Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Progress

That which has been a 6yr thorn in our side, has now been completed.. well 95% anyways! Privacy fence finished. Pasture fence finished. We still need to finalize it all by cutting off the 4x4 post tops, but otherwise it is secure and un-passable by horses or dogs!! Not sure if we will still get the deer in our pasture, I'm hoping the apples still draw them in and they are able to jump over. Once we get all the fallen trees out of the pastures and branches burned, we can move forward with daily turnout.. I'm sure the horses will love it!

Progress with Tucker has been slow, but steady. I cross tie him in the barn which allows me a lot more freedom to move in/out from him. Someone taught him to tie, he handles that part just fine. I can now pick up his front feet although he doesnt let me hold them long, and I can somewhat pick up his back legs. He's still very jumpy and unsure about being touched at random. I intend on building a temporary round pen to work him in, it is desperately needed to move forward I think. I'm planning to utilize the Monty Roberts method on him, hoping it gets him to want to join up with me and think of me as his alpha instead of being so shy of my interaction.

Our horse club had a Dutch Oven Day again this past weekend, BEAUTIFUL weather we had for it!! We all should have been out riding instead of cooking.. oh well, I suppose just maybe we will get another 60+ day in our future and maybe we'll get lucky and it will fall on a weekend, although the snow level is supposed to drop to about 500' again tonight.

I struggle with trying to find the balance of my evenings with working Tucker, needing to ride Red and get him in shape (soon!), cooking dinner, cleaning, laundry and spending some down-time with Derek watching some shows and off to bed by 9:30.. There just isnt enough time to do it all. I am failing with Red, cooking, cleaning, laundry and sometimes getting to bed by 9:30! LOL Ideally I would love to hire a housecleaner to come in every other week and take care of all the chores I just dont have or make the time to do, how expensive can it be???

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Nothing Stays the Same Part II

Yep, things are changing again, just 24 hours later! :)

So Oakley did not pass his vet check.. He appeared stiff in his hind end, vet indicated could be suspensory issues with his back legs. Janet did a lot of thinking and decided she wants to ride now and not have to rehab a horse so she is sending him back. I dont blame her, she doesnt need to spend her entire summer with an out-of-shape horse that should be brought back up slowly. So I will pick him up within the week.

I did call the vet this AM to get my own clarity on his opinion. He indicated that the suspensory issue was just something he threw out there as a possibility but not something he focused on and that the puncture might be causing some lameness, his feet are not shod in the back, that could be the problem, his angles are off on his feet, he doesnt have the muscle mass in his hind end from not being in shape.. ALL of these things could be contributing to why he was lame in his back end and vet said if he is just "legged up" (basically just in shape) that he might very well pass sound in a few months just fine! THAT is what I believe is the issue, so I am MORE than happy to pick him up and move on.

I really like Janet and hope to remain friends with her, but I know Oakley is sound, his videos from 8 months ago clearly show him sound.. the problem: He sat for about 6 months with little work.

So I got on the phone this AM and have some options, one of which is my friend Amber is considering leasing him for the summer. She would keep him at her place and ride him, love on him and her inlaws would ride him as well. They live in the backyard of some GREAT trails up there at Heart Lake, it would be perfect to send him up there. I trust Amber very much.

We have options though which is great.. One of which is to just keep him and let others ride/lease him until we are ready for him to be a regular fixture at our place. He is a great horse and its tough to want to sell one that you dont always have an easy time finding or affording down the road.. Janet has found a horse to ride for the summer, she expressed interest in re-considering Oakley after he is established as sound, but would we sell or lease?? Who knows what the end of summer will bring for Oakley!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Nothing stays the same

A girl that was interested in Oakley a while back who has since purchased a different horse, forwarded someone to me that has been looking for a horse for a while. I was pretty reluctant to show him to anyone just yet, he is at his worst and looks like shit; underweight, nicks all over him and a puncture wound on his back leg. This lady was eager to see him, she loved his videos online and was heading to a clinic in OR in a week and thought maybe she could take him to try him out at this clinic. So against all inside of me that was embarassed to show him to anyone, we met her at a public arena in Redmond.

Her name is Janet, she is an exceptional owner and rider.. She has won lots of money and awards including the 2009 Oregon Foundation Quarter Horse Ranch Versatility. She's looking for a solid horse to use out on the trails and to do the trail challenge courses with, maybe work some cows etc. Exactly the type of home I would have hoped to find for Oakley. She was able to look past his weight and nicks and wanted to give him a try, although she is not hauling him to OR this weekend, he's just too out of shape for that much work.

I had a momentary lapse and self destructed in devaluing my own horse when we had to set a price on him. I think I felt so guilty for how bad he looks now that I allowed myself to get talked out of a bit of money for him. For now Janet is doing a 6 week lease and will determine at the end if she wants to A)buy him for $5,000 B) lease him on a long-term basis or C) send him home. I'm okay though with the offer she made because she is such a terrific home that I am staying positive. I met a new friend, I hope to ride with her and Oakley in the future and watch them progress and see just how far she can take him with what she does! Plus.. I know I could get him up to weight no problems, but do I really have the time to get him in shape when I cant even get my ass on my own horse these days. lol

And I have the colt to work with now too. :) He's coming along great. Very SLOW progress, but he is learning to respect me. I was able to approach him and catch him from his right side the other day, that is a HUGE deal because he has been very leary of even wanting me on that side when he has a halter on. So that is progress... I have been able to touch his back legs with the whip (used as an extension of my arm) and he has not kicked. I have brushed him almost all over, started picking up his front legs. I dont trust him and I dont think he trusts me just yet. I also hung a bunch of hay strings on his stall door, yes it looks pretty silly and odd, but I want him okay with random things touching him.

We settled on a name, his new name is Tucker! Derek won the battle in picking the name, of course. :)

Derek's 38th bday was this past Saturday, clearly we didnt end up out of town on our camping trip to Easton, had to cancel it with all the work Derek has been doing lately and with the added horse stress.. just wasnt feasible to get away. Instead we had dinner with Jen/John & Sean/Sophy on Fri night.. We all went back to Jen/Johns place and had some really great conversations mixed in with a few shots, finally left at 3am! It was just really nice to have some bonding time with them all. Spent Saturday night out to dinner with my parents, Eric/Andrea and Crystal/Aaron. A laid back kind of day, worked on our fencing too.. paying my dads x-workers to finish it off with the wire, it will be nice to have that project thorn in our side completed.

Things are looking up for us a little, the hard work of fighting the bank paid off and we are signing new loan documents tonight and I'm sooooo ready to start fresh. Now if we can find a way to add some hours to the day so we can finish some other projects, that would be ideal. Cleanup has slowly started at the Fecht household.. once the fencing is done, we can clean up all the excess wood, get some dump runs out, and clear up the shit outta our shop, shed, driveway, pasture, garage, yard and anywhere else it may be stored... lol

Monday, April 11, 2011

Back/Forth

I go back and forth in my mind about the decision to bring home this colt. Maybe I am over-stressed with Oakley, the colt and our mortgage issues, my brain is full! Its not like the colt costs a lot to have him around, but it is added cost and one more project in our never-ending sea of a busy life. I do have options with him, its not like I have to keep him, I can always work him and sell him next year as a 2yr old.

He is turning out to be quite the project, that I will say! He's a lot "wilder" than I initially realized and basically I have to treat him as a wild horse. He does NOT like to be touched much. He kicked at me twice yesterday when I was close enough to pet his butt.. I actually thought he was enjoying it, I was brushing his butt and he moved his rear closer to me.. Red does the same thing because he wants me to keep scratching it! But not the colt apparently, as he kicked at me.. I quickly realized I needed to start out much much slower.

I previously had thought I would wait to re-halter him until he was 100% approachable, but determined after yesterdays kicking episodes it was much safer for me to have a halter/lead on him when handling him. That way I can control his head at all times and his rearend, so if he swings towards me with his butt, I can get ahold of his face and manually pull him around which means his butt has to go the opposite direction of me.

I spend 15-20 minutes every morning haltering and working with him as well as handling him every afternoon. This AM when I attempted to run my hand down his chest to his front legs, he tried to bite me. I immediately reacted as the "alpha" and let him know that was NOT okay by "biting" back with a pop from the leadrope and "charging" after him to get him to back away from me. He might be half wild and scared by his new experiences, but I am still the boss and I'm not going to "baby" him. The plan is to teach him to respect me and my space in a manner that he understands and that will yield me a respectful horse down the road.

He shows signs of wanting to follow me around, he is just so uneasy with any touch right now, it is going to be a long and slow process! I'm certain that he is biting and kicking out of fear, and not because he is an asshole.

Maybe part of my anxiety about him is my own fear of the "what if". What if I cant get him to accept and trust me, he is the biggest ground work challenge I've had to deal with and a small part is afraid I will fail, so my brain says "you cant fail if you dont try". Bad brain bad brain, that is the wrong way to think so I am attempting to supress those thoughts and move on! because What if I succeed.. What if he turns into a 16H+ easy going, well built, well bred, good looking horse! :)

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Started the day with 2, ended with 4!

Well I havent had much exciting to write about lately until today! :) I did another work party yesterday, this one w/o the horses.. we cleared a trail that had been logged over 2 years ago up at Victoria Tract PTF. I was really impressed with how many non-horse riders were there to help, we accomplished the trail clearing goal much quicker than anticipated.

Derek has been working a lot of OT, today is Sunday and he worked yesterday and today. :( I feel bad that he doesnt get much of a break, although the money is really good, I just hope he can hang in there until the company slows back down. We hope to get some projects finished with the extra cash, like our fencing!!! That is probably #1 on the list right now especially with our new circumstances.... He finished the cabinet, it turned out great and the guys at work were all impressed (and I'm guessing a little jealous too).

The dogs have all been great, we've been babysitting my parents dog Sarge all week as they had to drive back to ND, my dad's brother Wayne passed away. So the household has been a bit crazy, Sarge loves to run and he and Cooper wrestle around a lot. My dogs are super jealous of Sarge's feeding though, they go nuts to lick his bowl when he is finished!

I know I know.. everyone is bitching about the rain! But it is getting ridiculous. I dont normally complain much, but it is almost a bit depressing this year for some reason and if you live here, you know what I mean! We had to cancel our trip to Easton next weekend, we were going to take the horses and Russell to go camping for Derek's bday but he has to work and it was a bad time for him to take a day or two off work with his boss out all week. I think they appreciate he was willing to compromise. So now we have no plans yet for his bday, I'm not even sure if he is working or not on the day.

I got a text from Shannon on Friday asking if I could pick up Oakley on Saturday. When we got to her place, she was on the verge of tears.. she felt really bad for not having him sold and asking us to take back our horse. I told her no worries! The possibility of her taking him back in another month is still there, but i'm not counting on it. We kinda have room for him, we created a seperate corral behind the barn for him, but we also still have pasture options at my parents or at Roger/Diana's place if need be.

We have been talking about our options with Oakley and what to do.. We dont need a third horse, but he is a great horse. We called Tracy and asked if she might be interested in riding him because her mare is having hoof issues that will take a few months to recover from and she is out of a trail horse and we hardly have time to ride the 2 we got! She was very interested, so that is great.. it would get him out on the trails and keep him in shape! Whenever we get a free day soon, she's going to give him a try and go from there. I may still put him up for sale, just all depends on how things play out.

As we were driving out to Shannon's, we passed a blue roan horse that is about a mile from her place.. I mentioned to Derek that I LOVE blue roans and Derek joked, said his favorite is a red roan because well.. thats what his horse is! :) We get to Shannons place and are chit-chatting with her about who knows what and she says to me "Hey I gotta show you whats in my arena". As we walk over I see a 10mo colt, she got him on a trade deal and doesnt want him. Guess what color he is?? Blue Roan!! Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways.. so she proceeded to attempt to "sell me on him", talking about his great legs, responsiveness, movement, breeding lines, potential future height and good price. I was ho-hemming about it, what the hell do I need another horse for? As she was leading him around the arena, Derek and I quietly chatted and decided that we would take that colt by golly! I'm not sure if it was her persistance that she really wanted me to have him or my desire for a project or the potential that this guy might just be 16H when he's finished growing or what.. but we loaded that colt up and took him home!

He is basically a range baby, born w/o personal human interaction and is very scared and nervous by human touch. Shannon had a halter/lead on him 24/7 and he picked up how to lead with the minimal work she put into him, he is pretty responsive. As Derek led him to the horse trailer, Derek stopped at the back of the trailer to let the colt sniff it out, and that colt walked past Derek and jumped right in the trailer on his own.. Just the way we like our horses to load! He hauled home quietly as well. We got home and said "Where the hell are we going to put him?"

Since he is still pretty nervous around people and is NOT easily catchable, he needed a super safe area where he could not jump over, under or through any fences while trying to get away from human interaction. So we put him in Red's stall and closed it off completely. We left Red in the corral section with no stall access. We left Edgar in his normal corral and put Oakley in the new corral. It was dusk as we settled them all in, I took the colts halter/lead off of him and left him loose in the stall.

I was anxious last night as I played on the computer, wanting to go out and visit my new project.. So at about 11pm I headed out to the barn! :) Well things were not as hunky-dorry as they were when I left them earlier. When I went out to the barn, the colt was circling around in his stall, he seemed very nervous and anxious as well. As I walked over to the stall door, from the outside corral I see Red CHARGE that stall, MOUTH WIDE OPEN, TEETH OUT and he slammed against the stall, teeth literally racking across the metal bars! Oh shit, the colt was freaking out! I was calm, but internally a little freaked out by the anger and furry of Red, he kept wanting to charge that stall.. So in the late hours, I'm out there yelling at Red, trying to calm the colt with nothng more than my voice and wondering how I'm going to switch things up to alleviate the stress of it all.

I moved Oakley into Edgars stall/corral, moved Edgar over into Red's corral since I knew he would NOT charge the colt and then put Red in the corral behind the barn. Red had no way to basically see/charge the colt from that area. Things started to settle down, I was just about to get the colt to let me touch him, when Edgar accidentally touched the hot wire and bolted, stirring up everyone all over again. They finally settled again, I brushed Oakley for a while and then was able to get the colt to let me touch his left side only. This morning all seemed pretty good with the horses. I decided to give the colt the corral section as well as the stall, so I had to move Oakley and Edgar in together. Edgar is a little grumpy at Oakley, but they used to share a stall just fine together at feeding time, so I know it will be okay.

Red got PISSED again, because now that I moved Edgar, he couldnt see him and he spent his morning running around, rearing up and being a butthead instead of eating his breakfast. I was able to get the colt to allow me to touch him again on his left side, used a brush on his neck, he's good with touching his face (not his ears) and his neck, but once I move beyond his neck to his back, he gets nervous and moves away. I am doing this all very slowly. For now as I initially approach him, I have to do it facing away from him and backing up to him. I think he feels less threatened this way, it is non-confrontational. The colts name was Stone, but Derek does not like it, so we are in the process of trying to come up with a new name. It will be interesting to see just how much he lightens up when he sheds out. :) I LOVE projects like this so I am excited to have a colt to do some groundwork with. I was frustrated with Red last night, but I knew this about him, that he can be intolerable of new horses.. I was so glad there were metal bars between him and the colt! Yesterday morning I had 2 horses and now I have 4!