Learn as you go (a guaranteeed Uh-Oh :o)

You can tell that it's almost over; the days are flying by so fast I can't get a ride in edgewise around here. I did finally make it back to my friend Sandy's house (this post and this post) for the long-awaited trail ride. She had babies everywhere, including this handsome [and unexpected] little fella. Seems the people she bought his mom from sold her because she was not fulfilling her duties as a broodmare. After a few months, Sandy contacted them and asked if they were sure she was not bred because she appeared pregnant; they were absolutely positive. No way. Imagine Sandy's surprise when she walked outside one fine day to find this little guy had arrived during the night (not to mention the previous owners, who were most unhappy with the news they missed a baby - oops *laugh*).
Since his daddy is a Tennessee Walker and his mom an Appaloosa, that makes Nicodemus here a Walkaloosa (and no, I did not make that up). There is even a registry for that particular cross (here). Too bad he didn't get any markings from mom though; you can just spot (haha) her pretty polka-dotted derriere behind baby. DD coaxed him near enough for a scratch or two:

I took lots of pictures to share with you; Isabella and Jackie Chan's baby is due this October and I want to go back for another visit. I've never seen a baby donkey before. I'm trying to talk DH into going with me this time (then I can stay lots later and it won't matter if I zonk out on the way home *grin*). This is Jackie in the photo on the right - isn't he cute? I just love that little face :o)

Below is a photo of Jackie and Isabella:

Seems like everywhere I looked there were little ones running around. Shrek and Fiona had two little bitty pea hens (peacock babies), which I don't think I've ever seen before, have you?:

You know after looking at the one on the right (in mid march) a couple of times, I must say I suddenly felt considerably better about the big honking U-boats attached to my ankles (little booger has got some feet - *giggle*).

I heard rumors of a foal snatching epidemic in the pasture; seems Nico's mom was not the only one who wanted him. Sandy said he didn't appear overly concerned about who mom was exactly until it was time for lunch (then he got rather picky ;o) Looks like the pasture wasn't the only place experiencing parental pilferage. Does this look right to you? Besides the blur, I mean:

I don't know if Sandy loves to read as much as I do or not, but I did notice she kept this beautiful pair of bookends in her backyard (I dubbed them Frick and Frack ;o):
I took a little video and some stills and slapped it all together below in case any of you wanted to go with us on the trail. Have to say I love that little white spot on Dotty's ear. She is blind in her right eye, which is why she turns her whole head to the right to look around periodically. And yes I cleaned my lens when I got home - had no idea how dirty it was until I hit that little patch of sunlight (yikes! :o)

Happy Trails from Jen on Vimeo.

The best surprise of all? Wait until you see what Sandy has hanging around her backyard. She said there are about eight of them living in that tree - Awesome!

Hummingbirds have to be the hardest thing I've ever tried to photograph. Those little knockers are QUICK!
Well that's all for this week. I hope you enjoyed your visit as much as I did. I think we were all pretty tuckered out by the end of the day...

Have a blessed week everyone! Be sure to smile at somebody somewhere (just because you can ;o)

Well I don't see it splashed on a Hollywood tabby...

Well, it's [almost] done out there; the floor of the visitor area. My friend Lori came up and helped, as staining large areas of concrete is definitely a two man (er, woman ;o) job. I really liked the mottled, rustic look of the semi- transparent stain, and wanted the additional durability (I definitely don't want to have to do this annually). For anyone interested in tackling such a task on their own concreted area, and it can be indoors or out, here are the things we used:

1. Quikrete semi-transparent stain in Vaquero Brown (the 2 gallons I bought was not enough);

2. A 2 gallon sprayer (to mix both cans together for consistency);

3. Garden hose with an adjustable spray nozzle (the stain must be applied to a wet surface for proper absorption);

4. A push broom to eliminate any large areas of standing water;

5. Masking tape and a bunch of Walmart bags (or any other cheesy bag you have in large quantities) to put around the bottoms of each post (even though it's brown on brown, it still shows and you don't want your posts to be all messy looking if there are any splatters); 

6. A large kitchen garbage bag to cover the bottom half of the door; and,

7. A ginormous bowl of ice cream for when you're done, because it's a million and a half degrees out there and who cares if it's still breakfast time; it's dairy (so I can count it as milk - Ha).

One of the more important lessons I learned, is that we definitely should have done this in the early evening hours as opposed to early morning. Why? Because the sun would not have been so obnoxiously strong (a lot of unwanted speckling resulted because we just couldn't keep the concrete wet enough to absorb the stain properly). Mottled yes, spotted no. This means I'll have to go back over it again in those places; it'll have to be next paycheck though, as I've killed this one dead *grin*. If you look at the bottom of the wooden posts, you can see how much splattering there was; good thing we covered them:

Of course I'll also have to repair the damage from the rain too. Can you believe it? We are in the midst of a drought, there was NO chance of rain when we did it - zero, zilch, zippo, nada - and we get a sudden downpour out of the blue (not that I'm complaining because we needed the rain desperately). Where the patio roof joins the house, there is a small gap in two places. DH bought some flashing to put up there; unfortunately, it only made it as far as the "to do list" (nuts). Funny the way the water puddled up, ran off, then puddled up again, ran off again...Kinda looks like a pair of futuristic cat lady shades, doesn't it? It's like our own special slant on crop circles or something (well, maybe *laugh*). Huh. Weird.

Here's a photo of what it is [mostly] supposed to look like although there is some speckling in the upper left-hand corner:

Live and learn, right? Other than the speckles and freckles (which I'll fix later) I think it looks much better in a nice earthy brown than that super-sized slab of generic gray. Bear in mind that the concrete was still wet in the "before" photo, so it dried to a considerably lighter gray (that often hurt the eyes a lot more than the brown when the sun hit it). It was also evening in the before, so it was pretty much shaded. What do you think?

For some reason, Cinnamon was quite put out by my plans to "fix" those dotty spots *laugh*. He seemed to think it was absolutely perfect as is, and the speckled areas were the very best part (and I probably should have done the whole thing that way anyway). I can't imagine why he's so adamant about it, can you? Silly boy. If I had not taken the photo myself, I would have sworn it was Cinnamon's coat. That's actually the concrete below on the left; talk about bizarre. You know, I'm thinking that might be even weirder than the shades...

Want a sneak peek at next week? It's a *whispering* potty post. And you'll see what I'm doing with (to?) some rusty-musty-dusty old folding chairs that were donated to the farm. Tilly's [the tractor] former owners gave us a dozen of 'em - Woo! Color me amazed not only to have chosen the subject for the next post, but I've already started writing. Holy cow! I can't believe I'm actually getting ahead of the game on posting (and having said that out loud - like a ninny - I'll probably wind up behind again just because I couldn't keep my mouth shut). It's okay though, as long as I get there in the end, right?
Have a blessed week everyone!

Guest Post: Trick Training in Reverse

...but over all, I don't think it's too shabby
This slide show video clip was done well before the video I posted a few weeks back (here's a link to the post in case you missed it: Cold and Colder). What was supposed to be a simple thing, turned into a ginormous (er, that's a technical term) ordeal to get it from the iMac at work to home, then uploaded to Vimeo. Being human, many repentable words were snarled at the computer by yours truly; but I finally got it - WooHoo!) I worked hard on getting the right photos to match with the words in the song, particularly at "big right foot". So let's see how many of you have eagle eyes and can see why that shot might be pretty darn cool, 'cause it's a tricky one. I can't remember who said it (was it you Ratty?) but the photo was one of those "happy accidents" I discovered after the film was developed. Enjoy!

Horses Are A Gift from Jen on Vimeo.  
Oh, and there's no prize for getting it right, but I promise to give you a nice big round of applause if you spot it!

Now I'm off to sit in class for a couple days to earn some CEUs for interpreting; hence the Friday post. I'm taking hubby's laptop with me, though (pretty sure I'd get the DT's if I had to go cold turkey for two days :o) Thanks for reading! 

A Little Bit of Background...

Santanna's Reflection is a double registered; Half Arabian (with Arabian Horse Association) and purebred appaloosa (with the Appaloosa Horse Club). I met him in December of 2006, and he came to live with me on Christmas Eve for a two week trial. I knew the first time I rode him out on a trail (the day after Christmas) that he wasn't going anywhere. 'Tanna's previous owner had decided she wanted to endurance race and thought he would be a good prospect. So all she did was get on him and GO. He wouldn't stand still to be mounted - he wouldn't stand still period! - he wouldn't walk. He was no fun at all to ride. So she threw him out in a 2 acre "pasture" with 7 other horses and left him for 2 years.
He was pretty much low man in the pasture so when I met him, he was 150 lbs underweight, scabby from bites and kicks and so nervous he'd weave out in the pasture. I don't know why I was attracted to him (other than the fact I think he's gorgeous). I was almost 50 when I bought 'Tanna. I've had horses all of my adult life - I trained and showed to my share of championships in the 80s and 90s. I did not want a problem horse.
But I fell in love with him and - in spite of the fact that my husband all but pleaded "Please, no appaloosas!" - I brought him home and I've never once been sorry. It only took him a couple months to settle down and learn to stand quietly being saddled, mounted or just waiting. I've even had people ask me if I'll train their horses because he's so well mannered out on the trail. He has become the trail horse/buddy I've been missing since my stallion died in 2001.
'Tanna is very laid back and easy going (although he does still weave from time to time, which may be a life-time habit. But I know why he does it and he does it less and less all the time - for everything else he gives me, I can live with that.) He is strong, steady, has a very quick intelligence and a sly sense of humor.
I am so blessed I found my Happy Appy!

So here's the story:

I have a 10 year old Arabian - appaloosa cross, Santanna, my Happy Appy. 'Tanna is not the least bit interested in doing tricks. His attitude is "give me the treat or quit messing with me". Since I have my 3 year old purebred Arab who LOVES doing tricks and I sincerely believe that some horses like and are good at some things and others excel in other areas, I haven't pushed him. Santanna is a wonderful trail horse, he LIKES being a good trail horse and that's what I wanted from him, so we are both happy.

Last Saturday night, a couple friends and I participated in a moonlight ride at a local (Dallas, Tx, area) lake. We found ourselves in the position of having to ride the last 5 miles to our camp by ourselves over a trail we'd only ridden once - going out that day - in the dark! While the moon was big, bright and beautiful, it didn't shed much light under the tree canapes. But I had a flashlight and wasn't afraid to use it. The first time I turned it on, all three horses jumped. Santanna did not know what to think about the shadow of his head and ears stretching out in front of him. But once I learned to moved the flashlight out to the left and put the light on the trail a few feet ahead of us, he realized it really helped him see where he was going.
We had a long way to go and I didn't know how good the batteries were - and to be honest it was such a beautiful night. The moon brilliantly lit the sky and silvered the lake and grass along the trail - I didn't turn the light on very much.

We hit a place that was dark for only a few feet so I didn't turn the light on. Santanna moved his head to the right, slowed down and then stopped. I urged him on, asking what was wrong. He turned enough to roll an eye at me, faced forward - and waited. I thought something was in the trail, so I turned on the light. Nothing there, but as soon as he had light, 'Tanna boldly stepped forward. When we hit the next darkish spot, he hesitated and moved his head to the right again. Again, I didn't get it, so he stopped. I turned on the light and away we went. The next time he hesitated and moved his head to the right, I turned on the light and he snorted (horse talk for "good girl"?) and moved out. From that point on, I "got" it. Whenever he needed the light, he'd move his head to the right, my cue to "turn on the light". With no more hesitation, we ghosted through the cricket's singing and the magical scenery and led our friends safely home. What a treat he shared with me! How gorgeous to ride through the moon-silvered landscape!

I thought some of y'all might get a kick out of the fact that, while Santanna may not be interested in DOING tricks, he had no problems with teaching me one!

Ginger

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"Want to change the world? Start by smiling at and being pleasant to people you don't have to." ~ C. Wayne Owens