Goals

I have been so lazy today and really should be doing things instead of surfing the web and eating a whole pint of blueberries. But we are having people move in with us for a bit and this is my last chance to be lazy in my jammies with no one around to watch. I do need to clean the carpets and some more baby proofing soon though.

After having a couple days to reflect on the show, I feel really good about where we are, we have a lot to learn but already have a good foundation to work with. Joy is such a fun horse.

So here are my goals

1- to do pilates or run everyday, I need to be stronger and more flexible.
2- to get a couple lessons in before the next show.
3- get to another horse trial, hopefully in August
4- improve Joy's dressage, at the show we got mostly 5s (acceptable) and 6s, I'm aiming for 6s and 7s
5- continue conditioning Joy on the trails
6- get out on fun rides with friends
7- Cut sugar out of my diet, I have no turn off switch with the white stuff and eat way to much of it. Not healthy!
8- Continue getting comfortable with jumping again
9- fix up trailer
10- Have fun!

Okay, now I am off to buy chicken food and rent a carpet cleaner, oh my exciting life!

Do the baby chicken dance!

My chicks just came! I now have 87 chicks. Golden laced Wyandottes, Arucanas, and Black Australorps.  25 pullets and four roosters of each type.

Actually the hatchery got my phone number wrong (thankfully got the address right) and someone from the post office stopped by my house! I could have hugged him, I was so thankful. Babies are settling in well and seem bright and perky. Luckily we got everything set last night, I whitewashed the interior and Joe patched up the holes in the coop, Joe and his dad also got the power cord hooked up for the light. I meant to do more yesterday but was hugely depressed and sad for some reason, not entirely sure why.

For whatever reason I am super paranoid that I am going to kill them, I don't know why but it is freaking me out. I have cared for enough chicks but I guess this is my first batch entirely on my own and I am worried about it.

I just took some pictures and since I am a good blogger I share them with you, my people, People I assume read my blog since you visit it, mostly from FiSH.

 Baby chicks in all their chickness

Hai Food Lady, are you gonna give us tasty noms?

The lilac tree in the rain, dunno what the weird blur is.

There is a huge thunderstorm going on right now, really loud, My sweet black dog Sadie is hiding under the computer desk, shaking! as she hates storms and Emma is under my pink chair, storms don't bother her she just likes to den.

My friend took little grey home last night, His name is going to be Vincent and he is living in their spare room. I am happy, he is going to be a great house bunny since he is calm, sweet and curious, and he will be well loved. I am all "awwwww my babies are growed up!" I need to advertise the rest as they are all eating well and ready to be someone's pet.

Off to check chickies again.

I'm Famous! on the interweb that is.

Hurray for gorgeous weather! So going to enjoy riding today,

I just got a cool book about working horses on the ground, lunging, double lunging and advanced ground driving. So cool! It inspired me to lunge Joy last night and she was primarily good, she did hit her limit about half way through, get frustrated and take off at a mad canter around and around completely ignoring me. When she was younger I used to call it "getting her canter button stuck" since she will go around and around completely tuning you out, I used to get annoyed at her when I was free lunging her in the round pen because you could be standing there completely ignoring her and she would just whip around until she was drenched. It seems to happen when she gets frustrated or annoyed, she isn't the type of horse with huge amounts of patience and running her until she gets tired isn't a valid option since it gets her more and more wound up so it is much better to give her something else to focus on.

I guess it falls under the heading of preventing frustration before it happens, she can be wonderfully willing and obedient but if she feels overwhelmed or upset then she gets wound up, and chaos ensues. That is one of the primary reasons I try to train smarter and not harder, if I can head a temper tantrum off at the pass instead of pushing her past her point of endurance then it is a more useful and productive training session, I don't know why everyone doesn't train like that, it just makes sense. She doesn't like being off balance, I was asking her to do canter to trot transitions and she was having trouble getting her hind legs under her on the circle so she got mad and started trying to gallop and buck, I took her down to trot and then walk on a small circle until she calmed down and then we tried it again for a short distance and she was fine.

Joy has been kinda cranky lately, she is out of shape and I am slowly working on getting her fit. She has a small abscessy bump on her chin. Apparently this is the spring to get weird injuries and bumps, I would like to be done with that now, kthnxbai

So basically first I have to drive into town and buy dog food, not really excited about it, I would say on a scale of one to ten my motivation is about three, three is a nice number. I do love my dogs though and I guess I will buy them sustenance.

In other news I am famous! a posting on bunny rearing that I put on the horse forum to help people who were finding sad wild babies is now on it's own website on Angora Rabbits, how cool is that!
You can read it in all its glory here: Dangerbunnygirl's Guide to Raising Orphan Rabbits The site looks like it will be pretty awesome too and twenty people have read it, although maybe just twenty people who feel sorry for me but still twenty! I'll take what I can get, even if it's a pity read.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) most of the babies are looking to be males, so if I am going to keep more then Miss Siamese (the lone girl) Joe is going to have to make more cages since the boys will not generally live together happily. I was hoping one of the three whites would be a girl, I have one white (Violet) from the last litter and while she is nice she seems to have more of a cottony fiber then I was aiming for. I really loved Rosie's wool and was really hoping for one of the babies to be female with similar fur. I guess if one of the white boys has kickass fur then maybe I will have him neutered and keep him with Cadbury (my brown male from last litter with great fur) I am going to need to start advertising some soon, I hate selling them, I get too attached! Little grey is going to one of my favorite people and he will have a wonderful life with her. I think the rest should be house buns with people who will love them.

Hurray for proper Spring type days!

Today was beautiful out and Joy and I had a nice trail ride. Did some trail blazing through the brush and a lot of hill work, she was slightly sweaty but not a lot. Felt good just to out and moving, I am super tight in the back though, cantering was painful so I am gonna beg a massage tonight :) I got a vine wrapped around the back of my neck when I was ducking through so brush, damn near ripped me off Joy and I have a lovely rope burn (vine burn?) scrape on the back of my neck. Other then that went well her canter is getting much more consistent and balanced, which is exciting.

Buns are doing super, eating solid food and nursing well. My friend came over a few nights ago to help feed and that was fun, last night my stepson got in on the feeding action. You can't help but gush on how cute they are. I freaked out this morning because half of my right thumb is numb so I called my mom, According to my mom I have a numb thumb from feeding baby bunnies, apparently a nursing related stress injury. I think it is very funny.
 

Little beasts are now cute enough to take over the world.

Looking forward to a nice weekend, plans include riding, getting boys eyes checked, cleaning up the pasture (seems never ending!) celebrating Beltane and hanging out :)

Micro Buns are doing great, got 7-9 ml of goat's milk into each one this morning, the little white one is so comical, he saw me and started squeaking to be fed! I have never heard a bunny make that noise before it was so funny. He also gets really into nursing and will bounce up and down until he gets plugged in. Four out of six are good nursers, the other two have to be coerced into it. I have also seen them eating hay so that is a good sign as well. I'll try and get Joe to take some pictures of me feeding doing the evening feed, they are getting faster to feed and it only takes 45 minutes instead of over an hour.

It has been rainy here, or super windy so I haven't ridden in a bit. Planning on heading out this afternoon but I think we are in a sucker hole since it stopped raining but there are grey menacing clouds everywhere. Likely just go bareback so I don't get my tack drenched.

Since Joy got a bellyache off the fresh grass I have been limiting her exposure to it, I would hate to see some founder. So they get half an hour on the good stuff right now and we will build it up later. Sunday was the first time she ever colicked and it was very stressful, She got left on the fresh pasture to long on Saturday when Rosie died.

I applied to a riding camp instructor position, still haven't heard back which is a bummer, I would enjoy that.