And so it begins.....

Took Gandalf and Tari out for a hack today. So far, Tari has been very reasonable on the lead rope, following along happily, not really worrying about anything and only occasionally trying for a sneaky mouthful of grass.....but today, things changed. She discovered the Kinna manoeuvre.....

As we were happily trotting along, she stopped dead. I managed to get G to stop before the rope ran out, he's kind of used to it now (largely thanks to Kinna) and as soon as he feels me lean back, he slows down. I thought Tari might be having a poo, but no, she was just stopped, looking at me mutinously.

OK, I thought, we'll carry on, which she did, reluctantly. All went well until we were nearly home, when she did it again, right next to the verge of lush green grass......this time G was not so keen to stop, being fixed on getting home but I just about managed it without having to drop Tari's rope by doing a pretty good impression of Elastigirl from The Incredibles.....a passing motorist slowed right down in alarm (or maybe he was hoping to see me dragged out of the saddle) but I managed to get my ropes sorted and reel the little git back in.

She didn't actually get to scoff any grass (unlike Kinna the first time she tried it, as I had to drop the rope that time!) so maybe she'll get the idea that it doesn't work....or maybe next time out I'll get my arms lengthened again, we'll see. Probably doesn't help that she is having to be in the yard on hay only with Gandalf whose digestive system hasn't coped at all well with the abundant grass during my absence this summer. They would both far prefer to be out with the herd, but they won't be until the boy's gut is working properly again - and they will both have to be muzzled the whole time until the grass stops growing.

As for Sky, well before Ali could do anything with her yesterday, she had to let of a bit of steam!!

After that, she did start paying attention and we practised some cantering with the bow, no bogging off in alarm, she even got the hang of stopping just with a voice command at the end of each "run" :-)

 

Horse archery

Just got back from 3 weeks in France (where we no longer have wifi at the house, which is my excuse for not blogging for ages), supposedly on holiday but actually ended up on a kind of extended horse archery training course.....as you do!

This is a new FFE discipline and John at our old club has taken it up big time. As they had a competition planned for the final weekend of our stay, we decided it'd be fun to have a go. Ali of course got to ride Kinna, and as she's been doing field archery for a few years, turned out to be some good at it.

I on the other hand, got totally thrashed by everyone in Club 3 (the easiest level, all at the walk), even the kids on a lead rein. But it really was a lot of fun :-)

We went for several training sessions, including one where I managed to fall off Nanou, she only has 2 speeds, plodding along like a donkey or full speed racehorse and I ended up swearing (and laughing) a lot as she tanked off up the run.....

Needless to say, I can only actually hit the target when she's in donkey mode ;-)

John has done a really good job with Kinns, she totally gets what you have to do and doesn't bat an eyelid at any of it.....

Didn't want to come home.......

White Horse 3 - Alton Barnes

Went to see my favourite one, at Alton Barnes in Wiltshire, when on our way to Portsmouth to get the boat to France. Guess what, it was raining again.....

This horse was created by a Mr Robert Pile in 1812. Apparently Mr Pile paid twenty pounds to a journeyman painter, John Thorne, also known as Jack the Painter, to design the white horse and have the work of cutting it carried out.   But before the work was finished Thorne took off with the money, and Mr Pile was left to pay out again........

We went to the nearby village of Alton Prior to find the big stone which has a carving of the horse on it, the lichen is starting to take over though.....

There is a tradition of lighting the white horses to mark special occasions, and in recent times the horse has been lit with candles such as on 30th June 2012, marking its 200th anniversary. Which looked very cool.....(photo courtesy of Terry Waldron)

And here's a pic taken from the air by those Last Refuge people again......on a sunny day!

The Great British Summer

When we told people we were moving back to the UK they all said "Why? The weather is terrible...."

But no, not this year. After a very mild winter with no snow at all, and me worrying about being able to fight my way through huge drifts on treacherous country lanes down to the horses in the Kangoo (which has been known to get stuck on nothing more than some wet grass), not a single flake. So much for my argument that we'll NEED a 4 x 4 here in the winter (which would incidentally be able to tow the horse trailer I haven't got yet either)......

And now, well, summer is here. We've had fabulous weather for weeks. Yes, the odd torrential downpour/thunderstorm, but apart from that wall to wall sunshine. And flies, ticks and mosquitoes.....but at least we didn't need to break out the fly masks back in April like we did in the Dordogne.

So the horses are having a bit of a holiday at the moment as it's just too warm to expect them to do much, and unlike in France, it's humid, which is yuk.

They don't seem to mind :-)

Unfortunately for Tari, the downpours mean too much grass, so she has to have a muzzle on most of the time. Doesn't stop her eating though ;-)

So normal service will resume when it's a bit cooler - and we haven't got to wrangle the NO who finished school today *sigh*

New toy :-)

Oops, I haven't posted for ages, life kinda got in the way......work, moving house, that kind of thing.....

Anyway, yesterday was my birthday and I finally got that digital SLR camera I have always craved. Obviously the damned thing is way beyond my humble capacities to understand, but there are plenty of idiotproof settings and today I took it out for a spin.

So here are some pics for you:

The eyes have it.....

Yesterday we had a very interesting morning down at the Equine Eye Clinic, turns out Tari's eyes are not normal at all. Was talking to them at the vet's open day the other week and they said they had an eye specialist who'd be very interested in seeing a silver dapple as they often have eye problems linked to the gene that gives them the colour. I had read something about that online before so I was interested in finding out more too. So I took her along when G had his MOT (he's fine, the COPD is better than last year in fact) and  had to leave her there overnight as she's been sedated to be poked and prodded and photographed.....



Both of her retinas have not formed properly on one side, meaning basically that her vision is compromised at the front of her head, but her peripheral vision is unaffected. Was really interesting looking at the inside of her eyes. The vet is going to send me some of the pics he took. Basically this means she doesn't have a full field of vision but should be perfectly fine to ride as long as her head movement isn't restricted so she can turn her head to compensate and that's why she's always got her nose into everything so she can check stuff out with her whiskers. (He was very impressed with the size of the ones round her eyes and said he's always telling people they should never trim them.....) She was certainly very nosy about the nice shiny trailer in the yard when we arrived......

......which had been used to transport........a llama for a haircut. That was very interesting too!

Went back to fetch her this morning and she was her usual laid back self walking home, more interested in eating grass than worrying about stuff. So nothing really to worry about, Ali used to ride a one eyed horse in France and he managed fine, jumping and everything. Don't think we'll ever be breeding from her though.......

One year on......

Can't believe it's been a year already since I brought Tari home. This is what she looked like then

and here she is today

She was being a bit nosey bout Sky's tack, so I thought I'd see how she liked wearing it.....

....didn't seem too bothered!

Sky's extra wide cob saddle seems to be a good fit now so she's definitely going to need the treeless by the time she's old enough to ride!

Lovely day so we took her for a walk and jumped some ditches :-)