New Kid On The Block

He's here! He's here! The new guy has arrived!

On Sunday, The Desert Rose and two other friends hauled out from the desert to ride with us. They also made a special delivery.

This would be the outlaw, Crow, or better yet, Dirty Chicken, as he is registered. Those of you who follow The Desert Rose may have heard of him. Born and broke in South Dakota, AQHA registered and heavily foundation-bred, he is one heck of a horse. If you can ride him.

While continually bucking people off during his training, it was discovered that he could work and track a cow like no other. In an effort to wear the horse down enough to be ridden, they roped 60-70 head off him a day. He still holds a little grudge towards humans for that.

Cowboy H even dressed up for the occasion.

He was eventually brought to California, and became the top roping horse for Cowboy H's old boss. Occasionally he was used as a guide horse for the stables' trail rides, which is how Cowboy H got to know him. Cowboy H actually rode him quite a bit, and has always loved him. Even after the ankle-breaking incident, he still loves him.

But, Cowboy H also knows that he can never be fully trusted. As he puts it, "Crow is a rattlesnake." Everyone who has ridden him (except me!) has not only been bucked off, but had a bone broken in the process. (In everyone else's defense, I only rode him once, and the trail we rode was so rough that there was never an opportunity to screw around. So, I kinda cheated. ;))

After much fussing and picture taking, Cowboy H led Crow out to the big pasture where he will be living.

We had a big ride to get going on, otherwise we would have spent a little more time with him before turning him out.

Plus the poor guy was a little freaked out by all the commotion. For as wicked as this horse can be to a rider, he is really just a big wienie. While leading him to the pasture, Cowboy H mentioned "I have a feeling poor old Crow's going to be at the bottom of the food chain".

Sure enough, when we returned from our ride, there he was all alone, crying out for Cowboy H.

Now, you may (or should) be asking yourself, "Why would you want such a horse?". First, he was free. Secondly, sometimes the pull a horse has on a man cannot be explained. Third, Cowboy H's feet will no longer hang below his horse's belly.

Cowboy H put his first ride (in 4 years) on him yesterday. I will have the pictures up in the next few days.

So, what do you think of our new guy? Would you have taken him??

Story of a (Second) Hand-Me-Down Horse: Bella-Ella

This scraggly thing came to us on Halloween of last year. I'm sure most of you who read this blog know her story better than I do so I won't talk much about her past. All I will say is she was underweight, whooly as a mammoth, and full of anxiety and angst. She looked nothing like the horse Cowboy H had described we were getting.

(Note: Please don't judge Mama H and please forgive Cowboy H for cutting of Bella's legs)

She also behaved completely different than I expected. She hated being caught and was a wreck to lead and tie; a nervous nelly. Overall, an extremely unhappy horse. We turned her out in the "mare pasture" at our little ranch; the same area that my Maria lived in (we knew that box stalls were out of the question). She was accepted into the herd quickly, but it was soon discovered that she was a cribber, which impeded her gaining weight.



The picture above is from the first time one of us rode her, after spending 15 minutes just trying to catch her. Fortunately, she was very pleasant under saddle and seemed to really enjoy going out on the trails. The arena was a whole different story though...

Both Cowboy H and I decided that Bella needed some time to decompress. We stopped riding her for the most part and focused a lot of energy on just spending time with her. I would catch her just to brush her, or give her a carrot (no apples, she doesn't like apples), or simply walk her around the ranch on foot while i yakked it up with other people. She was also tied to the patience pole a few times since tying quietly was not one of her best qualities.

Then, we had to go catch about 100 cows that had gotten out of our grazing land when fires burned the fences last November. Without hesitating Cowboy H strapped his rope to his saddle and threw it over Bella's back. She was a real working cow horse for a day and loved it.

Once all the cows had been herded back to the ranch (I will post pictures of this ride someday soon) we had to sort and count them in the pens. Now I didn't get any pictures of it because I was busy dodging the bull that Maria was trying to take on, but Bella sure impressed Cowboy H that afternoon. Cowboy H and Bella took on the role of cutting out the desired cows and sending them our way. Man alive did that horse ever cut. She worked her butt of. It was amazing. Cowboy H even roped and dragged cows with her. At one point, he had to jump off Bella suddenly to catch the end of his rope and she slid to a stop and froze in place till he remounted. It was pretty cool.

After that day it was pretty much decided she was a keeper, but she still wasn't gaining weight as well as we wanted. So we turned her out in the BIG pasture which was knee high with green grass after the fires. We didn't touch her (or even look at her) for over a month, and then, wow. Wow. I went out to check on her (finally) and she came running (running!) up to greet me. And she was so fat and shiny and happy I seriously thought I got the wrong horse!

Here she is getting new shoes after over a month on the BIG pasture.



Dragging oak logs from out of the creek gully (but she's not dragging one in this pic)


Working the gate on a evening ride (notice that BUTT)



Look who's coming to see us!

Happy Girl

All in all, we have a happy ending (and twinsie horses!). Bella has taken up permanent residency in the big pasture and has since been joined by Maria. Next up, I make a driving pair out of these two!

I kid!

(Or not...)

My Maria: The Best of Both Worlds

Now that I've hyped it up enough, it suddenly doesn't seem that impressive or outrageous. But, considering how terrible wrong this combination could have turned out, it gets me all giddy just thinking how lucky I am.





Maria is...














a














Friesian Quarter Horse cross.




Yes, I ride a Friesian.


And I LOVE her.




The End.

"Thank you very much"