Mustang Saga

The last few days have been pretty fun.  Joseph's day at the vet clinic was very successful.  The first thing Joseph did in the corral was roll in the poop pile, thus making himself very pretty for his brand card pictures.  It was sopping wet so there was no point in trying to brush it off.  Luckily it was more shavings than poop.

Then he had to have his heart and guts listened to, and his weight taken.  This sounds so simple but for a mustang with stranger danger issues who sometimes still flinches when touched with two hands, it's a lot to ask.  He stood still as a stone, for the most part.  Even when she shot the strangles vaccine up his nose.  He didn't even snort it back out.  A lot of his stillness is uncertainty, but once he gets used to all this weird stuff he's going to be a champ.  He's just not a reactive horse.  And he looks to me for security which makes me feel good.  :)

The vet noted that his heart drops every 6th beat, which worried me, but she said that's really common in endurance horses and other very fit horses.  How he's managed to stay fit I have no idea.  But he is very fit.

Oh, I should add that the weather was so bad I considered not taking him at all.  The winds were up to 45 miles an hour and it was snowing sideways half the day.

 After we got home we had a great thunderstorm that shook the house and came with lots of pea-sized hail.  I thought it must be painful on the horses' backs, but then I went outside and it really just tickled.

 

This evening I felt bad for Pedro.  He was bored and lonely so I got him out and we practiced trailer loading.  He loaded up really well but he was worried about being without his buddy.  Once he found the hay bag up front he was happier, but still a little antsy.  He didn't back out when I asked.  He doesn't back well in general and I think that was just too much to ask and he couldn't do it.  Luckily he's small framed so it's no big deal to turn around.  Better not get in his way when he steps out the door though!  He kinda leaps out.

 

I'm thinking I'd like to go on some trail rides, and Scout has barely been touched all winter, so I got him out too.  See how muddy he is?  Poor guy is really neglected. (I cannot believe how tall he's gotten.)

He cleaned up pretty nice though.

 Don't mind his little pig-eye.  He can't help it.  That's the bad eye that got injured.

He really impressed me with his willingness to walk through puddles tonight.  Normally he's pretty scared of them.  He gave me a bit of trouble on a little stream crossing.  The jumping was probably good for his flabby physique, even though it wasn't what I was after.  We ended by walking over the stream a lot, kind of doing a serpentine back and forth over it.  Then while I was grooming him we had some nice tender moments, which is very unusual for us.  We either get along okay or we butt heads, but we don't usually have tender moments.

The family went hiking today at a place called Eden Valley between Palouse and Garfield.  I really wanted to take my horse but we didn't have time, and that turned out to be okay because you can't go crawling around on the ground looking for perspective when you have a green horse in tow.

There were a few spring flowers:

And a kid who's really keen on rocks right now (they're studying geology in school).

These purple beauties are called "grass widows."  I'd like to know the story behind that name.

The Palouse river, moving fast and muddy but not as flooded as you'd expect this time of year.  In the summer it's much shallower and clear.  

I took Tonka on this trail a couple times, and I missed him today, but in a happy memories, nostalgic sort of way.  We were such a good team.