- When you start something, always end on a good note.
- farts = relaxation in the horse
- Rub the jugular area of the neck. It is the most vulnerable part of their body. When they get comfortable with you touching them there they will get more confidence and trust in you.
- Work behind the shoulder for forward movement.
- Desensitizing and disengaging go hand in hand. In other words, the more supple and loose the horse is, the less tense and afraid he is.
- Apply thumb pressure on the poll area only until the head drops. Continue working at this until the horse becomes extremely responsive and drops head quickly and willingly.
- Always keep the withers "calm" and touch all body flinches until they stop. Make it a "touching" game.
- Whenever you pick up the horses feet, drop a leg instead of placing it back down. Otherwise, the horse may begin to lean on you.
- Use circular motions around the face and eyes to desensitize the area.
To prepare for this clinic, Kathy, of Romance Arabians, left her weanling, "Timmy" completely unhandled. Now, at 5 months, Jeff would show us how to train him. I don't think this went over as well as he had hoped. First off, Jeff is a Quarter Horse trainer and Arabians are a whole 'nother breed! And Timmy was extremely stubborn! He and Seri were turned out together and while Seri could be caught, Timmy would have none of it. Jeff and Kathy spent about 20 minutes catching the little devil and finally ended up leading the filly, Seri, back into the round pen with Timmy following. Then Seri was taken out and he began working on the colt. He eventually got close enough to place a neckrope and a butt rope on Timmy and he began working with him. At this point, he was asking for only one step to the side at a time.
When the foal refused to move forward, Jeff suggested just waiting it out, all day, if need be. He says to keep a steady pressure on the rope and eventually the horse will give in to the pressure and step forward. I guess it usually works, but not with Timmy!
He just closed his eyes and thought about taking a nap.
Jeff pulled harder and Timmy braced back, closed his eyes and prepared to spend all day there too, never intending to move. LOL. A clinician's nightmare! 
Because, this was a clinic, he had to give up and go on to other things. Too bad, Timmy won!
This is one of the mares watching from the field, not Timmy's though. Timmy's mama had just been sold and shipped to Dubai last week.
Jeff suggests working on lateral flexion, bringing the head to each side until the horse drops his head, then immediately releasing the pressure. This is considered low impact training and can go on indefinitely.
I must add, for Timmy's behalf, that he was absolutely terrified of the bleachers, tarps, and people. He never would come to our side of the round pen. Poor baby! Under different conditions, Jeff might have made faster progress with the little colt, like he did Seri, because he worked her the night before.
Also, door prizes were given out, lots of them. And guess what? I was the first number called! I won a set of horse clippers. That is so cool, because I didn't have any before. I also got a great big bag of horse cookies.
Then, there was a question and answer session with a local veterinarian. I asked about the proper time to wean a foal. She suggested at about four months, depending on the mare and foal. If the mare is drying up or losing condition, it's good to wean sooner. It also depends on if the foal is eating hay and grain well. There were several other good questions and answers about worming foals and how much grain to feed, etc. She said Ivermectin, Pyrantel, and fenbendazole are all okay to worm with but never use Quest on a foal. Horses should be checked for sand in their intestines because they can colic. Foals don't have to be fed grain as long as they get good quality hay, and lots of it.
Finally, lunch was served: half a roast chicken, beans, cole slaw, biscuit, and lemonade. Wow! A huge lunch! And a good one too!
All in all, it was a good clinic. It showed the best and worst possible scenarios for working with foals. This wasn't a bad thing, at all. In fact, it made me appreciate Yalla! more for what I can do with her and now I have ideas about what other things I need to work on. I went out yesterday after the clinic to apply some of that training. Yalla! is leading pretty well for the most part although she does balk now and then. I waited her out with some steady pressure like Jeff suggested and she came forward right away! I worked on her bending to side pressure and dropping her head. Even though I've been rubbing her all over since she was born, she still gets "flinchy" in some areas, so I worked on those too. I can understand her thought process a little more now after watching Timmy and Seri.
After I worked with Yalla! I rode Annie, bareback, with a halter and the lead rope looped up and tied for reins. She was awesome. We walked, trotted, and even loped some. She was very responsive for me. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day!
Ready to learn - song: Buddha of Suburbia, artist: David Bowie, album: Buddha of Suburbia
While I was feeding them the other day I noticed a lump/knot on Annie's back leg. I don't know what happened but I figured it might feel good to get some liniment on it. Notice the strange pattern of veins to the front of it.
So I pulled out the ol' jug of horse liniment. I love the smell of liniment, don't you?
Maybe if I keep massaging it the knot will go away. Liniment tends to bring warmth and thus, blood, to any pained areas so maybe it will help heal it. I don't know, but she sure enjoys it. Hmmm, I wonder if I should throw some liniment in a bucket of water and give her an all over rubdown. I'll bet she'd LOVE it.
The colors were magnificent!
And then it started raining. Isn't that backwards? Isn't it supposed to rain first?
Yalla! is like a little kid, always watching...She neighs whenever I call to her.
Here's a butt shot just for fun. Her tail is getting quite bushy and multi-colored. She still has her dorsal stripe but it is blending more and more into her dark coat. The morning sun has distorted the colors in this photo. She's actually quite a bit darker but you can see that her tail is black, brown and white on the sides.
It rained yesterday and both Nadia and Scout took advantage of a good roll in the damp dirt.
Here's a head shot of Annie looking at the fly trap from the other day. Isn't she pretty?
Of course, we sang Happy Birthday and watched her blow out the candles on her birthday cake.
We had egg burritos with sausage, green peppers, cheese and salsa and freshly brewed coffee for breakfast. 
This is a view of THE TREE from inside my cabin. This is the upper part. You can see how close it is to the cabin. If it had fallen wrong it would have taken down the cabin.
It still needs to be cut up for firewood. Ross is quite handy with a chainsaw so he went to work at it. However, our big chainsaw wasn't acting properly and the small one wasn't big enough to do the job so we only got the upper branches cut up on this trip. It was still a pretty good load to bring home. Here he is trying to figure out what to do with the blasted chainsaw!
After the woodcutting, Ross wanted to have some fun, so he went fishing at one of the little ponds down at the bottom of the mountain. I joined him for a while but he wasn't having any luck at all.
I decided to go for a walk near my cabin. I only made it to the field next door but I took lots and lots of photos.
This vine was growing up through a pine tree. Does anyone know what kind of plant it is?
I love how the rocks are mossy and the trees grow all around them. 
It rained a few days earlier and this rock still had a puddle of water in it. This is a four foot high boulder that I climbed on. 
Look at all these young pine trees! They're all about 2-4 feet tall.
This pretty pine tree is growing up through the branches of the other trees.
The ranchers were very creative in the old days, using anything they could for fencing.
There is a whole art on barbed wire. Every rancher twisted his a little bit differently.
I came across some scat, a lot of scat actually! This pile was huge!!! This is only a few hundred yards from my cabin. Seeing that, and then another pile near it, I decided it was time to return to my cabin.
Later in the day, my boys were driving away from my mom's house at the bottom of the hill and they saw a black bear run across the road in front of the truck. It was huge, they said, 300-400 pounds! Judging from the pile of scat I saw, I would agree.
