Iron Horse tune-up

We trailered up to Iron Horse for the afternoon, had a great visit and tune-up lesson. Our first time traveling with Koda and Nemo since we brought them home found us in a huge traffic jam on the interstate, in the heat. 5 slow miles of 3 lane bumper-to-bumper, the fastest we went was 10 mph. Didn't seem to faze the boys just the humans, lots to look at I guess.

One of the first things trainer Patty asked me was "how did Koda load?" and to that I smiled and replied "he did great". I'm sure that's music to her ears, and mine. Thankful his loading issue is behind us, and hopefully stays that way.

It was sooo nice to ride with everyone at Iron Horse, in their huge outdoor level arena!! They had all kinds of fun practice trail stuff set-up. I didn't get around to using it alot, but Brad and Nemo did. I am sure we'll be seeing a few similar additions at our place in the future. Patty watched Nemo's gaits, and would like to see him back in a martingale to bring his head down and work on his top neck muscles.

She briefly helped me with the backing stuff Koda does, and mostly worked on his lope. I told her we had not worked on it much at home, combination of our terrain/weather. He is blocking with his shoulder. She got on him to fix it, and show me how. Wow is he ever pretty when she rides him!! He was a good boy for her, got many good boy pats and even an "I love you Koda". They love her too. I tried sooo hard to see his shoulder blocks from the ground....I only wish I could see what she see's. His combined head-thrusting is easy, but seeing his shoulder was hard. I need practice watching, and repetition - alot of it. It was much easier to feel (and therefore see) once I got on him. He did correct for me too, but I need to do it earlier, harder and consistantly. Nothing new there, it's something I'm sure I'll be working on for a long time. We got praised on our trot gait, and circles. We've done lots of that at home. Patty was really pleased with how Koda and Nemo looked, and responded. Can't wait until next time!!

swamp logging

It was hot. It was buggy. It had standing water. It felt like a swamp.
























A large tree was down right smack in the middle of the woods. Amazing how small the tree looks in the photo, it wasn't small at all.






























Another tree was hung up, high above.





























But that didn't last long....timmmmber! I was surprised the horses didn't care, it was loud.





































Checked on the horses, before getting back to work. Harmony had only been home for a couple hours. They were eating hay, the great pacifier.































We hauled lots of muddy piles of branches.





























Cut and hauled piles of logs.



















The boy who doesn't like horses was a huge help.






































However Koda wasn't much help. Harmony agrees.

Harmony comes home

Our girl is back home with us (no fault of the stables she was at) where we can see her more, and get some things taken care of. We are getting her checked out later this week, she may need some chiro work done.




















It didn't take long for them to bond again. Left-right is Koda, Nemo, Barbie the resident pony, and Harmony.

spun up

Koda and Nemo have had the past couple days off from riding, so we could get some of the extra work done. Brad weed-wacked the wooded area, the boy who doesn't like horses helped me pick up the scattered wood that washed up from the recent storm, mowed the pasture and dragged the arena. For whatever reason, Koda and Nemo spun themselves up while in the back pasture. Not sure what brought it on, the weed wacker wasn't even running, but they sure were. I opened the gate, and Koda came out bucking and running.




















Koda slowing down while rounding the corner


I didn't get a good shot of Nemo, he did his running in the back pasture. They both got a better workout then we would have given them. Thankfully they didn't hurt themselves in the process. Silly spun up boys.