A Bedtime Story

When we last visited our favorite princess pony she was in the grip of an evil spell. Her Prince Charming had betrayed her and put her under his control. Winter had overtaken the land, and there was much sorrow.

Thankfully, there was still hope shining on the horizon.

In the nick of time, our intrepid blogger rescued the princess and separated her from her not so charming prince. Despite his best efforts to keep her under his spell, the distance was too great and by the very next day she forgot his charms. Happiness and calm reigned once more, and peace returned to the farm.

Even Mother Nature rejoiced, as the rains receded, summer resumed, and the pasture lands were restored to the ponies.

And everyone lived happily ever after. The end :)

Redux

We're currently experiencing a crazy amount of rain! I'm actually a weird person who likes rain, so I don't mind at all, especially given how dry it's been and all the associated water shortages and fire danger that goes with that.

The horses seem to be loving it too and last I checked were still standing out there getting pressure washed by mother nature.

Sophie had a rather large amount of burrs in her forelock this afternoon, so I thought I'd be a good owner and get some detangler on that and give her her daily vitamins and minerals at the same time.

Pictures obviously not from today - unless you have underwater gear its not camera or phone appropriate weather out there.

Except, sorry T, that is the wrong thing to do according to Miss Sophie. You see, she still can.not.function if she's not immediately next to and in sight of her boyfriend. He loses his mind, she loses hers.

I know, I know, this could be a great learning opportunity. But, well, I was kind of just over it. So, off we went and I tied her at the barn to groom her rather than mess around with a frantic pony on the loose in her paddock. And the screaming and dramatics were pretty intense. Interestingly, her boyfriend is actually the worse of the two, but she's a bit of a drama queen and feeds off whatever energy is around her so she's guilty of playing the part of silly herdbound horse too!

Not sure what was so interesting about the wall :)

It's no excuse, but I'd had a tough day until that point and was rapidly losing patience with the screaming and dancing around. Normally, I'm very patient, but not so much today. Of course, see above about S feeding off whatever energy is available... so mine was only making it worse. At that point, the barn owner's husband came to chat. He's a mechanic and I have an old car and truck, and so we got to looking at my car and planning the remaining work on the truck and generally chatting.....

And, about an hour later I was like "Oh sh*t! I'm the worst horse person ever, I walked away and forgot I left my horse tied out in the rain! Gotta go!"

It was suspiciously quiet, and since S was historically fairly good at breaking ties and halters when I got her (now she just unties herself - small win?), I assumed she'd got loose and was probably visiting her boyfriend.

But, when I walked out of the shop to look,  Sophie was quietly standing at the rail, right where I left her, one leg cocked, dozing in the rain.

Kind of like this, but wet.

Lesson of the day: Walking away and ignoring your horse isn't a bad thing, sometimes. Probably don't forget them out in the rain if you can help it though.

Lesson 2 of the day: Sometimes you need to give yourself an easy win. Instead of putting Sophie back in her paddock, I moved her to a different one away from her lover. Yes, she needs to learn to be less herdbound, but so does he and maybe having the two of them next to each other just isn't fair at this point in time. She's back next to the minis and the old draft horse, none of which she's particularly fond of, and that's maybe just what everyone's sanity needs right now.

S was upset to find that she's not able to hang out with her friend anymore and some frustration was expressed over that. Hormones are hard. She settled down after a bit though, and I am hopeful that my next visit to the barn will be peaceful!

Last week. I put her next to her buddy 5 days ago and I can see shes lost weight since this picture. She was too obsessed over him to eat her hay. So crazy.

I put Bridget next to S's lover, so he still has a friend to obsess over. Of course, Bridget doesn't care about that, so it's all good.

I know from reading your blogs that some of you have similar horsey pairs that it's best to not trailer or stable with. It's interesting how the dynamics work. S is very brave and calm with me alone or with Bridget or another quiet horse, but the insecure, high energy buddy was definitely not doing her any favors!

Fingers crossed we'll get back on track this weekend. I think a part of the recent pony drama is that I have been busy and Sophie is the kind of pony who will do best with a regular schedule and plenty to keep her busy. Once she's under saddle, that will be a bit easier to accomplish.

A final misty picture from yesterdays ferry ride, just for Lytha

The Marey-est of Them All

Mirror, mirror...who is the marey-est of them all?

It's not a secret that I'm no fan of screaming horses. So, maybe it shouldn't surprise you that I'm also not much of a fan of mare drama.

 Don't get me wrong, I like mares. I might even prefer them to geldings. But the hormonal, peeing everywhere, screeching, kicking, can't function because a gelding looked at them kind? I've always been grateful I don't own one of those.

And, once again the universe laughs at me, because Sophie is all that, plus the high pitched screaming. I've been trying to pretend its not real, or just a passing phase, but yeah, she's pretty darn emotional.

Today was a bit of a struggle for us both. I moved her to a field with more grass this morning. She realized she had a cute neighbour gelding half a second later, and was in raging heat half a second after that. Such joy.

Lovely.

I returned later in the afternoon to ride Bridget and take Sophie for an outing, and by then Sophie was in full on obsessive gelding stalker mode. Also, covered in pee, because that's cute.

Dramatic reenactment of creepy stalking, post outing (The sweaty saddle marks give it away)

She could.not stand tied out of his sight. She screamed incessantly. He returned the screaming. It took me about 30 minutes to groom and tack her up because we needed frequent groundwork breaks to get her focus back on me and her immediate surroundings.

Looking good, tho. Just need a brain install and she'll be pretty decent ;)

Off we ventured down the road. I opted to bring the longe line and just go to the arena - it seemed a good idea to give her a job and burn off some off the feelings.

She started out ok on the longe, then realized it felt like work and decided to try opting out. Then she had to work harder and got sweaty, and apparently being sweaty is very, very NOT OK when you are a princess and a cute guy is waiting for you at home.

I actually had to be a bit tough on her which honestly I find difficult to do. I tend to be on the too encouraging/easy side of the spectrum, and so there came a time with Bridget when she was quite willing to give me the tiniest effort and think that was more than adequate :) I'd like to avoid that with Sophie, so I'm trying to keep the expectations very consistent. ie her feelings or our surroundings on any given day don't get to be an excuse to compromise on effort or focus.

And so, we worked hard. There was rearing, there was kicking. There was bolting. There was basically every action she could think of to make it clear to me she had other, more important things on her mind. Too bad I'm the most important thing she needs to worry about ;) Long story short, I had to be tough and we got to a good place. Princess Mare was totally tuned in to me, new boyfriend forgotten.

The walk home was silent. It was quite peaceful and enjoyable, actually.

Untacking was also quiet, easy, peaceful. Princess Pony, Ruler of Mares, was gone as if she never existed.

The good thing is that she's quite young, so I can hope challenges like today's will be a good education for daily life in a busier barn or at shows where she'll have different trailer mates and neighbours. Crossing fingers hard the dramatics get less as she gains life experience and I do my best to be calm and consistent.

I ran out of time, so Bridget will have to wait for another day. I'm pretty sure she's OK with that :)

Bridget's face, watching Sophie be ridiculous. She's not a fan, it disturbs her grazing serenity ;)