Merry Christmas

Our annual horse torturing picture day happened on Sunday. The horses behaved beautifully and enjoyed the extra attention.

Merry Christmas from the Bionic Cowgirl, Washoe, Alloy, and Reba!

Time to Visit the Cousins

This is GunDiva. The daughter.

(500 Allenspark Lodge points if you know where that intro's from. (1000 Once Upon A Miracle points if you know where the points came from.))

For several years now, the "Allenspark Cousins" have been wintering with the "Wild Ones" down at our place. While the Bionic Cowgirl and I both prefer to turn the horses out on winter pasture where they can just be wild, we are no longer are able to send them away for winter camp, so instead they move down to our place until after the last snowstorm in May.

Last weekend was our annual Baking Weekend, which coincided with horse moving day. Jessica, who has trained all of the horses, with the exception of Washoe, came up to move them from the lodge down to my place.

Alloy *hates* Mom's trailer. Hates it. Last year, we spent two days trying to get him to load to go down the hill before calling Jessica to come get him. He loaded like a champ into her trailer, of course. 

Jerk.

Anyway ...

Jessica was kind enough to come up and play horse uber again.

Patiently awaiting their uber

Mom spent some time grooming and loving on them while they waited. The pictures make it look a lot colder out than it actually was. She was all bundled up for the wind, not so much the cold.

Once the uber arrived, she lead them across the street to their ride down.

They really are good horses,
even if they both make me
crazy once in a while.

Big Al had minor opinions about getting on the trailer, but it took only a few times of in and out for him to stay in. Mom and Jessica found out last time she hauled Al, that he prefers to ride backward, so once he got on the trailer and stayed, she backed him the rest of the way in and closed the gate. Easy peasy.

In ...

... in ...

... out ...

Backing into his spot

Success!

Washoe loads on voice command, so getting him into the big, spacious trailer took no more than a "load up" from Mom, then they were on their way.

I headed into the lodge, only to find that my girls had been taking a break to watch the show.

Front row seats

Luckily, there wasn't much of a show this time and we were able to get back to our baking.

Bad Cop, Good Cop

 

Saturday, March 19^th, 5:00 p.m.

Phone rings.  “Hi Scott.  How are you?”  “Juanita, I just wanted to call and let you know I moved the horses from the north section to the south.”  “OK, thanks.”  “I really called to tell you … that brown horse of yours ….” 

Oh, oh.  What has Alloy done now?  Apparently, after getting caught, loaded, and moved, Al had decided he couldn’t get out of the trailer fast enough, so he went charging out backwards, breaking the hay string that had been used on his halter to lead him and load him.  (We tend to use whatever is handy to move our horses around, be it a dog leash, hay string, belt, whatever – as they are generally very good about it.)  There was no way anyone was going to get near him again.  So we got the call that we now had a horse loose in a very large pasture with a halter on; an absolute no-no in all our books.

 We headed the 18 miles down off the mountain to see if we could be of help.  Fortunately, the time was just right for us to use our own canyon to make the trip.  Our canyon is under construction to fix flood damages from 8 years ago and you can only drive it certain times of the day.  We got to the pasture, found the horses and discovered we also were not going to get near them; even my boy who comes at a trot when I call said, “not now, there’s grass!”

                                        Washoe is the white horse, Alloy is hidden behind him.

We decided to just come back the next day and ‘walk them down’.  Sunday dawned bright and sunny.    This time Washoe walked right up to me and let me brush all the mud off, a good deal of winter hair, and detangle the dreadlocks from his mane; all without a halter.  We spent the morning walking the pasture behind a stubborn bay horse with a more stubborn black mare, who seems to have become the lead mare and wanted nothing to do with Alloy getting caught.  Washoe went back to the other horses and started grazing and the two errant horses decided to circle them.  You would have thought they were inside a 30 ft. round pen, instead of on 30 acres of pasture.  

 Fortunately, the mare is not the endurance horse Alloy is, and finally tired and joined the others grazing.  That made the circling game not so fun any longer and Alloy finally joined them after a few more circles. Bill did almost all the ‘lunging’ while I stayed on the outside incase one of them decided to leave the circle.  Finally, Bill walked back to the car for some water and more snacks.  In the interim Al decided to just hang with the others so I walked into the group and started rubbing faces.  Guess who wanted his face rubbed, too?  After a couple of attempts, he stood still when I offered him an oat granola bar in exchange for his halter.  He was very still while I unbuckled it, then almost forgot his oat bar.  He sooo wants to still be a wild horse! 

The whole process really only took three and a half hours.  Bill said Alloy considered him the ‘bad cop’ and me the ‘good cop’.  What a great way to spend a gorgeous day – with the horses.

Bionic Cowgirl

SoSo the Mustang

(This isn't really my story to tell, but Autobot gave me permission to write a short post about SoSo.)

Over the summer, Autobot's (now ex) boyfriend's mother gifted her a 15 year old gorgeous bay mare, Sofia Sonador. No one knew much about her history. SoSo had been given to Autobot's (now ex) boyfriend's mother nine-ish years before (maybe more - like I said, not my story so background details are fuzzy). She'd been saddled, but blew up and threw herself over, busting the saddle. After that, she was turned out to pasture.

She was given to Autobot, since it was felt that she needed a home where she could work and be loved. And, boy, was SoSo loved.

For a titled mustang (which means someone adopted her, successfully completed their one year BLM adoption period, and received her title), she'd spent most of her life with minimal human contact. And then Autobot came along. SoSo was a quick learner and took to Autobot right away.

Within three days of working with her, Autobot was in a saddle, being led around. Apparently, there was one incident in which SoSo put her into the fence and glanced her with a hoof, but otherwise it went pretty smoothly.

(Picture stolen from Autobot's IG account)

After a few days' work at SoSo's old home, it was time to move her to the lodge, where Autobot could work with her more consistently.

Sofia fit into the herd nicely and progressed quickly with her almost daily walks around the neighborhood. Autobot started Sofia the same way we start all of our horses on the mountain - with lots of walks and desensitization. First, in a halter only, then adding in the tack.

She's stunning.

I love this picture. SoSo's so in tune with Autobot, she looks like she adores her.

SoSo progressed so quickly, in fact, that she came down to participate in our HallowEquine party, hosted by the USWHBA.

Jesse and Bullseye from Toy Story

The trainer who had been working with Skeeter was there, and had given Autobot a few lessons on Skeeter and Pearl, so she offered to work with them for a bit in the round pen.

I was so impressed with Sofia. Skeeter was at the trailer being a hot mess - screaming, pulling back, generally looking like an unbroke horse - while Sofia calmly took in everything around her and did everything Autobot asked her to. What a great old lady.

After a bit in the round pen, Autobot took SoSo down to the obstacle course for a look around. And SoSo acted like she'd seen that craziness (including the llama) every day of her life, so Autobot climbed back on for a few steps.

With everything going on around her, she was cool as a cucumber. There were easily 20 horses in attendance at the party, all of them doing different things, and she was completely focused on Autobot. The trainer asked if Autobot wanted to go into the arena and work some more. (Wish I had pictures of that!) SoSo did so well in the arena - with the exception of one moment of thinking she wanted to buck that Autobot got ahead of and changed her mind - that they went on a baby trail ride from the arena to the trailer.

I can't imagine getting my first real ride in an environment like that. I mean, Alloy has a lot more saddle time and still lost his mind and bucked Bill off (Bill's okay, and climbed right back up on Alloy, who found his brain by then).

We'd decided that SoSo hadn't had enough time to bond with Mom and Bill's herd, and we were worried that turning her loose on 60 acres with horses she hadn't fully bonded with was a recipe for disaster. So the plan was for her to come and winter with our herd. I was looking forward to having Autobot and SoSo around to ride with and we were all looking forward to riding on the mountain next year.

I live in Weld County, where rabies is endemic, and we have cases of it every year, so vaccination is a must. In preparation for her trip down to our place, the vet visited just two days after the HallowEquine party and gave her all of her shots, as well as did her teeth. The next morning, when Mom went out to feed, Sofia Sonador was gone. She'd had a delayed allergic reaction to the rabies vaccine and passed away in her sleep. (We had a necropsy done, as she'd shown no signs of a reaction in the two and a half hours the vet was there.)

Our hearts were broken, and many tears were shed over the little bay mare who had come into Autobot's life for such a brief period of time. However, I take comfort (and I hope Autobot does too) in the fact that SoSo was so-so incredibly loved and happy. Sofia loved living on the mountain, having a job, and she loved her girl.

Sofia Sonador and her girl

(This post wasn't meant to be a downer, but to celebrate an amazing little mare. It wouldn't be right to ignore the fact that she was a part of the herd, no matter how briefly.)