Mustang Saga

Sorry I haven't been writing much. I seem to have blogging lulls.

I realized a few days ago that we've only had Bella for 4 weeks! It feels like she's been here for months. So I thought, with all the progress she's already made, I'm going to back off a bit, give her a routine, and see if she relaxes around me a bit. I've been going in the morning, feeding, cleaning her stall, picking her hooves, and brushing her. In the evening I do the same thing. The last couple nights I've really wanted to just feed and skip the rest, but I made myself do it. It only takes a couple minutes, really. I want her to feel that life is somewhat predictable, and that she can relax. She's getting better... Still pretty iffy about me touching her head, but she lifts her feet like a pro, and I've been going back and forth right behind her a lot, and brushing her all over. She's not flinching away from me near as much.

I've been meaning to spend more time with Tonka, but so far have only spent one afternoon with him this week. By afternoon, I mean about a half hour in the afternoon. It was nice though. He was choosing to hang out with me, and being sweet.

In a couple weeks he and I and my sister and her horse will be heading to the Oregon School of Natural Hoof care for a week. It'll be a LONG trailer ride. Yuck. But Tonka and Levi both have odd hooves, and it will be nice to be able to get some expert advice on them, and have them there to ride and spend time with in the evenings after classes. Then the weekend after school is over there is a big famous trail competition in Eugene. We may go and enter our boys. I would love to ride Tonka through doing the green horse class. But unless I got a lot of practice beforehand that would be a bad idea. They have an in-hand class for horses 3 and over! I think that's awesome. We'll see how scheduling works out, for preparation and for entering. It would mean a hotel stay somewhere, stall fees overnight, and other $$$. Not something you get the opportunity to do every day though!