Christmas, Hay Net, and Barn Tour

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Daisy did. She had a nice salad of apples and carrots (like every other Christmas...) and a little bag of skittles (no, I do not feed my horse skittles on a daily basis, just her birthday and Christmas). She happens to love skittles. :)

I had an excellent Christmas as well. The biggest (and only) horse gift was the harness my parents got me for Daisy! A friend of mine is going to show me how to harness her on Tuesday...but that's for later.

When Daisy is kept at home, she is given a flake of hay about every couple hours. This is for a few reasons. Partially to give her something to look forward to and do while I'm not home and she's alone in her pasture (and to keep her from eating other such things like...manure...trees...dirt...etc). We also do this because it's better for horses to eat continually (or at least in small meals like that) throughout the day because it mimics how they eat in the wild. When Daisy goes to board, however, she's given 3-4 flakes at 6am when she's brought to her pasture, I imagine she's done within the hour, and that leaves her with nothing to do the rest of the day, as well as cold, when it's winter. Similarly, at night she's given 3 flakes that she quickly eats, leaving no entertainment or heat for the remaining 12 hours. 

Enter hockey hay net! I first saw this idea a (long while) back on Laughing Orca Ranch's blog post. I decided to try it myself this year. I ordered the hockey netting online, and when it arrived, I cut it into pieces and tied up the sides of two of them. Today we went and got screw eyes and carabiner clips and hung it on the stall!
It wasn't actually that easy. The walls are oak and I had no drill so I had to use a nail, then remove it, then screw in a screw eye, lose the nail in the stall, find the nail in the stall, attempt to make another hole, lose the nail again, find the nail again so Daisy wouldn't wake up with a puncture wound, finish making the hole, screw the screw eye in, have it break in half half way into screwing it in (yes...I couldn't find the perfect screw eyes at walmart), be forced to make another hole, almost lose the nail again, and screw in the last screw eye.

Needless to say, if you do this yourself...it probably won't be that frustrating. :)

But it's finished! And stuffed with Daisy's dinner hay.

It looked very small hung on the wall, and I was a little worried it wasn't big enough, but it stretched perfectly and held all her hay. If I ever need more, I can just put a flake or two on the ground anyway, and I'm sure she'll survive ;) For now I only have one in her stall, I have to figure out a way to make it possible for her to have one outside.
I brought her in for a test run.
This is a dark video, but...here it is:

On Saturday when I rode shortly, I took Daisy out bareback and bitless on the trail in the snow, had a wonderful time, and then took her in for a little Christmas barrel racing...she slipped going around one barrel and her hind end went down; for a second, I thought she'd completely go down. She didn't, and she trotted out fine on the lunge and didn't seem hurt, but I called it a day anyway. Today when I brought her in, I trotted her out again..she seemed totally fine. I didn't ride today anyway though.
Tuesday Daisy goes to Jean's...and Wednesday... !! We're doing our first ever clinic! It's with the mounted police officer who hosted the trail trial we did in September. It's going to be all about bombproofing and sensory training your horse...pretty exciting!
That said, did I mention I love being at Jenny's? I love the use of the ring, and the trails, and the cleanliness and how small it is; just me, two other boarders, and her horses. It's very homey. :) So I took an impromptu tour on tape today...I didn't mean to, but I wanted to see if my camera flash would turn on if I taped (it didn't). So anyway I decided to upload the tour anyway. The dark opening behind Daisy is the entry to the arena. Lydia said it well when she said it's like a 'farmette'...has a little bit of everything. :) Here it is:

And so I leave you until later, bloggers :),