Mustang Saga

I find myself with things to blog about at times, but the urge to blog hasn't been strong lately. I sit down and I think, why bother? I go through phases like that sometimes. Other times, I want to share every little silly thing. Do you find yourself on a blogging rollercoaster at times too?

Anyway, today I finally felt like going to do something with the horses. Recently the extent of my horse interest has been to put fly masks on in the morning and take them off at night. And I didn't even really want to do that. Part of being sick, I guess.

I got out the boys and took them to the round pen. I didn't take pictures, but my dad got a picture of a similar situation not long ago:


Tonka and Cisco I tied, and Scout was the first to work. I figured I'd do some basic round pen work. He was doing great with just about everything but he just could not get it that he needed to turn in toward me when turning to head to my right (his right eye). Once I got some kinda-sorta good responses I took him for a walk to cool off.

We went down by the creek and I thought I'd reward him by letting him graze. He stuck his nose in stinging nettle! Poor guy, he was rubbing his nose all over the ground, then he got down and rolled, then he got up and was kinda frantic. I had to get real firm to get his attention and keep him from walking through me. But then he calmed down.

At some point during all this I was leading him on his right side and he was kinda drifting into my space, so I "chopped" my hand toward his eye/ear and clicked to ask him for movement. He was oblivious until my hand actually tapped his head and then he responded immediately.

Something about the way he jumped to comply, as if he hadn't known what I wanted before I touched him, tells me that he's not seeing out of that eye. Or at least not seeing as well as we had hoped. I can't wait to take him back to the opthalmologist someday and find out if it looks like he healed or if the retina is still detatched. He sure does well for a sight-impaired horse. He really had us convinced his sight was pretty good. But I knew that when I really started working with him I'd get a better idea of how it healed.

It was so hot and the yellowjackets and flies were so bad by the time I got back that I just put them all back out to pasture. I might get started earlier tomorrow and hopefully have time to ride Tonka and work with Scout before it gets hot. I'd like to try ponying Scout.

Speaking of early tomorrow, we have an electrician coming out to talk about moving our electrical line off of the old barn. Step one to getting it torn down. And we might just be able to put the line underground and run water lines to the horses at the same time. To not have to drain hoses this winter! I will be in heaven! I hope we can afford it.