We tried putting Bella in with the geldings. After all they have lived together before. We were VERY lucky it ended as well as it did, with nobody hurt seriously. Turns out Cisco can't be with mares at all, period. He's just downright violent. I had taken my camera out to get some good pictures of them running around, but this is the only one I got before I realized we had a serious situation and needed to intervene. You can see the desperation in Bella's eyes here, and they'd only just gotten started. Poor girl.
Tonka tied up mildly that night after their hard run. So I think what I'll do is put Bella and Scout together, and maybe Soxy. I can't decide on that one. I'll have to see if Scout is mean to her, and how much of a pain it is to keep them apart while Soxy eats her old lady feed.
Cisco will have to live alone. Or he can live with Tonka, but then I'll have another set of horses to supervise while they eat, so Cisco doesn't steal Tonka's supplement. What a mess of trouble these horses can be...
I rode Scout a few days back and he's definitely herd bound. He does love his buddies. I'll have to work on that. He wasn't terrible, just very concerned that he constantly know where they were. I should have ridden on Saturday but I wasn't feeling well. I can't kick this stupid virus. It keeps coming back every couple days.
The bathroom remodel is coming right along. John finally figured out how to get the toilet to work right, there was a tube that needed to be moved in the tank and that fixed it. I think I'll finish painting the trim and the ceiling today (what fun) and then call it good for a while. We need to tile the shower surround, but I don't know anything about how to do that and we're out of Home Depot gift cards anyway. So it will wait.
Yesterday we went with my sister's family and my parents to an indoor amusement park and we all had a good time. Go-carts, mini golf, bowling, arcade, and laser tag. What fun! I found out I'm no good at bowling anymore and it hurts my tennis elbow, and mini golf isn't my game. But I kicked butt at laser tag! I want to go to the bigger place in Spokane and try it there.
Spring is coming on reluctantly. The lilacs are starting to open their leaf buds and the daffodils out back are blooming. But the weather is still bad more often than not. It will have to get nice at some point! And then I'll be complaining about the heat. :)
I'm glad you managed to save Bella unscathed. Geldings like that can actually kill a mare. Cisco would be the one I'd be selling!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry too much about Scout being herd bound at this early stage in his training. Once upon a time it would have been very usual to have him follow an experienced horse out for his first rides in the wide world. I think it was a very good tradition. You can sometimes get away with having someone walk along with you on foot if another horse rider is unavailable. He is used to having a human leader on the ground so would probably be happy with that.
If it were up to me I'd be selling him. He's a good horse in a lot of ways, but he's also not used much. And there are the pasturing issues - having to rearrange my herd because of him.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to do Scout's first trail rides with John on Tonka in the lead. We'll have no problem at all then. Eventually he'll have to learn to ride off on his own but I don't expect that of him yet. I just need Tonka to get better so he can be Scout's role model out on the trail.