Too clever by half......

Today the girls have disgraced themselves and I  found out that the Naughty Nordic Princess can open doors......

When we had the barn rebuilt, we had a door put in between the garage bit and the horse shelter bit for ease of feeding etc. It's a proper aluminium door with a handle, and usually there's a gate in front of it that cuts the shelter in half and I used to put big bales of hay behind it. But with 4 of them here sometimes, they needed more room in the shelter so I took the gate out. So the other day I noticed Missy chewing the handle a bit but she didn't manage to turn it so I didn't worry too much, she likes to nibble things (have already had to wedge the tap with the hose on closed as she can reach it over the gate and once turned it on in the night and I came down in the morning to a lake )

But whilst I was out this afternoon, she managed to open the door and I came back to find her and Sky in the garage attacking a sack of feed.......luckily it's only low cal balancer stuff, but they'd managed to knock the dustbin over and get the lid off, rip the bag open and scatter it everywhere, before crapping on it for good measure. The goats and chickens had of course joined in the fun.

So I've just spent ages clearing up the mess, after I'd extracted Sky from behind Ali's pushbike, she couldn't work out how to get back past it and was just standing there looking at me waiting for me to move it. Seraphina took one look at me and backed hastily out of the garage door as soon as I opened it........

Thank God they didn't trash the old man's motorbike.......

I have since found the key and double locked that door!!!

Kinna does some long reining.....

The snow is showing no signs of leaving, so I have decided to carry on trying to work the horses regardless. We got out the proper grown up horse stuff today (well alright, the felt saddle we used to have for the pony) and tacked Kinna up.

No problems with that, she's had a saddle on before. Then we added some long lines and went for it.....

And she did really well, I had Ali at her head to start with til she got the idea and then she was fine, despite various distracions and my happy "helper"........good job Kinna knows all about long ropes and how not to get tangled in them!!

Afterwards I took the long lines off and let her wander about witrh the saddle on, so naturally she tried rolling in it, which is why I use the old pony saddle!!! Once she realised she couldn't get rid of it, she gave up and went over to give Chester a hard time......

Quite pleased with that for a first go.

OK, that's enough of the white stuff.....

So we still have snow. It doesn't usually last more than a day here, but seriously sub zero temperatures all week have meant it's all still with us.

This in turn means I've had the kids at home all week as the buses aren't running and the schools are closed. They have now had enough of bracing walks in the cold and snowball fights etc.

Worst of all though, we haven't had any water in the house since yesterday morning, all the pipes out the back are frozen solid and not responding to the hairdryer treatment either.....So I've been melting snow to water the animals, which is hard work, you need a lot of snow just for one bucketful!

Today, after one more of those bracing walks, during which Sky did some skating.....

...but was otherwise happy to get out and about...

...we piled into the car and did a very careful 20kms an hour over to Tanya's, so we could all have a shower and I could fill up some bidons of water for the horses! Then we helped with sledding some water down to her horses....

....and when the farmer arrived with new hay we spent rather a long time stretching the new big bale haynet over it to hopefully slow down consumption a bit! Horses none too impressed with it.....

Snow!

It very rarely snows here in the Dordogne. But yesterday it did, big time!! Seraphina looked right at home......

It froze overnight so was all still there today, but the sun came out. No school for the girls so we went for a walk. Seraphina was in fine form......

......Sky was a bit unsettled to start with, she was especially concerned about this snowman:

But he didn't try anything, so she decided he was safe to walk past!
We did a bit of ditch jumping.....

...and Ali enjoyed cantering on the snow....

And we didn't have to worry about slipping as they're not shod :-)

A haircut and a hack....

The other day on Facebook, someone shared this photo.....

And ever since then Ali has been on at me to try that with Seraphina's mane. I finally gave in and we did this:

Not great really. So I chopped off the top bit and she'll have to live with the zigzags til it grows out. Not that she cares, obviously!

Lots of sunshine today so I dragged the kids out for a little walk. Ali took Fina as she needs to get used to being out on her own. She was pretty good, only tried to turn round and go home a couple of times, but Ali used the one rein flexions that we did last weekend and that seemed to work pretty well......

She did a bit of cantering OK......

....and at the top of the hill, the girls had to play on the big frozen puddle!

Practised some laterals......

......and some TREC!

Hopefully that's worn the kids out so there'll be less bickering now.......!

Practising.....

....what we learned at the weekend. As Sky and Kinna are currently down at Tanya's where there's a round pen. Ali got Kinna in, and worked on getting her attention, which was OK to start with:

But Kinna is hard work, even Eric said that the other day, and this next bit clearly shows what happens if the horse realises you don't MEAN what you're doing, and they always do know!! (it also shows why you shouldn't teach your own kids, I get so impatient, Eric is much nicer to her..... )

So I had to take over, and she decided to be bit, um, uncooperative......that's teenagers for you.

So we went to plan B for Ali and got Sky.....she is a much more cooperative kind of horse so although Ali still had problems keeping her attention, she got there in the end with no silly behaviour!

After that I had her sit on for a bit and just do nothing. Then every time she moved of her own accord, Ali clicked her tongue so we can hopefully start her learning that this is the cue for moving under saddle as well as on the ground......

Ali was still sitting on her when Tess and Caitlin arrived on Fina and Chester and Sky was so cool about that, Kinna was bombing about like a loony in the field.

So top marks to Sky, Kinna gets "could do better....."

Training Day Part Two.....

After lunch, Eric changed from doing groundwork to ridden work. So the horses were tacked up. But before mounting, he did some work on getting them to flex and disengage their quarters. Then he showed the riders how to do it, first from the ground, then from the saddle.

You can see him working with Ali and Seraphina in this video:

And here with Sheila and Gandalf, in just the bitless bridle:

Very interesting stuff, and a lot like the Philippe Karl DVD we saw recently, using the hands higher than traditionally taught and the bending and flexing that I have been trying out with Chester. So lots to practise there!

Using one rein at a time means that they can't lean or pull against the hand and I like the way he doesn't want you to take up a "proper" contact, but just experiment with a feel on the inside rein and wait for the horse to relax then reward him by stopping what you're doing. As with everything to do with horses, timing is the key......