It's melting!

You will note in the following pictures that I am still a lazy southerner. I had to shovel the gate to the paddock, but other than that, I firmly believe snow will melt faster than I can shovel it.

Look at how beautiful this place is when it's not actively snowing!


And how gloomy it is when it's overcast at dawn :(


Some little critter lives under my deck


Maybe a rabbit? I'm not good with snow prints.


Cersei thinks snow is awesome. She lives her life in all caps with three exclamation marks.


WHERE'S THE BALL!!! The camera couldn't handle all the white - the sky is actually bright blue.


HERE IT IS! IT'S GOT SNOW ON IT!!!


Here's a snow dog video :)

Snow dog! from Funder on Vimeo.

White Death '10

We're all gonna die!

Woke up right after it started snowing this morning. It's still pouring down snow. The weather forecast is all snowflakes for 5 days. As a hysterical southerner, I am officially declaring that the sky is falling. (it's made of fluffy frozen water if you wondered.)

Here's some pics on my Flickr.

Going to cheat death on the roads now. Tip a 40 for me if I never post again.

Always fun

It snowed some more today. We were completely unimpressed by it. I'm not even surprised that it's April and snowing! Random snow flurries are the new normal.

Yesterday I rode for a while and went some places, but that's the best I can tell you. Yep, I forgot the GPS! Eeek! I think we got close to the end of American Flat Road, circling around behind the Stead airport. I rode on land that's not supposed to have dirt bikes, and of course there were 5-6 dirt bikes, and of course Dixie lost her freakin' mind. We spent 20 minutes stuck on the side of a hill, doing one rein stops - every time I'd tell her to walk and point her down the hill, she'd try to take off and I'd haul her back around in a circle. It was way too far to walk, so I didn't want to get off, and she was way too hot, so I didn't want to let her trot down the hill. Yes, babe, dirt bikes do make scary noises, but you've heard them before, and I promise they won't eat you. Sigh.

When we got back, I worked a bit on trying to teach the sidepass from the ground with clicker training. I think the first step is to move a back leg over, then a front leg, then back-front-back-front. The first step of "move your back leg over" is "move your back leg, just a bit, without moving the others, and without going forward", so that's what we worked on. At first Dixie wanted to move forward, then she wanted to ignore the tapping, then she gave me a tiny bit of what I wanted, then she started moving into the pressure - sidepassing perfectly toward my whip arm. WTF? Took a break from it and did some reverse and some head down, then tried one more time and got a bit of what I was looking for and quit for the day.

Today I went out and did more clicker training. First we worked on the sidepass lesson again - she was a bit better, so I just repeated it a couple times on each side and then quit. Then we tried targeting, since there's actually a traffic cone in her paddock already. I am trying to gradually stretch out the distance so that one day she'll walk over, touch the cone, then walk back to me for her treat. Right now she just gets frustrated and starts pawing.

Whenever Dixie gets frustrated or impatient, she paws. She's always done it. It's actually what she's doing on trailer rides - not real kicking, just "why am I tied up standing still" pawing. I don't think it's something that I can effectively punish, and I've been hoping it would go away on its own, but it hasn't. Hmm.

Anyway, I did a bit of rope desensitization with her legs (not popular), then I played with her tail. Partly just because I should be able to, and partly because I think we need a crupper for down hills. I am not at all eager to actually try putting a crupper on her and then riding, so right now I just get off when the saddle scootches forward on downhills. But maybe one day I'll get up the nerve to do this insane thing, so I'm getting her used to having her tail messed with.

The last thing we did was at-liberty backing up. The first time, Dixie gave me one step of grudging reverse. Then we walked forward, stopped, and I asked her to back up again. She came forward and sideways and tried to slam me with her hip, so I smacked the hell out of it with the lead rope I was carrying. She leapt away, slung her head once, stopped, and looked at me. I said "Come here" and she walked over. She stopped when I raised my hand, then started backing up (straight and with impulsion!) when I said "back up." Much better! She's never easy, but she's always fun.

Semi-Annual PSA

Ok, I swear I will calm down about Dixie's feet unless she actually, you know, goes lame. They're fine. I know where the room for improvement is. I have a good local trimmer, and some great internet trimmers, and a rasp. She'll be fine.

Today I rode for a bit and took (and even printed!) some pics for her upcoming brand inspection thing. She looks like a yak, but at least she has a nicely combed fluffy mane. But that's another post - this is my PSA post.

If you haven't read it before, please read Animals in Translation. Your library probably has it, and if not, it's available used on Amazon for under five dollars. When else will you find a truly useful horse item for under five friggin dollars, yall?

There are tons of books that do a very good job of explaining horse behavior. There are lots of free scholarly articles about horse anatomy. This is the only book I ever read that really helped me understand how they think - not herd dynamics, and not vision and flight response stuff, but how their little brains process what they see. Temple Grandin has a convincing argument that animals perceive the world in a similar way to how autistic humans see the world. She didn't write a horse-training book - she's worked with cows way more than horses - but I've developed such a kind understanding of what horses go through from her book.

I am afraid I'll misrepresent something if I try to explain the book, so I'll just tell you about my ride and how it could've gone differently.

Dixie was peacefully snoozing in the snow when I got there. The other horses were standing guard as normal, and it was just her turn to take a nap. She was pretty pleased to see me, and walked about halfway to meet me! That's unusual for her - usually I have to walk up to her and hold out the halter, then she sticks her nose in it and follows me politely. I led her out of the gate and she got very excited. I walked her around and let her nose the earth moving equipment, the muddy gravel, and the snowy areas for a while. Then I saddled up, mounted, and we rode out.

It took a long time to get out of the gate. She needed to stop and stare way more often than usual, and she had to drop her head and nuzzle the snow every few steps. She wasn't trying to panic and turn around for home, and she wasn't terrified - just very inquisitive and unwilling to barge on ahead. When we got to the road, I asked her to walk down the cleared muddy gravel road, instead of on the verge where we usually walk. I didn't want her to step in a hole I'd forgotten and feel trapped and freak out. She really wanted to walk in the snow, and we kept renegotiating. She kept doing the very strange nuzzle the ground and look around thing.

We moseyed very slowly down the road to where the trail branches off. I knew we weren't going to get far, but I asked her to walk off into the snow on the trail (like she wanted to do all along!) We got just a few strides off the road and the whole thing got to be too much for her, and she started getting nervous. I asked her to turn around and walk home really calmly, and she did. I had to half-halt like 17 times in a row at first, but then she settled in to a nice calm fast walk home.

Here's what I saw today: The exact same place we've been riding, almost every day, for the last three months. There was snow, but all the landmarks were clearly visible, and the road was even uncovered.

Here's what she saw: Something completely different. An alien world covered in alien white stuff, and a road that didn't look or smell or feel like the road she's used to.

I could've gotten mad, because the damn horse was so complacent about the damn snow that she was laying down in it! And we barely got out of sight of her buddies! This trip was so close to home that there's just no WAY she could really be afraid! Argh stupid hateful yak of a horse, always ruining my fun!

But I didn't get mad. As soon as I led her out of the paddock and she started acting so peculiar and curious, I realized I wasn't seeing what she was seeing. Horses don't generalize well, and they don't seem to remember the way we do, and it was a different world for her. She was used to the snow in the pasture, but that didn't generalize to snow outside of the pasture. Nothing smelled the same. Nothing looked the same. Everything was covered in white stuff that didn't taste like anything. Even the road, which might have been familiar, was wet - a state she has never before seen it in.

Once I looked at the day from her point of view, she was a fantastic companion. She wasn't scared! She got nervous when we walked into the snow, but before that, she wasn't even remotely upset about it. She needed a lot of extra time to process what she was seeing and smelling and hearing, but she wasn't upset. That is a huge improvement for us. I am so very happy with both of us!

Anyway, the book does a really good job of giving you a paradigm to view your horse's behavior through. Temple Grandin is, of course, a human, so her book isn't any more infallible than anyone else's. Nobody will ever know what horses really ARE seeing, smelling, thinking. But Grandin's "thinking in pictures" paradigm holds up pretty well to my real world experiences with real live horses, and I bet it would hold up to yours too.

Lazy holiday!

I'm not merely neglecting my blog, I'm neglecting all of my friends' blogs and my horse and the kitchen too.

Thursday we had a private Thanksgiving feast. I thought it was partially really nice, not having to go anywhere or get dressed up, and partially really lonely, for the exact same reasons. My husband loved it - he can't really relax if he's got Something To Do coming up, so holidays are usually very tense for him. (Me? I can sleep on anybody's couch if I'm full and there's football on!)

We didn't do turkey. I have actually never cooked a turkey! Ever! They're so big, and so inherently bland. The biggest bird I've ever cooked was a goose for Christmas a couple years ago. I'd be willing to try a wild turkey, or maybe a small free-range heirloom bird, but not a grocery store turkey. That's because turkey is vastly inferior to the traditional alternative, HAM. I made a brown-sugar ham, mashed potatoes, ham gravy, green beans, and rolls - all homemade, of course. I meant to take a picture but by the time the last few pieces came together I'd forgotten all about it.

After stuffing myself, I promptly fell asleep on the couch listening to the ballgame. Ahhh, now that's Thanksgiving.

Friday's weather was overly dramatic. It was in the 50s when I headed out to see Dixie at noon, but there was snow coming in by 4. WTF? ~C trailered out with Diego to ride with us, which was totally cool for everybody concerned. Diego got to see scary new things, and C got to see my nice trails, and Dixie got a buddy, and I got good conversation. Cersei got to scare the pants off poor Diego, too - SIGH.

I had an internal timer going - I wanted to get back with the horses in time for them to cool down and dry off completely before the wind really picked up, and for me to get down the mountain and headed home before the snow started. I figured we'd have plenty of time to do the Mines slowly, and we actually did. Unfortunately I (accidentally) turned off the GPS at 1.61 miles, but we did about 3.5 miles in maybe 1:20.

Diego started out doing that Arab Tigger thing, and Dixie wasn't exactly modeling calmness either. I think she suspects she can't outrun him. My theory is that Dixie likes having other horses around because you don't have to run faster than the bear, just faster than your friends. Anyway, Diego was pretty bouncy so C led him til his tail went down, then rode, then walked, etc. He's doing that green horse thing where he's much, much happier if his human is in front being the bold leader, rather than up on his back. I have walked more miles than I (redneck that I am) care to admit in front of my own silly mare!

Dixie really thought we should run home when we turned the "magic corner." I had to get up in her mouth more than I like, but she didn't actually even break to a trot and I didn't have to circle or yell or get frustrated and get off - she listened! Once I got her attention, it was just miles of constant half-halts, which is tiresome to ride but effective. It was very good for both of us - we both like to go fast, but she is not in TWH race training.

I forget that other people don't ride with small yellow dogs on a constant guard circle. Cersei popped up behind Diego in a canyon at one point and the poor fellow jumped straight up in the air and bucked once. Luckily C was leading him, and to his great credit he settled right back down. I made sure to keep Cersei on point after that!

It was a very good ride. We live an annoying distance apart - it takes about 45 minutes for C to trailer up to Spanish Springs - but hopefully we'll keep riding together once a week or so!

Everything went perfectly according to my timer - we got the horses cooled off before the wind got too bad, and I got home right as it started to snow. I took some pictures of the Overly Dramatic Weather from the grocery store parking lot on the way home - these are like an unstitched panorama.

Looking west:


South:


Southeast (with bonus seagull!):


A snow cloud ate Peavine! Our apartment is at the very base of the peak you can barely see.



It snowed an inch that afternoon, then NOTHING. Graham and I were all excited because the weather swore up and down we'd get 1-3" overnight. We got nothing!

Yesterday was very lazy. I read two books and ate a lot of tangerines. Today I'm getting back in the saddle!