Tag Archives: Driving

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Snow Day!

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Today was a snow day on the farm. We got a good 10 inches of snow overnight. It kept snowing until around noon time. The two older kids had a traditional snow day. Griswold had decided to forego the snow day for a virtual learning day, but most of Amanda’s teachers gave short easy assignments that left room for some snow play between classes.

This morning was spent snow clearing and doing the every-day chores that seem to take twice as long on a day like this. Trudging through thick snow to get food and water to all the critters is hardly a glorious task, albeit necessary.

Rob and Alex used the tractor and snow blower to clear the drive way and around the house. We all fed and watered the horses, goats, chickens and rabbits. The rabbits have moved to the basement until the weather gets better.

Amanda spent her lunch break skiing, and convinced her brother to build a snow fort with her after school. We decided to hitch Huey his Kingston easy entry cart with sleigh runners and drive him around for a bit. He was a good sport, although it was getting cold and the sun was fading.

Enjoy some pictures from our day and a three short videos here:
Rob and Amanda cutting fresh tracks
Rob and Amanda driving Huey
Anna and Amanda driving Huey

endurance, horse, Uncategorized

Happy 4th!

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This weekend we were planning to finally get in an endurance ride in PA, but we recently suffered some bad news. Teddy has EPM. Due to the cost of treating Teddy and general stress levels, we decided to stay home and take it easy. Teddy is off the riding list for now, so we have been time-sharing the 4 horses that are still healthy.

I took time off on Friday and Amanda and I went fishing. We didn’t catch anything, but she loves to go out.

Saturday was spent working on some projects and grilling burgers. Vicki made the holiday themed cake and we did some sparklers once it got dark. Anna made a short video. We also watched Hamilton, at Vicki’s request.

Sunday was more relaxing with a late afternoon ride and drive. We originally planned to go to Arcadia, but an accident closed the road so we went back to Pachaug. Anna rode Amira, Alex rode Mojo, Vicki rode Eli, and Amanda and I drove Huey. It was a short outing of only 5 miles and 1 hour, but it was significant because this was the first time we drove Huey with the other horses and it was the highest speed we have maintained with Huey. It seems maybe Huey prefers driving. Here’s a short video from our drive.

If you go back up, you will notice Huey has a nice new ear net on, that Anna made. It’s purple and pink and matches his riding tack. Happy Independence Day!

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Driving Huey

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One of Huey’s many talents is driving. He was trained to drive before we bought him, but we still started from the basics. We made him ground drive, pull a tire, and hitch to false shafts before he was hooked to a cart. We have driven him around the farm and down the road in front of our house once, but we had never taken him off property to do some driving.

A few weeks ago, our friend Melissa posted that she was looking for someone to do some driving with her and her miniature horse, Ellie. I decided it would be a great chance to take Huey out to do a driving meetup.

So, today we met in Arcadia for 4 miles along the the roads in Arcadia. Anna took Rusty for a walk while Amanda and I drove Huey. Amanda got bored and decided to hop out and walk with Anna. Both Ellie and Huey did great with their driving and I’m sure we will do it again.

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Introducing “Angel in Hiding”

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Angel (formerly known as Jelly Bean) is the newest addition to the farm.  She is an 8yo, 12.3hh pinto pony.  While we were not really in the market for another mount in that size range, this was a little too perfect to pass up.  You see, all of Angel’s measurements are within 2cm of Devil’s, which will make them a fabulous matched pair for driving.  The pair will be shown as “Devil in Disguise” and “Angel in Hiding”.

Angel has been a family pet for the past 5 years and is very green (read not saddle broken).  While saddle training will likely occur, we really got her to be a driving pony.  Here are some pictures of her in turn out with Devil minutes after arriving.  Even though she had not trailered but 1 time in the past 5 years, we had her loaded in only a few minutes.  She will be a fun training project for this year.

 

 

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Dashing through the snow

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Last night we got 3″ of snow.   The kids were excited to switch the wheels on our Kingston Saddlery cart to the sleigh runners.  Unfortunately, the snow switched to rain and it is warming up tonight, so the snow won’t be around for long.  However, we did get the chance to do a little “dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh”.  We did some loops around the house and through the front yard of our neighbors.  We look forward to more snow through the winter.

We also made a short video of Alex driving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbLSnzp3PdE  

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Driving Huey

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For those who don’t know, Huey is our 16yo Dartmoor who’s registered name is Hedgehog Hollow’s American Eagle.  While he has been a good riding pony for Amanda, and still goes on trail rides, Amanda is preferring to ride Devil in the arena.  Huey needs a job and so we have been slowly working on teaching Huey to drive for the past few months.  Even though we were told he was driven before we owned him, we wanted to take everything slowly and actually step through the entire training process.  It was also beneficial for the kids to see the intermediate steps of training a driving horse.  We have been ground driving Huey, including teaching Alex and Vicki how to ground drive and Huey has pulled a tire on the ground.

I recently built a set of false shafts which are poles designed to give the pony pressure like a cart, but without the expensive cart.  Here is the document I used to make our false shafts: false shafts instructions.  This afternoon, Anna did a little lunging with Huey in his harness and then we hooked him up with the false shafts.

Anna and I took turns ground driving Huey with the false shafts  and made him walk and trot around the arena.  He didn’t show any concern at all about the shafts, so we decided to move to the next step.

We decided to purchase our easy entry cart new from Kingston Saddlery.  It wasn’t much more expensive than most used ones and we knew we could get replacement parts as needed.  We were also able to purchase sleigh runners, so we are looking forward to the snow arriving.

Alex and Vicki were on hand to assist with the initial hitching of Huey to the cart.  We started by approaching him with the cart and removing it to make sure he wouldn’t react (I think he slept through it).  Then we actually hooked him to the cart and I ground drove while he pulled the cart.  Anna started with a lunge line attached to his bridle in case things went wrong, but we removed the extra tending line pretty quickly.

Since everything was going well, the next step was to get in the cart and drive around.  Alex and Vicki didn’t want to be left out and both took turns driving Huey around the arena.

We need to get a side check for the harness (that’s what the blue baling twine is doing right now) and some sleigh bells.  The kids were singing Dashing Through The Snow as they rode around together, and Huey was a rock star.  Now they are discussing plans for driving him at the 4-H fair in the summer.