Macho Horse Rally is back at the keyboard-
I tried to make the annoying spotted thing look dumb again the other day, but dude's girlfriend wouldn't stop laughing long enough to realize how dumb the annoying spotted thing is. It's weird that they call her Sugar, she's annoying, not sweet. The annoying spotted thing eats my hay, she follows me around, she DOES EVERYTHING I DO!!! The only good thing spotted thing ever did was let us out to eat all the hay all night, but even then she cut herself and whined about it all night.
Anyways, back to my story,I told spotted thing there were treats in the bottom of the sawdust box on wheels. They bring it around after they scoop up my droppings. The annoying spotted thing went in while they were putting more sawdust down, took a deep breath, and stuck her nose the whole way to the bottom of the box. She dug, and fluffed, and wiggled her weird spotted head back and forth, and she still couldn't find the treats (hehehe). The weird spotted thing was in all the way up to her eyes. Therefore, to get out she blew all the sawdust out of the box, and all over the inside of the barn. Dude's girlfriend just laughed, and laughed. HELLO, annoying spotted thing just made a huge so-called mess all over the barn???

Barefoot when possible, shoes when necessary

Dear Sugar,
After two years of searching for the perfect barefoot trimmer to come and see your bestie, Rally, I have finally found THE ONE!!! And now that you are part of the family, your little tootsies will get the star treatment as well:)
Rally has perfect barefoot hooves. He came to us without shoes, with hard, sturdy, never hurting hooves. In order to keep them that way, I've been looking on all the natural hoofcare websites to find a trimmer that would fit my guidelines. I knew that I would have a horse one day as well, and therefore not all the criteria were for Rally the SuperGelding. I e-mailed everyone on the lists and no one ever came near my little town, and those that did were the crazy barefooters or the crazy shoe people.
And last week, I found Patty Lynch. Her philosophy is the title of today's blog, and I can't wait to hear her opinions on everything. Yay SuperGelding and MoodyMare your feet will soon be taken care of!!!

First Commenter

Side note :)
I got my first comment on my blog!!! YESS Thank you Wolfie!!

If I can get it to work the picture here is another snow picture from Saturday!!

It's snowing!!

After the eight inches of snow that fell last week, I decided I wanted some shots of Miss. Sugar in the snow. I took my camera to the barn with me and lo and behold...it started snowing again!!! Sugar was very intrigued by the camera and that's why I was able to get such adorable shots of her. I'll probably be adding them a few at a time, but this one is my favorite.
Rally doesn't appreciate the flash of the camera which is understandable. He also is no longer camera sensitive because he's been around longer and I love to take pictures.
I was able to groom Sugar on Saturday and she was a star. She rested her head on my shoulder for a while which made everything right in my world!!!

PS-I used Picnik to create the effects for this photo...I turned it black and white and then un-turned just Sugar. I'm experimenting with it and I think I have a cool creation with Rally in it!!

Rally, the SuperGelding

Rally made me laugh again yesterday. Sugar and Rally share a paddock with access to their own two stalls. They eat hay together twice a day out of an old water trough. They basically spend all their waking minutes side by side.
So the barn owner forgot to get feed for Sugar and two other horses at the barn. My boyfriend buys Rally his own feed as part of his contract. So Rally had feed and Sugar didn't. I dumped feed into a hang-onto-fence bucket and hung it on the board portion of the fence, which happens to be on Sugar's side of their hay trough. Of course she walks right up and takes a bite. Rally was having none of this, and tried to push Sugar's face out of the bucket, which didn't work. SO he bit the side of the bucket and yanked it right out from under Sugar's mouth!!
As always, Rally's intelligence amazes me!

The horses are in the back yard!!

So a month ago, Sugar and Rally got out of their stalls, and into the barn, and had a free for all on the hay and feed (which had been in previously locked bins). It was the general assumption that someone had left one of their stall doors open. Sugar cut her front left fetlock that night as well.
Sunday morning, I went to feed, and opened the barn door, walked over to the feed bins, turned around and saw Sugar walking right out of her stall. Rally was half a step behind. I yelled at Rally to get back in there, and being the wonderful gelding he is, he did. I turned around to grab Sugar (who had wandered right over to the feed bins) and Rally ran out of the barn door.
Great.
Sugar saw him run out, spun, and took off after him. It's an amazing feeling to watch your horses running out of the barn door, away from you. Sort of like that old phrase...
After some play time in the yard, they went right to grazing. Rally the Superstar stood patiently while I put his halter on. Sugar the mare decided she hadn't been grazing in FOREVERRRR and didn't even want to pick her head up. Finally she did and then tried to walk me back to the barn. AHEM, mare, let's have a come to Jesus meeting before this goes any further.
And today, both horses are back in their paddock/stalls with modified latch.

Sugar

I just realized I never introduced Sugar!!
Sugar is my new horse!! She's three years old, and is a registered Paint. Her registered name is Custom Sugar Bitz. Her daddy is Cutom Imprint, a halter horse. I'm forgetting her mom's name at the moment, but I'll get back to you on that!! She's bred for halter for sure, but she was never trained, conditioned, or fed for it.

I'm not normally a fan of paints, and in fact I never, ever planned on owning one. But I was horseless, and Sugar was there. The lady that owns the barn where Sugar lives asked me to exercise her because she had to put Sugar up for sale. They hated to do it, but they were in between a rock and a hard place. So, I actually bought another horse (that ended up being unsound, and untrained and ultimately sent back to it's former owner) in the meantime, and started exercising Sugar. Sugar had sixty days of professional training on her, and was then pretty much turned out to enjoy life.
As I hung out with Sugar, she picked things up and wandered around with the un-spookiness of a fifteen year old trail pony. I rode her all over the farm. She sold herself to me, and I knew I had to have her. I worked out a payment plan and a price on a horse that I never could have afforded otherwise.
Then I decided I wanted to learn some Dressage and that it would do Sugar some good to learn it. I put her back into real work, something she hadn't experienced for at least six months.
I know all of Sugar's history, and i love it. The lady that owns the barn where we keep the horses(and my old horse Annie lived here as well) won Sugar in a raffle when she was six months old. She's with me for life and I can't wait to see what this will bring. My blog will now shift to our training escapades and my life with Sugar. I think of Pride every day and I hope that Sugar and I have a bond that will come close to what Pride and I had so quickly.