horsing around

Whew, busy weekend! Yesterday I spent much of the day at "Avian Science Day," a yearly event at UCDavis. There were some really interesting topics presented this year. I did a little scrimshaw in the evening and gathered up the auction birds.

This morning I was out the door at 6:08AM (eww) and got to auction a little before 7. Only took 13 birds, but every little bit helps. I need to clean out a couple of the now-empty conditioning pens and move all the cockerels in there. It's time to get them away from the pullets, they are starting to cause trouble...

Got home, fed the horses, fed me, gathered up my camera and headed out to a gaited horse show at Brookside with JJ. That was really interesting. I'm getting a better idea what the various gaits are, but I think what was most interesting is how many of the horses weren't doing it right. Foxtrotters that just trotted regular, for example, or a running walk and a flat walk that were absolutely no different. I took some pics but am way too tired to go through them.

I did a quick ride on Dusty as soon as we got back here. Shylah must be rubbing off on him, he was very lazy today. Perfecting this stuff is going to take a long time. Here's a pic from today, bareback (well, bareback pad anyway) to get a good feel for what he's doing:


I spent a couple hours this afternoon doing everything in my power not to fall asleep, and then WM picked me and Shylah up around 3pm for another round of the Starbucks ride. It was just the two of us today, which really gives the ride a very different feel. She rode her young thoroughbred Toby, who was just as slow and poky as Shylah. Neither one of them is a really super confident leader but they both got to lead and both got to follow and both did quite well. There were a few times it seemed better just to get off and walk (like crossing a very busy street). When it's a big group, a horse doesn't really have time to think about stuff, they just want to stay with the pack. With fewer horses they notice more of the surroundings I think. I'm always of the "better safe than sorry" mindset so I have no problems hand-walking a horse. Good ride. Slow ride. Shylah got called majestic and pretty, by teenage boys! Lol.