birthday party began at 3.  6 – 10 year old boys.  We took them to Hopeville Pond for swimming, they had water gun and balloon fights for a couple of hours, pizza and a movie, and then camping in the tent.   At midnight when I went to sleep, they were still awake.  At 5:30 they came inside asking to watch tv and play xbox.  Alex was a wreck on Saturday, but had a good time.

Saturday included trimming horses in the morning, Anna wrapping up the birthday party, Vicki going to a party, picking up 250 bales of hay off the field, loading into the trailer (2 trips), and loading into the loft.  It was hot Saturday.

Sunday we got to work on fencing around the farm.  We pulled a section of board fence and reset the posts in a slightly different spot to change the flow of the paddocks and make the arena area smaller.  Now the grass arena is only about 140′ long by 90′ wide.  We also worked on putting in replacement fence posts in the front pasture and getting the electric fence up all the way around.  Starting today, the horses will be grazing in the front pasture.  The grass is over 3′ feet tall so we might occasionally lose sight of Huey.

We had an early dinner (5:45) and then headed out to the barn to saddle up.  The whole family left on a 50 minute trail ride starting at 7:15.  When we got back, Calli and I headed into the arena to work on some transitions and backing.

By the time the kids went to bed around 10, we were exhausted.  I guess it would help if we were not staying up until midnight every night. Too bad we can’t take a nap today.

The kids really enjoyed the trail ride and Vicki in particular is talking about her plan to ride the ponies every day.

On the trails again. Finally.

Moving has a way of taking up all the free time.  As a result, the horses were not getting used much and we certainly we not doing any trail riding.  However, since our 14th anniversary was Wednesday and we didn’t really do anything special, I decided Anna and I would go trail riding today.  We arranged for a babysitter to give us a block of kid-free time.

Saturday evening, we took Mack and all the kids hiking in the woods behind the house to scout the horse trails.  Pachaug State Forest is the entire rear of the property line.  The first direction we went, we encountered a creek.  So, we reserved course and headed off through the woods.  30 minutes later, we arrived at the gravel road into Pachaug, but there was no horse path to get there.  Clearing the trail of enough branches to not be constantly hit in the face would take a lot of work.

This afternoon, once the babysitter arrived, Anna and I headed back into the woods on foot to cross the creek.  The path to that point had clearly been used as a riding trail, so it was much more promising.  We took a couple of hand tools to clean up the trail as we went.  30 minutes later, we had found the horse trails we were looking for and cleared a sufficient trail to get there.  We scooted back to the barn and saddled up King and Calli for a ride.

Off we went.  Until we got to the water (which is only about 2 minutes down the trail from our barn.  10 minutes later, we still had not gotten Calli to cross the water, so we went back to the barn.  We put on her halter under the bridle and went back with a lunge line.  This time Anna rode King across (for probably the 15th time) and held on to the line to Calli.  It took some encouragement, but success!  We left the line there and continued on the ride.  It turns out, Pachaug has a lot of water right now.  The good news is, Calli didn’t refuse any more water crossings.  In fact, as we returned home an hour later, she didn’t even hesitate where we started out.  That was actually surprising, because it was the largest of the water crossings at about 12′ across.  Our little loop was just under 3 miles.

I went back out after we untacked and spent some more time improving the trails.  I believe it was actually a driving path in the past based on the size.  So, overall, it was a very successful day.  Calli got comfortable with water crossings and Anna and I got a trail ride in.  We are planning to take all the kids out on Tuesday.  It’s time to start logging some serious mileage if we are going to be ready for Alex and Vicki to ride a hunter pace this fall.