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Thread III: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1311311/posts |
Posted on 04/26/2004 12:06:41 PM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Free Republic has a lot of horse people that have found each other on other threads…. And since we all like to talk horses, how about a thread where it is not off-topic, but is THE topic?
A few of us thought it would be interesting and informative to have a chat thread where we can share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share. We may not ~always~ have a lot of activity, but when we do, it will be fun. I will put a link to this thread on my profile page, so if you have something to say and can't find the thread in latest posts… look for it there and wake the thread up!
I will also develop a ping list for horse threads that are of interest. As FreeRepublic is a political site, our politics and other issues will probably blend in…. There are many issues for horsemen that touch politics… land use, animal rights/abuse cases that make the news…. Legislation that might affect horse owners.
I am hoping this thread will be a fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends. There are lots of ways of doing things and we all have our quirks, tricks and specialties that are neat to learn about.
Just knowing Becky , or about her, is probably going to be the biggest factor IMO. Word gets around. She probably already has gotten a lot of recommendations just from the feed store owner, regarding Reba.
Thank you:).
Becky
I love James Herriot books:), and I know just which story you're speaking of. Brought a big lump to my throat:)
Becky
Hi all. :-) Sorry. Haven't been around much, beacuse I haven't had much to contribute, but I've been keeping up on posts. I don't think that I'll be riding today because of the iffy weather that we're having. That and I could use the sleep.
Well darn:), sorry you didn't get to ride.
I'm drinking my coffee this morning then heading out on the new one. Jenny is coming tonight to ride Rocky. She is running barrels on him at the fair this year for the round up club her family joined for Blake. That will be fun. She has always wanted to run barrels at the fair, we just always forgot to get her signed up in time (you have to do it so far in advance) The club she is in didn't have any adult women who wanted to do it and asked her. It's been awhile since she has rode him but he's in shape because of Heather riding him, she just needs to tune herself a bit. She will also do team penning with her SIL and BIL, they did it last year and placed 3rd. We are going to go on a short trail ride first tonight when she gets here and I will take Rusty.
We are also planning a one day trail ride the first Thurs. of next month. Jenny and Travis, Heather and I, Kristy and a friend of hers are all going. There is a state park about and hour and a half from here that I love going to. I've been wanting to take Heather somewhere since she didn't get to compete this year like we had hoped, and Jenny and Travis are conditioning their horses for when they go on vacation with them in Sept. And Kristy just wants to go:). I'll probably take Harley as he needs to get use to being hauled and Rusty won't be in shape anyway.
At the end of this month (alot has come up in the last two days:), choctawsquaw has invited me to be her guest at a weekend trail ride for women only with a group she belongs too at another state park around here about 2 hours away. We'll go up on a Thurs. (just because I want to go as long as possible if I'm going that far with the RV) and stay till Sun. The organized part is on Sat. and Sun. I'm really looking forward to it. I love camping in my RV. I'll take Harley to that too.
Becky
Busy busy you are! Good morning..... As always, take pictures, bring back stories! I am up, but not committed to staying up. Worried about ksen in Melbourne that we haven't heard from yet, and just restless. I hope we can do something with Bay today!
I've thought about him and a few others I know from that area. Doesn't look good for those people down there.
I think the fall like weather we are having around here is fooling alot of us into planning some stuff:). We're probably going to get all this planned and then it will be brutally hot. The organized thing and the fair will happen no matter what. Our one day thing was just a spur of the moment idea, that everyone got excited about so we planned it. It wan't till after the planning happened that I thought about the weather. Usually we don't do this sort of thing till late Sept.
I hope you all get to ride some today too.
A neighbor came down and rode in the arena last night.I don't know if you remember me talking about this neighbor, Suszanne, that had the paint horse she rasied from a baby and tried to break herself. She was a beginner rider herself. That never works. She kept trying till the horse was 4 but had gotten so scared of it that even if the horse had been sent to a trainer it wasn't going to work for her. She finally made the decision to sell that one and get one already broke and trained good. She is doing so much better and having fun now.
Funny thing is, there is another neighbor, Stephanie, up the rode from me who just bought a POA pony with a baby at her side, and in foal again that is a beginner rider and none of these horses are broke:(. The stable she is taking lessons at SOLD her these horses. How can they do that in good concious. Suszanne and Stephanie go to the same church, I don't know Stephanie, and Susanne told me that she told Stephanie that she needed to learn to ride first before she tries breaking one:) I guess she learned something. This is going to be interesting to see how it works. Suszanne had to go help Stephanie put the halter on the mare, she couldn't even catch her. After Suszanne got the halter on she told me that Stephanie was very impressed and called her the horse whisperer. It's all kind of funny because Suszanne isn't much more then a beginner herself, she's just knows more then Stephanine. Not necessarily the blind leading the blind, but 90/90 leading the blind:) I give Susanned a big A+ for effort tho. She has hung in there thru some heartbreaking experience because she really wants to do it.
Becky
~smiling~
Remarkable! I am going to try for a little more sleep now. Horses are fed.
Back from riding the new gelding.
Just talked to choctawsquaw also, and I didn't realize that the overnighter is NEXT weekend:) I thought it was 2 weeks away. We are planning on leaving Thurs.
Becky
We just came in from looking over and talking about the apple tree situation in the back forty. We decided that we could work our butts off cutting around it by hand, or we could look into how much it would cost to just have someone make short work of the whole couple acres that is overgrown - someone with a brush hog. I've got a guy that is supposed to call back.
Is it overgrown with apple trees, or is it overgrown with other things that are keeping the apple tree(s) from growing?
Becky
Around here for brushhogging, there is a minimum of 3hr charge. If they charge like that, you might want to look around and see if there isn't something else they can do while they are there if the job takes less time then the minimum.
Becky
It's all space that is grown up with scrub brush and scrub trees. He said it would take him about 3 hours ($200) to do what would take us weeks, and a lot of hard work. He can just chop it to bits. That's a bargain. He cant do it for a couple weeks, but we agreed to it!
There will still be work involved afterward, to clear away the larger sticks, but we like to burn stick piles in the spring.
This is the wide agle of the area.... this is a spring picture and the apple tree is blooming white (arrow)
Close up... and the blue tarp I put up to discourage them from eating too many apples.
This is me clearing by hand on the back side of it last year...
Yeah I know about clearing by hand. No fun. We cut a bunch of trees out years ago when we heated with wood. Then for years I had to cut the saplings down that came up from the stumps with one of those heavey duty weed eaters that you could put a saw blade on. Even that was alot of work tho. It wasn't until we got the bobcat that I started making fast progress. I had it real good around here. Then the last 2 years I slacked off. This winter I'm going to really get back to it so my pasture will come back better next year and I can mow. I've let so much dead fall and rocks surface that I can't mow now. Shame on me:)
Becky
We would just work so hard to haul stuff out by hand... we spent ~weeks~ clearing other parts of this area, and ended up with HUGE burn piles. I know when we see him chew through it with the brush hog we'll laugh at ourselves.
We have been working about two years to clear a 200x about a 100 foot slope down to the water from our lake lot. We got a bid of 3000 dollars to clear it. We almost choked. We cut about 2 feet and one grows back:') Well at least we can get to the water now. The flat area all nice now too. We rented a brush hog and did it ourself. Just trying to get lateral lines in right now. Lots of rock and lots of work.
I am ~forcing~ myself to ride, it's really muggy and it'd be easy to just flake on the couch.... but I brought both horses in and bathed them .... and now I am gonna saddle up and go for a short ride at least. Bay's bored lately, just stands and fiddles with the gate. I think he does really want the attention. Nothing for them to eat in the pasture, nothing to do!
I slacked today. I did house stuff instead. The laundry piling up. I'm going to probably do a make up tomorrow after church. If not I'll get back on schedule Monday.
It's muggy here too. Tropical storm Charlie is on its way. I guess it's been downgraded from hurricane status. Been wanting to keep an eye on it from the tv, but my housemates are more interested in the olympics. Been checking weather.com periodically instead.
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