Mustang Saga

It's been a long day already. Well, just part of it. It took me 2 hours to move 6 bales of hay... Got the truck stuck in snow that was deeper than the undercarriage. Went back, got the shovel, dug it out. This is the kind of snow that sticks to your shovel, so you end up lifting the same snow over and over again. But I did manage to get unstuck, then went back and got the toboggan and moved individual bales to the truck that way. It wasn't so hard once I'd moved the first 3 bales and the trail was compacted.

I gave Tonka his shot today! John usually does shots. I had a bad experience with the one shot I ever tried to give (bent needle, freaked out horse, not fun) so I just let John do it after that. He's pretty darn good at it. But he left last night to go snowboarding today, so I was on my own. My mom fed Tonka treats while I did the shots, so really I wasn't totally on my own. It went just fine. Easy as pie.

Since I don't have much else to write about, I'll do a some video reviews. I've now rented 6 videos from Horseflix. Besides a LONG shipping time in between videos, I'm happy with it.

Pete Ramey's Under the Horse series - it's fabulous, watch it! I've only watched disk one so far, but it's just as good as his clinic was, if not better because you can watch on your own time and go back and look again. Only thing you can't do is ask questions, but he's very thorough.

Frank Bell, Discover the Horse You Never Knew - He's a little odd. His idea of bonding is really weird to me. Sticking fingers in ears and mouth, rubbing eyes, basically all things I'd consider the most annoying things you can do to a horse. But after that it's a good pre-ride checklist, so that you know your horse's mood and have some tools to control them should they get over excited. Pressure and release, sacking out, one rein stop, disengaging the hindquarters, etc.

Parelli Patterns Disk One, On Line - I watched this while very distracted, but it seemed like a pretty basic groundwork/lunging how-to. Had some interesting tasks like serpentining through barrels. Would be fun to try if the weather was nice and I had a rope that long. His catch phrases irritate me. But I can get past that. I think these are good bonding and foundation laying exercises, but not something one should get stuck doing over and over forever as I see a lot of Parelli followers doing.

Movement Awareness for Riders with Eckart Meyners - Weird stuff. Has some good stretches and exercises. A good concept, but it's odd, almost pornographic, the way the guy sits there and watches these people do weird movements and stretches. I think if you were willing to put the time in to do this though, it could very well help your riding by making you more limber and more aware of tension and misuse of your body.

Western Saddles, How to fit: Pain-Free - This was a good beginner course in saddle fit. Quite basic, but good information.

That's it so far... I'm going to go get cleaned up and sit and watch the second Pete Ramey disk now.