Just another Day on the Farm

Well on tonights ride, I got to have a bit more of a challange then I expected.. I started out just fine with grooming, tacking and didn’t do much ground work, perhaps I should have but you see a storm was moving in and I didn’t have long for light anyway, all I wanted was a short ride and to do a few drills etc..

It started out great, until I thought, lets take that though gate, and she refused on the first pass, I pushed the issue and she was great, though the gate, though the correl and into the back corner, we were doing awesome and then we turned the corner of the big barn, sheep, big flappy blue tarp, huge gust of wind though the corn and pigeons went up and she spooked, and went sideways, I reacted and turned her to go behind the barn and out, she wanted to go the other way.

I said, no, she said yes, I said no, she crowhopped, I said no, she said, yes, I said no and she bucked, twice with a sliding crowhop and a butt turn, now I have been worried for as long as I have had her, what am I going to do if and when she decides its time to challange me and give a little buck, I was truly worried, did I still have the skills need, did I still have the balance, I could really hurt myself if I ended up on the ground..

First rule, as far as I was concerned was unless unsafe to do so.. stay on the horse!

So here is what I learned..

I won the battle, I didn’t even come close to getting bucked off (not that she was really trying, she was just testing me) I had the knowledge and skills and while we might have done a few more kiss your butt cicles then I want to admit to get control back and to get her back though the different pastures, I did keep control..

Second, when that happens and I was young, it was just funny or even a bit exciting, when it happen at 39, it gives you butterflies in the tummy, and for me at least, shaking hands and legs as I was trying to calm myself down, I rode her out till I got to where DH was and had him take the bridle, while I did breathing until both myself and brandy were centered and then I road her around the pasture and dismounted and worked her on the ground for awhile and then we just sat together

So that was written last night, this is a crossover post, I have had a bit of time to think about it, and I still can’t really seeing it going different then it did, I can work her more about the pigoens, I can proof her a bit more on the flapping tarps, and I can work on the fence line  with the corn, the great thing is, I don’t feel the need or urge to say, well, I could be more careful, that thought really is not there..  What is there is that we can get though it together.. we are a team and its all about leadership and trust.. I lead, she trusts me, I trust her that on movement, feet placement, that’s her job, working together we will keep each other safe and sound.

So if you ride, did you noticed a big difference in how your body reacted to a little buck?

http://canadianbrandygirl.wordpress.com/

Ok, I take way to many photos of Brandy and want to blog about her far to much on the main blog LOL, I don’t want to take away from a good mix on the regular blog so here is my heads up that I have created Brandy her own blog spot so that I can blog about her lots without feel guilt 🙂

Don’t worry I will continue to post about her on this blog as well, keeping you in the loop on fun stuff and in terms of small farm use etc..

Everyone had a great day!

I am well aware that come very early spring, I will have more milk per day on the farm then I have ever had and I will be honest, when I was getting a gallon of goats milk per day, I struggled to find enough uses for it in the house but given that Girl will most likely give me around six gallons, I am planning on feeding skim milk to the different critters to help cut feed costs and are going into it knowing this.. X amount to the calf, X amount to the house and X amount for critter use..

I have not had pork that was raised on fresh milk in many, many years! but look forward to finding out if the real thing is still as good as my mind remembers it..

I can’t wait to introduce my hubby to homemade cultured grass-fed butter, because honestly there is nothing quite like it.. I have already decided that next year will be year of the cheese, when if I mess up making a cheese, it won’t matter, it can go to the pigs or the chickens and there will be lots of milk the next day to try again.

Everyone on the farm is dry right now, and there is no where local to me to get fresh bottled whole milk from a small dairy, I am craving it to the point that i am darn near ready to drive to kingston and pick up a couple bottles as that is the closest small farm dairy that I can get to.. I have one ewe due in Dec and she is a very heavy milker, even if she has twins it won’t be hard to get a pint a day off of her in the first part of her cycle, but that is still a long ways off..

Do you ever get this same craving when your milking critters dry up for the year?

Well, was I in for a surprise when I went to do my morning barn chores, as I walked in, movement caught my eye, it was dark and it was moving and I thought ” Rat” with it quickly turning to O, piglet! and then as I walked down the main walk way, I say five of them had got out and were exploring the inside of the barn and all where running back for the safety of the momm’a pen, they were kind enough to show me how they got out as they got back in.. its amazing how small of a space they can sneak under, I have placed and nailed a board there and hope that it will fix it.

We spent time on the past weekend set up not only a extra play area but also with their own food and water for creep feeding, its not been going so well, they root and they play but they don’t eat the feed, but I have noticed that they are very interested in any “real” food that is being given to momma, so today it was a nice baked off sqaush and they were right in there nibbling away.

I can’t get over how well they are all growing, I have been blessed with very healthy piglets, while there is a fair diffence in size from the smallest to the biggest but the overall growth has been outstanding.. I am ideally going to try and take a new video each friday as they are going up for the next while.. Enjoy..

http://youtu.be/Y0Yl22XjVhU

So this is how this started, you see on facebook I joined this awesome group that is for “plus” size gals that like to ride and its a hoot. A couple of the ladies swear they had done this and it was a ragin success and so much fun, they had taken a pumpkin, stuffed it with some lovely healthy horse treats, apples, carrots, horse treats etc and then given it to the horses who would play with them, roll them around, stomp them etc etc.

Now they said pie pumpkins but do you think i could find a pie pumpkin after the canadian thanksgiving but before the hallaween, no way, only carving pumpkins, so after stopping at more stores then you want to know, I got two of the smallest carving pumpkins I could find and I got up and made the pumpkin, as you can see, I cut apple eyes, with cranberries for that helpful red eye look 🙂 A long carrot nose and a drooling cabbage tongue

After bugging the hubby to get up and come watch what I was sure would be a fun time, I headed out and called the horse to follow me, which he did.. so here is the rest of the story!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNOSvh_brBM&feature=youtu.be

Go down

Can’t watch youtube? The horse eat the carrot, rolled it enough to apple out and then wanted cuddles more then she wanted to play with the pumpkin, the cows licked it and walked away, the sheep smelled it and walked away, I finally gave up and took it to Miss Piggy, who was interested but walked away from it once she got the easy things out and I finally had to break it open with my boot and then she went crazy for it..

Now I must say that I never realized just how much of a dork I sound on video before so forgive my o so girl voice and the fact that I talk to my pig like she is a very cute three year old, its really odd, I don’t even use that little childrens voice with little children, so why do I do it with my critters? None the less clearly I do..

Still I have one more pumpkin, I am trying to decide if I want to try carving holes, filling it with sweetfeed and just putting it out and seeing what happens or ?

I came home yesterday after a health treatment (which while I know it was a good thing, lets me more sore afterwards then before.. ouch!) and was greeted with this picture of everyone resting together, napping and chewing cuds in the mid-afternoon sun relaxing by the hay feeder.. Its so nice to see them bonding, Girl is going to be very lonely when I take away Marty as they groom and sleep with each other all the time but this gives me hope that Girl and Brandy will bond as the two keepers.