Life is Good

GUESS who got a new western saddle on Friday!?!?! ME! Sooo, let me tell you about it :)
Last Friday, Daisy was picked up to be driven about 1 1/2 hours to a place just outside of Buffalo, New York. Her traveling companion was a pretty boy named Jan (stands for January something-or-another (idk)). She trailered up pretty well; she paused for a minute because she wasn't sure of what to think of Jan's whinnying and stamping as he was already in the trailer, but she loaded pretty quick and they got along; she didn't bite him (That's a plus). I rode down with Jean and with Jan's owner, sharing fun horse stories and plans for the season...

Once we got there we took around; those are the horse pasture's at Jean's dad's place (who owned the tack shop).

The tack shop.

More horse pastures :)

We unloaded Jan and brought him into his new place.

Jan took the trip down with Daisy to visit the "Equine Correctional Facility" part of the property :-P. Jan has a rearing problem that just didn't stop, so now he found himself in a new place :). Ironically, Daisy spent a month at the Correctional Facility as well. Jean originally got Daisy because her old owner became afraid of her. Jean didn't have time to ride Daisy, so Daisy went to Jean's dad's place for a tune-up. Turned out, she didn't need much of a tune-up, because she only spent a month there.

Jan quickly met his stable mate in his stall. There were some very pretty horses in the barn; it's very cozy there, and pretty cool looking.

Like these two pretty horses that were across the aisle (I know, look like Jan and his new "friend").

After settling Jan into his new place, we headed to the tack shop. It's small, but filled literally to the ceiling with stuff: English and western saddles and bridles, halters, lead ropes, saddle pads, gifts, consignment stuff and new. The first saddle he showed me was this one. I didn't like it originally; it looked boring (I know, I'm so...picky:-P). However, I tried it on Daisy, and it fit her, so we headed to the round pen to try it out while riding and make sure it was good.

His round pen was AWESOME. It was indoor, and sanded. The walls were high, with just some windows, and there was a place where you could sit up high and look down onto the ring. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture of the ring because of lighting. But that's not the point. I got in that saddle and I fell in love (*sniff*). It was SO comfortable. And it fit Daisy. And it fit me like a glove. SO well. It was so comfortable, not to big or too little, and just wonderful. It was handmade by a private person (company?), not a big retailer. The leather is in GREAT condition. It's old, so it's heavy, but it was great. So of course I bought it. For $400. Which, according to Jean and her dad, is VERY cheap considering how much that saddle probably cost when it was brand new (Think a couple thousand dollars here). Jean's dad looked sad to see it go, lol, and said that if it had fit him he would have kept it for himself.

Saddle in the trailer, we loaded Daisy back up for the ride back, her alone that time.

Of course, she got a couple treats. (Man, I love my horse.)

I know, blurred picture...we drove back home.

With a beautiful new saddle.

Tomorrow the Yautzy Road Yahoos are riding and walking in a parade nearby. I'm so excited!

Hopefully I'll let you know how it goes by tomorrow night...hopefully. :)

LONG Time No Post!

Hello, People! I'm very very sorry I haven't posted...I have SO much to say, but I really just didn't feel like writing it all...a shame, really, because I'm going to write it now...

So...where do I begin? I'm sticking with just Daisy stuff and may be updating people at my other blog, so at least I don't have that much to say regarding Daisy.

Last time I posted it was our anniversary...since then, we've been riding only English or bareback (withthe bareback pad and without) through the woods. I did ride a I think 5 mile block around some different roads awhile back, which was cool...it was about an hour ride, but it was a "big deal" for me...it seems a lot longer. And it's HILLY! We passed some horses along the way that Daisy so kindly whinnied to, and continued along. The first BIG thing I have to say is that Daisy can do a right lead canter now! I KNOW, right?! RIGHT lead! It's a miracle! Back in January I posted (sorry the writing is hard to read, I still had the old template) about taking a lesson with Karin and trying to get Daisy to pick up her right lead. She had me trying to force Daisy to pick up her right lead, but she wouldn't do it. In February, I started trying myself to get Daisy to do right lead. I'd side pass her to the right, and make her "launch" into a canter from that position, because it sets the horse up for the canter stride. I'd learned that way back when I took regular lessons with my first riding teacher. Daisy didn't really do the right lead, even when I did that in the ring. I'd started doing it on the road, as I mentioned here. I took Daisy to a mounted 4H meeting at the end of April at Jean's house, at the same time that she got her shots, and WOW I need to tell you, she did AMAZING! I easily got her to right-lead canter in a circle, around and around. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, she'll pick her right-lead up by choice! Even if she doesn't, though, I can get her to do it so easily...hopefully, when we got to the pleasure show on May 31st we'll be good with our leads! :D The game show we went to, by the way, was great. I still didn't (and don't) have a western saddle, so we rode English, but Daisy and I both had a ball; we did a ton of barrel racing, and Daisy is amazing at keyhole! She shoots down through the barrels, gets barely inside, flips around and shoots back out; very impressive. Can't wait to do a game show with her! :D

So, let me tell you my agenda. Today I went to a horse show without riding Daisy, but I'll tell you about that in a minute. On Friday I'm leaving school a little early and Jean is kindly going to trailer Daisy down to just outside of Buffalo, New York (About a 1 1/2 hour drive)(Along with another horse to drop off for training) to her Dad's farm. He has a tack shop there, and we will spend time trying on western saddles for Daisy, as I can't just trust that a saddle off the Internet will fit her. I'm REALLY excited because I miss riding Western! It sounds crazy, but I haven't sat in a western saddle since last fall, at our last game show!!! That's MONTHS ago! Daisy was also kept in Jean's dad's herd for some time, so it'll be cool to see the place. :) Then we'll drive back and I'm pretty sure we'll keep her at Jean's house for the weekend. On Memorial day, Monday, May 25th, our 4H club is riding in a parade! That's going to be really cool, too. We're going to a parade in a small town near us, it's a quiet parade so it'll be good for our first time. We'll probably have 6-7 riders on horseback, and the rest of our club walking and holding a banner with our club name. (We are the Yautzy Road Yahoos... :-P) We're all wearing red, and riding with red saddle pads (red is officially our club color). It's going to be SO cool! I've wanted to do a parade with Daisy for awhile because I'm sure she'll do great. I love riding horses in situations where it could potentially be stressful, but we can work through it. I love the feeling of, in a way, "training" a horse to be "bomb-proof"...does that make sense? Like, the more experience, the better. :)
Then I will either trailer Daisy home for the week, or board her at Jean's (not decided yet)...We'll go to a pleasure show on Sunday, May 31st, probably riding western pleasure, and rackin' up points in Command class, which we rock at :P (and Trail class!!!!!!!)

Today I went to a horse show riding Scout, the new lesson pony Jean bought a few months ago. Remember him? He was a sick pony when she got him. Now he's a show pony! I could have ridden Daisy in the show, but I just didn't want to trailer her, and I didn't have a saddle, and we have the parade next week anyway. So I wasn't going to go at all, until Jean offered Scout this week. He's never been shown anywhere so Jean said it'd be good to have an experienced rider (verses one of the beginner lesson students). I rode Scout in a mounted meeting yesterday for the first time, and today in the show! It was a games show. He was GREAT! Jean recently purchased an 8 horse trailer, so we trailered 5 horses to the show, with one of our club members bringing another, and we all wore red and had a great time...Oliver got in a little accident with Bonita (who he's been riding and doing AMAZING with) so he ended up riding Bella once...Scout and I did keyhole as our first class(his first ever class) and we rode walk/trot (he's canter is minimal; he wasn't really ever taught to canter). We one first place! :D He was very good at the show, just excited in the beginning, and then he calmed down. Then we did pole bending, but he did two strides of canter (got a little too into it :-P) and we were disqualified. That's ok, though, we still got good pictures :-P. Unfortunately, the rest of the show ended up canceled because of severe thunder showers (I know, it looks so nice and sunny in the pictures! Hard to imagine that it started pouring :-/)

So that was today's experience...even though we only did two classes, it was a lot of fun; just riding around the grounds with the rest of the YRYs is always fun :). It was our first show as a group, and it was great! Can't wait for more! (We have mounted meetings weekly now; I'll probably "bum" a horse off people at Jean's barn for them, though, because I'm not trailering Daisy each week!)

Sorry this was so long and overdue...I've probably lost my readers by now. :)

Two Years of Joy and Learning

(Blue sky pics by me, middle pic by my Mom)

Two years ago today, I purchased my first horse, and you readers have followed me along almost as long, reading along as I experience the joy of owning her.

Daisy was not the perfect horse, to say the least. She still isn't. But I've learned so much. She's made me laugh so many times, been a comfort even more often, and is just always there to hang around with. I've decided that she's really just shy outwardly; she does love to be loved on. Her pinned ears show a nasty personality, but once you get past her head and scratch a little behind her ears, she's perfect.

As mentioned above, I've learned a ton. When I bought Daisy, I don't know how I did it. I knew nothing, zip, zero, zilch, about buying a horse. I went and "looked" at her without knowing what I was looking for. I wanted a horse I could ride. I still wonder what I was thinking...the first time I tried her out, she reared. And she wouldn't trot without crow-hopping. But I tried her out again. And bought her. Why? As I said in a post before, I had grown use to riding a horse (see here) that was challenging, and Daisy seemed to fit the part (*Understatement*). I fell in love with her personality pretty quickly; the way she pinned her ears like a monster, but how well-behaved she became after just a week of steady riding and reprimand. I've learned so much about the daily care of a horse that even riding lessons for 8 years can't teach you. How to deworm a horse, schedule farrier and vet appointments, deal with the drama of both, feeding schedules, providing hay, soaking a hoof in salt, etc (I have memories of all of these, some of which would have made me cry at the time, but at this point, I can only laugh at them, as it should be :)). There is a never-ending list of things to be done when you have a horse. I'm striving to make Daisy's life the best that I can, the best that I know how. I've learned that you can't set a person's opinion too highly, that you need to question it and find out things for yourself sometimes. That even though someone may tell you how to do something, and they always seem to know best, that there come times when you need to take matters in your own hands.

I've had a blast riding Daisy. She has those quirky days where I wonder again why I bought her in the first place, what I saw in her, when she is being so bad that certain day. But other days she impresses me and surprises me so much with her talent, that I wonder how anyone could have wanted to give her up. Sometimes I feel both in the same day.

She's also an awesome form of therapy. Bad day? Ride. Angry? Clean the stall like and lug hay bales to get that extra energy out (I must say that after owning her, I've gotten pretty strong). Sad? Give her a big huge hug :-P(for a horse that acts like she's mad all the time, she's a big sucker for hugs). Riding her is an endless learning process for both of us...from galloping her bareback for the first time and learning to balance while getting her to stop (haha, she loves to gallop), to teaching her to side pass, to, just today, getting her to finally do a right-lead canter. It's taught me to not always look to the biggest goal, but set little goals, and in that way, feel a big reward whenever that small goal is reached.

I've seen a glimpse of the show world, as well. When I bought Daisy, I didn't plan on showing, and didn't really want to. Then I did the county fair. She was amazing, and I had a ton of fun. After going to some local shows last fall, I had a reality check. I learned that Daisy did amazing at the county fair because the competition wasn't tough...so that was little let down. I've seen that Daisy isn't one of those slow stepping western pleasure horses, but she's also not a quick-like-a-bullet barrel racing horse, either. And I'm glad. Western pleasure horses? Pretty, but slow. oh so slow. I'm not sure I'd like that. Barrel racing horses? Fast. Very fast. but also hard to handle and pretty dangerous at times. Trail class stars like Daisy? Great. Because even though she's not top of the class in barrel racing or Western pleasure, she's great where, for me, it counts. I know I can ride her down a trail and not have to fear her spooking at something, and if she does, I know she's a sensible horse, and gets over it fast. We can ride on the road with cars and trucks speeding by, and she won't bat an eyelash.

For me, she's perfect. For others she may be too hard to handle, or not showy enough, or she may not have the greatest conformation, but for me, she's amazing. She's my dream come true. She's wonderful. I can't stress that enough. So maybe she's got her problems, but don't we all?

So in all, if I could redo the last two years, and buy her all over again, I'd do it again. It was so worth it. It's all a learning experience, with ups and downs, but so worth it.

Thank you, God, for blessing me with my Daisy-Mae. It was all in His plan.

Happy Anniversary, Daisy-Mae. To us. * insert sound of glasses containing apple juice clinking* (because Daisy likes apples and it looks likes champagne.)

Have a great Friday, everyone!

Spring Time, Spring Shots

For most horse owners, the arrival of springtime means the arrival of the veterinarian: the need to update vaccinations has come. No different here.
I had been using a very nice vet the last two spring times I was faced with, and I liked her...she was always very reasonable with price, and so patient with Daisy. (See last year's visit here.) Unfortunately, she wasn't willing to drive all the way out to our house this year, so Daisy took at little trip to Jean's farm. Jean gave her an "8-way" shot on Tuesday that covered a ton of stuff including Tetanus, and she didn't use the head stabilizer thing!(see the link from before to hear about that again). Daisy was really distracted because she knew I had treats in my sweater pocket, so Jean tapped her on the neck a few times, and one time she was tapping, she put the needle in. Daisy was like "oh, treats, yum" one minute and the next "Holy cow what was that?!" lol. But she just put her head up, and Jean screwed the vial of stuff in (The needle is separate; once you get it in, you attach the vial to it) and squirted it in. "Painless"! :)
Well, the next day was not painless. See Daisy's face below:

She looks a little strange...yeah...that was after. She was super sore from the shot, as normal, but extra sore this year. She didn't move her neck as normal; she moved it as little as possible, and was just depressed and just not as happy. The vet came to give her the rabies shot and take blood for her coggins, and I warned her that she was still sore. The vet went to pet her on the neck, and Daisy put her head up and was shaking so hard, she was so scared she'd get hurt again, my poor baby! <:-/ The vet put the little headgear thing on (as a precaution) and Daisy practically fell asleep in the aisle. Once she put the needle in for the rabies, Daisy barely flinched, and she moved backwards a little with the blood draw, but I just tightened the stabilizer, and she calmed down again. All good! Today we had an AMAZING day, she wasn't feeling bad anymore. More on today later on...Saturday or Sunday. I can't wait to tell you all about today! Just waiting for some extra pictures to add with the post... Tomorrow is Daisy and my 2 YEAR anniversary!!!!!!!

Until then,