The back pasture

This evening, while I was feeding and watering and dealing with the farrier, I had time to play with the boys in the back for a while. Mostly that means I watch them harass each other. These three are Target, Boogie and Radar. Normally, Hawkeye would be with them, but for some reason, he has moved to another pasture.They are all 2005 geldings--and all for sale by the way. Hint Hint. We kept them all to see what they would become--they were Sly's first foal crop of any size, and we wanted to see what they would turn out to be. Now we know, so they are ready for new homes. It is interesting to me how similar they are in some ways, yet completely different in others.
Target busied himself pulling leaves off of a tree--why I do not know. He would pull so hard that the limb would droop and pop him in the face. He just kept at it though.
Meanwhile, Radar chewed on Boogie's tail. That solves that mystery I guess. Boogie was chewing on some part of Rad too though.
It is hard to believe that brand new baby boy --who went out for the first time this evening--will be all grown up like those boys before we know it. It seems like time crawls when you are waiting for the babies to come, but the next thing you know, they are adults. Right now, this little man's full brother Voodoo is at the trainer, getting along quite well and being a good citizen. I cannot wait to get him back to ride him myself, as I have never had the chance to keep a Foxy baby long enough to get them broke. If he is anything like her, he will be a fun ride. I also saw his coming two year old sister in the back pasture tonight and she is turning into one sexy broad. She is going to be awesome too.
Anyway, I got lots of photos of babies of course, but the most interesting ones are of baby boy hopping over his mama as she had a nice roll in the grass. Check him out, launching over her like he is more than two feet tall and he is so not. Well maybe a little. But not much
See--he cleared her!

In other news--there is still no news. Barry has heard nothing about his work, so has no idea if he has a job or not, after tomorrow. I just cannot fathom such a situation, it is all so hard to believe it is happening. Then again, with some of the craziness of my job, you would think I would be well-adjusted to peculiar behavior and situations--yet I can still be confuzzled by events as they unfold.

The yearlings got their feet done tonight, and Echo appears to be working an ouchy on her front right hoof. It is always something, isn't it? She is three-legged lame. I was so proud of her though being such a lady letting us work on her even when it obviously hurt her--she kept that hoof in the air for a solid twenty minutes as the farrier worked on her. I need a new tube, which I will pick up tomorrow, to start soaking her in epsom salts to get to the problem and fix her up good as new. Just when I thought I would be down to only one horse in a stall, BAM--plans change. I will be shoveling shit until I am 157 years old.

And that one horse in a stall is still Diablo--but thank goodness, this morning she had heavy-duty wax. Surely this baby will come soon, and then D can get out of the barn herself-I know she is going stir crazy in there. It should not be long now. Snap is now at 348 days I think, and still showing no sign of foaling. Gypsy got her Lute shot tonight for her pending breeding to Pepto Taz which should happen mid week next week, if all goes well. I am anxious about proceeding with these breedings under the quirky financial circumstances we are in, but the breedings are paid for, non transferable and only good for this year. To not proceed with chute fees and vet bills is throwing away a lot of money already spent, so I do not know what to do. I am going ahead, but I am sure not enjoying it like I normally do. That makes me sad.

New policy though--no wallering, it just makes things worse. I am going to make the best of things, and hope good things happen. We need to sell some horses to take some pressure off, Barry needs a new job which I am sure he will get as soon as he gets home and gets time to look for one, and we need to get through this. I know we will.

Tomorrow I have pre-baby dinner activity for Jackie near St Louis, and it is Jenna's birthday. I am going to enjoy my friends and not think about the rest of this.

Another weekend in the woods

It was cold this weekend, so we built a fire as soon as we got settled in camp Friday nite. Headleys had some family issues arise, so it was just Barry, Mom and me, plus Emily, Jessie, Adrianna and her brother, Alexander, who arrived just before us. We had a great dinner of italian beef that mom made, then some ribs, pineapple, tomato salad and cheesy potatoes that Adrianna brought. We talked a while, then read and just enjoyed the fresh air. It was a relaxing night, after the initial trepidation about where in the campground our trailer could fit.

Verdict--one good spot in the area we like, that will allow us to make the turns to get into it---



The leaves are changing, and this is such a beautiful area. We are so lucky to have it just an hour away.

Jodi and Ed arrived a little before 10 am Saturday morning, so we had some breakfast, and took our time saddling up for the ride. Too much time, as there was a disaster or two in the making. We mounted up and went to Adrianna's cabin to get them. As we waited, we played around in the pasture--Target calmed down pretty quickly, and we remarked on how well he was learning patience, which he needs to work on. Barry had previously talked to another group who wanted to ride with us, since they did not know the trails. As they arrived in our area, something still unknown set Target off. The next thing we knew, he was bucking from a stand still--and I do not mean a little bucking, he was dead serious, throwing in a lunge and really getting some air. He bucked like a mad man, as we all sat there dumb-founded.

The other group had two loose dogs with them. By the third buck or so, the little rott was on Target's ass---barking and chasing as he bucked himself across America---a few bucks later, Barry voluntarily dismounted. I have no idea how he stayed on that long...I sure had no idea he was that kind of cowboy. This was big time rodeo bucking.

And it was not over. With the dog still on his heels, Target bucked two huge circles--pretty circles, worthy of the reining pen, they were so uniform. He bucked the whole way. I have never seen anything like that. By the third pass, he was simmering down into a lope, but he could not stop as the dog was still chasing and barking.

What was his owner doing, you ask? NOTHING. Barry said later that from his vantage point on the ground, he saw that her horse set to bucking as well--which suited me just fine, as she made no attempt to control her damn dog who had no business loose with other horses. There were four or five people with the dog girl and they too did nothing.

By the time Targ was making his big circles, Radar was dancing--he was scared to death. Eventually, Target came to Radar and stopped snugged in close to us. Rad was still hopping around and I was trying to figure out where to grab Target--his reins were twisted up around his ears, and I was a little anxious to get out of the center of the saddle, for fear I would get dumped too. As usual, it was Jodi to the rescue and she got Target's reins--by that time, he was shaking in his boots, and Barry was getting up.

He is tougher than he looks, as got back on Target and we set off in the other direction--shed of the wild dog group, thanks. I do not even think they said they were sorry. As we headed that way, Radar finally blew and went straight up. Do not ask me why, I think he just could not take it anymore. We went back to the trailer, and put him in a snaffle bit--he has been out of that almost a year, but his Myler combo bit was clearly pissing him clean off. We proceeded as normal after that, and things got back to normal.


Today, just Jodi and I went out for a short ride together, and Fred determined that when he is in the lead, he is anti-markers on the side of the road. All he did was snort it and look at it funny, but I like to mark these occasions to recall when my horses act a fool.

This is one of the caves we stopped at yesterday--we had lunch there.

My pics are all out of whack, but blogger is not cooperating. This is Fred having a snack.
The tie-line at camp.
The picnic table. Yeah, this is not interesting, is it?
Radar needs a haircut. Maybe this will remind me to tend to that--he looks silly and I think he is embarrassed.
See how contrite Target looks here? He was likely hoping that Barry does not leave him out there to die, after his little episode.
Mom and Jodi--interesting facial expressions, aren't they?




The scene of the explosion, just before it happened.
I do not think Radar is ever tied anywhere without doing something goofy with his reins. Maybe he was showing off that he is back in his snaffle bit
Twist wants everyone to know that he was the good one.
Barry, about an hour post-pitching, with his admirers and their mother. He was self-medicating. I think he needed help to get up--his ankle is hurt, as is his hip and his butt, and he has bruises he does not understand on his inner thigh. If he had as much experience getting pitched as I do, he would know full well those are horn and pommel bruises---he is lucky he has me to tell him these things.


You can see from these photos how the trails are covered up pretty well by leaves. And it is loud to ride through it, but with temps in the mid 60s, it really was beautiful riding--I will take that over 100 degree rides all day long.



We rode about 4-4.5 hours and made it back to camp for dinner. Ed still cannot ride since his shoulder surgery, so he polish the aluminum on his trailer and just relaxed. Then he got stuck grilling dinner, which was steaks and chicken and a whole pile of Adrianna's food. I was too worn out to eat. Linda and Randy were still hoping to come down, but things worked against them. They did come down for dinner and brought pizza and hung out for a few hours. By 8 pm we were all practically nodding off in our chairs, and by 9 we were all retired to bed. I stuck it out long enough to watch Saturday Night Live, but not even all of that, I do not think.


And now, for real, I am sending in my power shot to be cleaned and fixed as most of these photos really suck.

This week's photography assignment

This is conformation week. I am glad because I already know a lot of the things they are teaching, which allows me to feel a little more confident --something I definitely needed after last week.

Now knowing and doing it are two different things. But we will get there. I am a huge fan of the lowest number aperture setting I can get--sometimes that is f5.6 and sometimes that is f4.

The major trick to doing conformation shots is to have two helpers--a handler and a ear-getter-uper. And of course, knowing what the breed you are shooting uses for standard poses.

Target was my model since he was up front and handy. He had this wierd walrus looking mustache on his upper lip that had to be trimmed off, along with his other long whiskers---he had never been trimmed before. He did pretty well, oddly better with the trimming actually happening rather than just putting the trimmer near him to get him used to it.

I realized as soon as we put on the halter that it was way too big and needed to have some holes poked in it, but since I was shooting through the rain showers, I went ahead with the shoot and will re-do tomorrow after Barry fixes my halter. This is one of the downfalls to having such pretty-headed horses-halters never fit. I definitely failed this part of the assignment-I would be a bad client. Photoshop can take the dropping throat latch out but I cannot change the angle of the cheekpiece or placement of the buckle. I will lose major points on that.

Then there is this: getting GOOD help is virtually impossible. Today I had Barry and Madison. Barry was better than usual about not complaining the whole time even though he was irritated as he usually is if I ask him to help me. He did it though.

When I asked him to get back where we started and not with the fence in the background, he argued with me about the ground, etc, so I just kept taking pics til my battery died. I showed him tonight how we had some correct shots that would have been great had there not been a fence post in his belly, sticking out of his back, poking him in the neck, etc. It takes too long and is too hard to photoshop all that out. Hopefully he got the point.

Anyway, this time I used aperture priority setting, like I was advised. The top shot was at f4.0, 1/4000 shutter speed, 800 ISO (it was overcast), and focal length of 108mm. I had no idea my shutter would even go that fast! I think I likely did not change the aperture setting at all. He also looks tiny here, and he is not a tiny horse at all-- I just did not fill the frame all the way. I took a bunch of shots in exactly this position, but his tail was flicking despite the judicious use of flyspray and that botched up most of the shots--that left me with this one, and it does not have perfect foot placement.

The headshot was at f.5.6, 1/2500 shutter speed, 800 ISO, and 300 mm.

The profile shot was also at f4, 1/3200, 800 ISO, and 119 mm.

All of those pics were the assigned poses for the class--I did some more research and found out WHY the legs have to be exactly like that for a good shot---it was really interesting. It is also a lot easier to remember which leg goes where when you remember why it goes there. Seeing examples of wrong ones helped too---with the commentary from so many pros, it sunk in a whole lot faster than just trying to force myself to remember the positioning.

This goes to show you that I did not follow the instructions of the assignment a little bit--I was supposed to be at the end of the focal length availability.
This was not one of the assigned photos---but I like it, so I am putting it on here anyway. Here the specs are f5.6, 1/3200,800 ISO and 238mm.
Same for this one-- I just like it. I know there are shadow issues and it makes his neck look non-existent, so not good for anything but looking at--I still like it. F5.6/1/2000, 238mm and ISO 800

Hotrod Day

This was an all around Hotrod day. Not only did we get to go see Hotrod's oldest at the reining trainer, and see that he is doing so well I cannot stand it, but when we got home, she gave us a repeat performance. This one is a girl though-sorrel with a big star and the longest legs I have ever seen---so long it was kind of hard on her to even find the bar, she had to contort herself so much to get to it.


Of course, I have a jillion pics of each, but it is almost 2 am and the farrier is coming in the morning, so they will have to wait until I get a break tomorrow

A funny series AKA-- Boys will be Boys

These boys were really going at it Saturday afternoon, playing and playing. I have tried to get this kind of photo forever, but I never seem to catch them in their rare moments of acting like children.



What do you think Target is saying to Haweye that has him so disturbed? Whatever he is saying, he is giving him hell, isn't he?

Evidently, Hawkeye is not going to sit idly by while Target tells him who God loves. He has a thing or two to say back to him.

I guess that Target was not taking Hawkeye seriously, so he needed to up the stakes---a bite on the butt would surely get the reaction he was looking for.


First they ran one way, then the other, and somewhere in there, they must have forgotten what they were arguing about.
Either that or they realized I was watching and wnated to pretend they are not heathens. Don't they looks sweet just looking at me?