Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Hey guys, where are you?
All dressed up and ready to party....

Me, me, me FIRST!!!! Yeeah!!!!
The girl is MINE!
Charlie is the first to arrive and is so happy to see Fame again....

...but not for long.
One girl on three boys can be difficult to divide.
And in the background the Boss (26) is slowly approaching.
Make Way, there.

Guess where the girl is.

Girls Smell Nice.

Now the girl is MINE!
Nessprinten is guarding Fame jealously. Too close and there's trouble.
Poor Charlie, he had looked forward to some scratching.

Before getting to the pasture, we took a detour.
No summer without a Beach Trip.
It was warm today, 26 centigrades, and I almost did not manage to get Fame out of the water.
She just loves a bath on a warm day. Me too.

To a girl, wearing correct shoes on every occation is Very Important.
(Trust me, I am spending half my life in Paris at the moment.
In France they take shoes AND beach life very seriously)

Savvy???

The summer in Scandinavia is not long, and it is so beautiful right now.
Those long, light summer nights.

And all those lovely wild flowers!
(Yes, they are very nice, says Fame.
Crunch, crunch)

Who needs Paris?

A whole summer of Grass Party. How much better can it get???
(OK. Will miss the beach.)
Fame says
"Have a Nice Summer Everyone"

Summer

Not much activity here these days, I am afraid.

Work, travel and good weather is keeping me away from the computer....but a small update?

One of the very best things in my horse-year is to let the horses out on summer pasture.

It feels so good to know that they for the upcoming weeks can eat all their heart desires of grass, romp around with the rest of the gang, and just be a Horse.

On Friday we let Charlie loose.

Fame should have joined him  but had somehow got a cut on the inside of her right hock, so she is on antibiotics and has to wait for a few days.

Charlie is thoroughly checked.

Aaah. You're you the same guy that was here last year?

Charlie prefers grazing to socializing.

OK guys, let's start walking!

Nessprinten (at the back) is still at 26 yo the Boss.

Me and Fame took a small walk to get the swelling down.

We splashed around in the creek (wonderful on a warm day), did some grassing on the way and fought flies and mosquitos.

We even saw a moose. Not so usual during summer time.

It was a male, his antlers had begun to grow. They lose them when winter comes, and for each year the antlers get bigger, to all hunter's delight.

It is so lovely outside now, all that lush green.

Fame's best friend, Fire-Bell, became a Mum this weekend.

Here the foal, Fire-Fly, is out for the very first time:

Isn't it amazing that they can manage to balance on those long, thin legs?

I have planned for a long time to write a post about turning/bending aids, but there has simply not been enough time. It will come though, and I would be happy for any contributions or comments on this. So think about it!

I wish you all a very good summer!

Siri/Zan-Day and Hjalmar/Tarzan

Ash st(r)uck

Last week I was in Northern Norway when the volcano Eyjafjallajökul started messing about.
To make a long story short, the trip home that normally would have taken a couple of hours took two days.
And I was lucky compared to many others.
I am sharing some of the pictures from the train ride home, day two.
We are in between Trondheim and Hamar, mid part of Norway.

Not the best quality I am afraid, taken with a cell phone out of a train window!

I love the majestic, serene beauty of the mountains.
They don't care about harsh weather, about man's struggle, life and death.
Timelessness.

----
Coming home, I was met with another bout of snow (melting away during the day).
But the day after -  my favourite spring sign: The return of the wild geese.
I just love that sight and sound! 
Welcome back! How wonderful that you made it!
They are happily cheering each other on: Not far now! Keep the formation!

---
The weekend before last, I had another lovely ride with my daughter.
We packed food for the horses, and started out in lovely spring weather.

Happy Norwegian Cowboy #1 (undercover dressage lady on secret mission)

Happy Norwegian Cowboy #2.
Not chasing cows, but a place to eat!

Fame is fascinated by the sight and sound of the small waterfall.
We rode to our favourite place place to stop, and the horses were very happy for that.
They know the way, and they know what's up when we arrive...

Lunch time!
My daughter is Purchase Manager, I am the Bank and Horse Manager.
She happily purchases away whatever they have got.
Today's catch is waffles, carrot cake and chocolate cake. 
Health food for hungry cowboys. 
(Bank got busted.)

Down to the leftovers.

This lovely place is under siege from hungry people wandering around in the area.
We are in between skiiers and bikers though, so today it was a peaceful place.
When everything is eaten up, it is time to leave.

Bye for now!
Fame and Charlie are happily walking along towards home.

---
During the upcoming three months I will work in Germany three days a week due to a large project.
It will be hard work, but interesting too.
Might be less time for blogging though. 
We'll see.

A treat of a day

What a treat of a day - just look at this weather!

The days are getting longer, and the sun has started to warm some again.

Such a wonderful feeling.

I got so inspired when I woke on Saturday this weekend that I promised my daughter I would clean the terrace from snow.

That was before I had a closer look at it.

I was knee-deep in snow, and I only had one large shovel.

Well, a promise is a promise.

I guess some sweat and exercise won't do any harm...

Sweating. Sweating.

Hm. I can't use up all hours of sun on snow shovelling, must get time for a ride too.

Hi. What are you doing? Is it warm in the sun?

Sniff, not very. I'll stay inside for another week or two.

King of Hunt has another approach to winter and snow.

He watches, very interested, but from the Outside.
Matcho Cats with an image don't sit in windows.

One can miss out on Something. A mouse or two perhaps.

But the icing of the cake this wonderful day was a trail ride with my daughter.

We set out, all four of us, eager to enjoy the beautiful weather.

When passing the Icelandic horses at our neighbour stable I missed a real camera. My cell phone is not doing justice to how the horses contrasted against the horizon, and the intensity of the blue sky.

After having some trot and canter intervals we let the horses walk for a while.

Good boy, Charlie!

Even if you can feel a slight warmth in the sun, it is still low.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?

After another long nice canter up the hill, we took a stop and relaxed a bit in the sun before taking on the last part.

Fame loves to get the opportunity to admire the surroundings. She is just one very curious horse.

Finally we turned home again.

When the sun sets, the air gets chilly almost immediately.

I love the look of the snow now when the days are getting slightly warmer. It gets kind of sugary and glossy on the surface.

Thanks for accompanying us!

The character of a horse

Is the character of a horse set in stone?

Is a nice horse always nice?

Please bear with me and read a rather long ingression to my thoughts.

There is a good discussion going on over at Mugwump Chronicles.
The first post is about what kind of sensitivity you need in a horse depending on what work he is to do.
That post made me want to share some thoughts over things I have been pondering over lately.

This is my daughters pony MacGyver, aka Charlie, aka Prince Charming.

He is such a sweet horse, and we really love him.

When you ride him he is always happy to cooperate, he works for light aids and tries to understand what you want.

If you really look hard for problems he is a bit ticklish when you brush his belly, and he can throw off the odd happy buck when out on trail, but that’s it.

Or at least, that’s what we thought – until now.

Prince Charming has been misbehaving.

We have had a very sweet girl at the same age as my daughter, C, that has been riding him twice a week for over a year.

C rode him well and everything was fine up to beginning of December when she wanted to stop riding him as Charlie had been misbehaving.

Charlie had been acting up when C was out on trail with two other riders from the stable.

C also said that Charlie had bucked with her in the arena a couple of times.

We understood nothing of this as he at the same period of time had been his normal angelic self with my daughter and me.

We were sad though as we liked C, but concluded that the level of what is scary can differ from person to person.

In December Charlie had time off due to a shoeing problem.

Around Christmas we started to ride him again.

And again, even after having time off, he was his normal cheery self and no misbehaving.

Until the new girl, M, was to ride him last week.

She tried him the week before without any problems, but comes Thursday and she was to have her first dressage lesson.

I was riding Fame at the same time, when our Prince Charming suddenly starts a rodeo show.

I could feel my chin fall down to my knees…what on earth was going on???!

M manages to stay on, and continues to ride.

Just to have another act of entertainment a few minutes after.

Still in a state of shock of my Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde-pony, I ask M to change horse with me.

Our ill-mannered pony was opportunistic enough to try the same on me and gets an unpleasant surprise.

He tries once again, with the same result.

After that he is behaving himself again, and M sits up and rides the rest of the lesson without any problems.

He has apart from this incident never misbehaved with my daughter or me, or any adult persons riding him, so I rule out any health problems.
On the contrary, he is happy to work.

So I guess he was just looking for some extra entertainment.

Exit Prince Charming, hello Mr. Bad Guy.

Now to summarize this rather long story, I am coming back to the questions on top.

Is a horse’s character set in stone?

Is a nice horse always nice?

In the example above we have a horse where the setting around him is the same, and still he acts totally different depending on the rider.

If you in addition change environment, how you manage the horse and how you feed him, the horse might behave quite different.

So I would definitely say that a horse's character is not set in stone; it may differ quite a lot.

Here you have the difficulty in selling and buying horses.

Assessing the horse’s temperament is perhaps the most difficult task when you are out to buy.
You get a “feel”, and personally I always try to test by pushing the horse a bit, and see how he reacts.

But still it's a qualified guess, at its best.

From time to time I assist people in buying horses.

I love the match-making feeling, of trying to get a good horse-rider combination, and it makes me happy when things work out.
But I always try to have a discussion about the "adjusting period".
The horse is no car, it takes time to learn to know and ride a new horse.
In my opinion you need between 6 mths to a year to learn to learn to know your new partner.

Don't expect it to be perfect from the start, because it won't.

Or perhaps it's very good to begin with as the horse is still working on the previous, more experienced, owner's routines and riding, and then there is a performance drop after a while when the horse adjusts to the new, less experienced owner.

And so much is about management, and routines.

No turnout=bad horse.

Much feed, little exercise=bad horse

No rules=bad horse

I have been pondering a lot about my antelope problems before Christmas.

As it is difficult to get any answers from Fame I think I am concluding that less trail riding and no playing around when turned out (due to uneven, frozen ground) at least play a part in the equation.

Again, a change in managment (due to weather) that affects the behaviour of the horse.

Comments anyone?