Day 61

What was the hardest working day in a while turned out to be the most fun I've had with horses since we moved to the new stable.
I already told you that we decided not to go to the Springfield show this weekend, which means that we had to truck back everything we brought home for the show.
Before arrival, we realized we forgot one important thing: all of the head gear. We can ride at least Brie bareback, but with just a halter on? I don't think so. My mom was thoroughly upset while I took it as a good sign: now we'd be able to work with Nina without the pressure of wanting to ride!

That all ended once we walked in the stable. The stalls were FILTHY, like they haven't been cleaned for days, and there wasn't a scrap of hay in any of the holders. Not again, we thought. This kind of incident has happened too often in our horse-owning history. It's been really good at the stable now because of Paco. Paco is amazing at staying on top of the cleaning and handiwork around the stable; but he is at the show this weekend as well, cleaning and being on top of handiwork over there. I don't even know who was hired to clean and feed, but to say it was disappointing is to say the least. So we broke open a bale of hay, flaked it up, and fed it to the horses on our side. Later on, the electrician said he saw the temporary help feeding at 6 AM. Oh. Well that would make sense why there's no food in the holders. At least it was only hay. Lunch won't hurt them (horses are actually supposed to be fed three times day, but at most places are only fed twice).

We put the horses outside and my parents, my brother, and I got to cleaning stalls. We had to strip down Nina and Harry's stall because they're messy when they go to the bathroom. Brie's stall we only had to sift through the enormous mound of poo and move more shavings over the stripped wet spots. That's one thing I love about Brie: she's very neat. My brother was excited because he got to drive the Gator back and forth between the stalls and the manure mound. My brother and I ended up doing the colt's stall on our side (we love him to death, his nickname is Ken) and Taco's stall as well. I think that is probably the cleanest their stalls have ever been. John came by, Jane's boyfriend, he actually owns Taco, and thanked us for cleaning the stall and asked that we put Taco outside in the grass pasture, so I did.

After seeing the mudcakes that Harry, Nina, and Brie had become after playing in the mud pastures, my mom wanted to give them all baths. She did Brie first while my brother and I stayed outside with Harry and Nina. We took this opportunity to go after Nina's ears and head. Harry went next while I let Brie get her 10 minutes of grass, which undoubtedly made her life the happiest it's been since the last stable. She rarely gets grass because of her insulin resistance problem. After bringing her and Taco back inside, I held Harry outside while watching my brother chase Nina around the pasture and try to go after her ears. Let me tell you, Nina was not a happy camper. My mom took her inside, I brought Harry inside, and before we gave Nina a bath, we decided to do some Parelli with her.

The most basic Parelli game, the Friendly Game, involves using your hand, carrot stick, or string (or all three if you can multitask) to just rub the horse all over. If they're skittish, the point of the game is to get them to stop wincing or dancing around when you touch them. All the games have one goal: trust between the horse and rider(or non rider owner). Since the moment we got Nina, she was pretty much bomb-proof. She was the quickest learning and most eager to play the games.

Not today. She HATED the game and kept wiggling around and trying to hop away, but that wasn't happening. She was in the shower stall anyways. So after working herself up for about 10 minutes while I wiggled a piece of string around her legs and neck, she started calming down and let me throw it over her ears. I switched with my brother and he did the same. Then I got to the front of her head, facing her, and started wiggling it on her face. After initially freaking out, she started to calm down (along with the help of some peppermints and carrots). By the end of the session, which was about 45 minutes, I was about to get the bit hanger sans bit over her ears and off again without her flinching. With this, we stopped and bathed her, feeling the most accomplished and proud we've felt in a while. I felt especially proud because I haven't bonded with Nina that much, as my brother took a liking to her right away and I was focusing on rehabbing Brie.

All in all, it was a fantastically accomplished laid back day with a minor downfall of filthy stalls. Thankfully Paco will be back tomorrow afternoon.