Hacking and things.....

It's that time of year to start making resolutions I suppose, not that I ever do really. But this year one thing I am goign to aim for is more hacking out. Last year big G clocked up a total of 580kms (I only started counting cos someone told me barefoot horses just can't do the distance on the road that shod horses can, mind you) but I reckon we can outdistance that this year.

I am going to aim for getting out on a horse 300 days this year. Probably won't happen with all the rest of the stuff I have to do but it's good to have aspirations.......

Today we started the ball rolling with a 7km hack - as it's still the holidays that meant with the SNO along for the ride so we couldn't go too far before the "my legs hurt/he's too sweaty/my boot's falling off" chorus commenced.....

Lovely sunny day for it though :-)

In fact we've had a few good days lately which has meant we could do this

 

 

and this

and this

and this.....

Happy New Year everybody!

A couple of days away.....

Went down to Sarah and Angus's place near Montauban to collect Choccy from her holiday with them. Think she'd have been quite happy to stay there though, she's had a fine old time with her mates....

Managed to get out on a hack on Monday, bit windy and wet but fun all the same. Rode Squaw for the first time, she's a lot like Gandalf in shape and like him, she certainly isn't a plod! Very forward going, a bit spooky, quite opinionated......and she can ski down muddy slopes!!!

Rode her in a bosal just like G's, no problems with the brakes.....

Did about 9kms in the end, map here

Then it was back to the ranch for a fun evening involving curry and wine and, erm, chickens......

As we've had a bit of a Silky population explosion recently, we took three of them down to Sarah's. They spent the day in her luxury henhouse and when it started getting dark, Sarah's chickens joined them.......all except for one who wasn't at all sure about these strange interlopers in her house. So we were then treated to the spectacle of first Felix then Angus trying to get her to go in. Felix tried the stalking technique

Angus went for the net approach (getting himself a belt from the electric fence in the progress which didn't make us laugh at all.......)

The chicken was totally unimpressed with all of this and refused to be coralled..........After nearly an hour of hilarity (we'd seen some wine by then) the chook eventually tired of giving them the runaround and just hopped up into bed.

The next day we awoke (quite late) to a bit of sunshine for the first time in weeks so we took the reluctant Maverick for a walk whilst Mike and Angus went for a run.

The Terrible Two were on form, the SNO had to be extracted from the bottom of a muddy ditch and Tally was away with the fairies picking flowers a lot of the time.....

Then after another fab lunch we had to head home. Weather still good, might actually get my horse out tomorrow!!

A couple of days away.....

Went down to Sarah's for a couple of days Sunday and yesterday and had a fine old horsey time. Tess and Caitlin came too. Cait rode Squaw, who didn't want to be cooperative at first, particularly when it came to cantering and jumping, but Cait wasn't having any of it and Squaw soon realised she would get away with nothing!

She did some decent jumping in the end.....

Izzy was a bit hyped up with all these new people around, things go quite exciting for Sarah at one point!

And Ali wanted to ride Mav as usual, he didn't manage to dump her this time

We had lots of tea, wine and curry and lots of fun. The SNO and Tally get on really well, and Felix is still trailing round after Ali, think he's got a crush on her ;-)
I had a little play with Izzy but she was tense the whole time.....

....she's so sensitive though, you only have to think sideways to get her to do lateral work. Bit of a change from Ches!

Sarah has the makings of a great TREC course, we must get some of our horses down there one of these days.......

....and the girls go on holiday

Took Sky and Kinna down to their summer pasture at my friend Sarah's place yesterday. They travelled really well, took a while to get Kinna in the trailer, but some carrots did the trick.

They were introduced to Sarah's two, Isba, an Anglo arab and Maverick, the mini mule. Didn't take them long to settle down and get on with the serious business of eating all that nice grass......

Here's a little video
I think they'll be fine, although we miss them!