Mustang Saga

I had just gotten done mentioning that the footing outside is no good for walking, much less horse training, when I went out and haltered Tonka and proceeded to fall spectacularly on my butt. Tonka didn't know what to think of it. He scuttled backwards away, and I felt his hoof lightly against my thigh. I'm glad he didn't step on me. Then he stood there and looked at me with his big goofy face, asking why the heck I was on the ground, while I took stock of my situation. I thought I might have hurt my left wrist, but not badly, and as I pushed snow out of the way I realized I was on a thick layer of smooth ice under the snow. I crawled forward a bit trying to judge the extent of the ice, and considered crawling all the way back to solid ground. I figured the neighbors might drive by and think I was strange, so I went ahead and got up and walked back very carefully. I HATE walking on ice. I would never want to ski. I just don't get into the sliding thing. I guess I'm probably just a klutz. And it turns out my wrist is totally fine. My back is sore, but it was hurting pretty bad before the fall, so that probably wasn't the cause.

A hoofprint in the snow, before the thaw and re-freeze that brought the ice.

Once we got back to halfway decent ground, I asked him to do some basic stuff, just involving a few slow steps at a time, while Bella finished her alfalfa. (She's eating it now, yay!) Then I scratched him all over, looked at his teeth, let him go and scratched him some more.

Then I went and rubbed on Bella, haltered her, scratched her all over, unhaltered her, looked at her teeth, scratched her some more. She is such a sweetie, and so mellow.

According to her teeth, she is exactly the age she was supposed to be, coming up on turning 3.

Tonka is losing his incisors in the corners of his mouth, which is right on schedule too. He should have them all grown in by 4.5 yrs old. His canines are pretty prominent now compared to last June when they were teeny little points just poking through.

So, now you know what I was up to when I wasn't actually working today. It was a wonderful break, standing in the sun with my sweet mustangs.