Posted on 08/07/2007 7:33:14 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
This is a horse chat thread where we 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, usually about our horses, sometimes about our dogs, gardens and other stuff we do. :~)
I have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will ping everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list.
So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends.
Previous threads:
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread EIGHT
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread NINE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread TEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 11
New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!
It's always something.
Sounds like she's coming along great.
I always thought of Mr. Magoo as far too genial a soul to be a pre-conversion Scrooge!
It’s so bizarre that flying decorations in trees don’t warrant even a second look but a bicycle gets a violent reaction. It doesn’t even have to be close by. Oh well, we’ll work through it somehow. Have you done any work getting your mare used to the wheelbarrow?
I do go out of my way to ride her by them whenever they are putting out hay. I'll trot her by at a slow trot so she has to take a good look at it, not fast enough for her to pull out or shy, but enough impulsion that she has to keep moving towards it.
She really is getting better. I guess you could call it slow habituation.
Her two bug bears are wheelbarrows and 55 gallon oil drums. In both cases there is a quite reasonable explanation. The wheelbarrow is because some of the little kids were pushing each other in the wheelbarrow down the hill by the ring and shrieking at the top of their lungs, and of course ran the thing right into the ring fence as we trotted by. She almost jumped out of her skin.
The oil drums is because we were working in a ring near where some guys were loading oil drums on a pickup truck. They left the tailgate down, and when they pulled off naturally the drums just rolled out the back. And down the hill, and by the ring. And they were partly full of liquid, so they rolled irregularly and made a loud sloshing noise. Gracie just FROZE and stared at them as they rolled - she was shaking so hard I thought she was going to fall down. I jumped off and ran to her head and consoled her (and then I turned her around so she couldn't see the horrible things any more.)
She's getting better about those too, a couple of jumps in the ring have oil drums built in them, and she doesn't even flinch.
Cool decorations. Doesn’t seem like it’s been a year. I took my granddaughter to her school carnival. It’s behind a subdivision. We left to go about 7pm. It took at least 30 minutes to get around the block to go home. I don’t get people driving their kids from house to house. Coming back my neighborhood was packed too. Someone even had my driveway blocked. My husband had the porch light off. I figured he got tired of treating but no...the 30 dollars of candy were gone within an hour.
LOL:).
On one of my trails way off in the woods an old wheelbarrow is laying at the side of it. Harley still tends to suck up and over a bit when we go by it, but he is getting better at not jumping over to the other side of the trail. I've rode him up to it and have him sniff it, but he still keeps an eye on it when we pass.
Becky
Ok, the story of your visit here is in this weeks paper. It’s not on the front page as I thought she said it would be, maybe because she didn’t use it as her thanksgiving story. But anyway, with the article and the pictures she used it took up nearly a whole page, and looked really nice:). She used the same story, but changed the title. There are 3 pictures.
If anyone wants a copy, send me your address. You didn’t have to be here to get one if you want one, I’ll send them to anyone.
Becky
You'd think all horses would love them, since they're often full of feed or hay or stuff . . . of course sometimes they're full of stall sweepings, so you never know!
According to the neighbors, the kid was riding this crotch-rocket street bike, going about 100mph down a county road and somehow ran off in the ditch in front of our place, managed to keep it upright until he hit the hump where our farm drive is, became airborn at that point, flew 50 feet through the air, still on the bike, hit a pine tree about 10 feet off the ground, at which point the bike stopped and the kid kept going. He flew another 50 to 60 feet through the air and almost landed on the neighbor's mailbox, which is in my nephew's front yard. And through all this, all he got to show for it was ONE BROKEN LEG. He must've used up all of his cat's nine lives because technically he should have been dead!...
The bike at the base of the tree. Notice the missing bark about 10 or 12 feet up...
You can still see the bike in the foreground and the crowd of people in the background is where the kid landed. One of the Rapid Responders is kneeling over him. I estimated the distance to be at least 50 feet, maybe farther. Don't you know THAT was a wild ride!...
The neighbors said this same kid had been seen standing on the seat of his bike, popping a wheelie at about 80mph in this same spot just the day before. The stupid things kids do will never cease to amaze me. Hopefully this will have taught him a very valuable lesson, but I kinda doubt it. He seems determined to earn himself a Darwin Award.
Hopefully this will have taught him a very valuable lesson, but I kinda doubt it.
You're probably right...you can't fix stupid:(.
All the dirt bike/4wheeler kids around here fly up down the ROADS, around here. I get so annoyed, because of all the curves in the roads we have, and their tendency to go down the middle of the road...I know one of them is going to get plastered. But I also know, if you talked to their parents...it would just be a big neighbor hood fight.
Becky
That kid needs to buy a lottery ticket NOW!
Coming down Memorial one day Mack and I saw about 5-6 adults going down the road, in traffic, doing this same thing. Looked cool, but I thought it was pretty stupid. They were going to cause a crash because of all the people driving but watching them:)
Becky
Holy Cow!!!!! What a wreck!!! I feel sorry for that kids mother.
Yeah, don’t you know she’s either got solid gray hair or none at all!
I was just glad that my husband wasn’t tangled up in all of this because the way we happened up on it was that my husband had just finished putting hay out for my horses at my BIL’s place about 4 miles up the road and was driving the tractor back to the farm. I usually follow him in the car with the flashers on when we do this, but I had stayed at the barn to finish up feeding and he had decided to drive on down the road without me. Luckily the kid must’ve been just a little ways in front of him because when Lee got there it had just happened. It would’ve killed them both if the kid had hit the tractor from behind.
I’ve got to have one of those papers... I sent my address...
YIKES! :~o OUCH. He’s lucky to be alive.
Good luck with Mina... sounds like you’re making great progress... I’d ride a bike from the house out to feed her every day for awhile. ;~)
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