Second Lunge Session

I lunged Shadowfax again on Tuesday evening, and I think things went quite well for our second time. I still had to ask several times for trot and canter and had to flip the whip a bit, but this time he only did one rather mild buck the first time I asked for canter. Aside from that one little buck, there were no other fireworks. He still isn't responding to commands promptly, but he does seem to be getting a little better about it. And after lunging both directions, he actually stopped when I asked him to "ho". Since we'd done both directions fairly thoroughly, I decided that was a strong positive note to end on and so we did.

Before I lunged him, I also sprayed him with fly spray and though he still sidled around a bit, he did much better than he did the previous time.

It rained yesterday, and today I just don't feel up to working with him, but hopefully this weekend, I'll work with him some more and he will continue to improve.

Lunging Shadowfax

Well, I finally felt well enough (and brave enough) to try and lunge Shadowfax. Not that he's bad to lunge. When he is lunged consistently, he does just fine. But he hasn't been lunged consistently since we bought him. (I know that's bad, but first there was knee deep mud and then I was injured and Foxfire doesn't really know how to lunge since his horse was never trained to do it.) I don't know why I decided to lunge Shadowfax today. Foxfire was actually out of town with SH doing SCA equestrian stuff. And you would think that I would want to do it when he was around. If for nothing else than the fact that he could take pictures. (I still don't have any pictures of me with my horse. Sigh.) But for some reason, I felt like doing it for the first time this afternoon, and so I did.

Now, I don't exactly have much experience lunging horses. Back when Cash was still sound, JJ showed me how to lunge him a couple of times. But that was well over a year ago, and Cash was extremely well trained. All I really had to do was hold the lunge line and speak the cues and Cash did what I said with absolutely no fuss. A few months ago, at the jousting clinic, JJ had demonstrated lunging Shadowfax to me, though, because of my injuries, I couldn't actually lunge him myself. Shadowfax is not quite as well-trained or willing as Cash. With some consistent work, he probably could be, but he's not there right now. Even with JJ lunging him, there were quite a few fireworks. So, I knew there were probably going to be some problems when I started lunging him. And there were. But they weren't that bad. And by the end of the relatively short session, he was actually doing pretty well. So here's a brief summary of how things went.

Now, since I had treats in my pocket, the minute I walked out into the pasture, Shadowfax came up to me. How he knows I have treats in my pockets, I don't know. I only have treats about one in ten times I go into the pasture, but, I swear, the horse is psychic, because he always seems to know when I have treats. When I don't have treats, he'll look up at me, but he doesn't come over unless I call to him. If I have treats, I don't have to call, he just comes. Smart horse. I haltered him and led him to the trailer which is where we keep the lunging equipment.

The flies were bothering him, so I decided to spray him, which I knew he wouldn't like, but he needs to get used to it. I pulled out the fly spray and when he saw the bottle, he stepped back just a little and looked nervous. I held the fly spray in the same hand the I held the lead rope in, and with my other hand, I pulled out a carrot stick. I held the carrot stick up next to the fly spray where he could see it. After a moment he stepped forward and reached for the carrot. I made sure that he had to rub his nose against the side of the bottle in order to get the carrot. Then as he was munching the carrot, I slowly sprayed his front legs. He sidled away a little bit in a semi-circle on the lead rope, and I followed him until he was against the side of the trailer and couldn't sidle any more. I again sprayed his front legs and he sort of shifted a bit, but couldn't really go anywhere. I sprayed his leg again and he finally just stood there, so I gave him another carrot stick. As he was munching the carrot stick, I moved to his side to spray his side, back and belly. He moved forward and got away from the trailer, so I moved him around in a circle again, until he was against the trailer again. I rustled the pocket with the treats in it and then sprayed his side again. He twitched a little, but basically stood still, so he got another carrot stick. Then I sprayed his back leg. We went in a circle again and he ended up back against the trailer. Etc... We repeated the pattern several times until I had gotten him to stand still while I sprayed him all over. Then I held up the bottle in front of him again and when he sniffed it, gave him another carrot stick. (The carrot sticks are pretty small, so I can feed him a lot of them.) I put the fly spray away and got out the lunge line and whip, and led him over to a clear flat area.

Now when I started all of this the donkeys and Ziggy were way on the other side of the pasture, but when I started to walk Shadowfax in a circle, they ALL had to come over and see what I was doing. Ziggy actually stayed far enough away not to be a problem, but Kanny and Tessla managed to actually get between Shadowfax and me just ahead of the lunge line, they kept walking and I actually let them lunge with us for about half a circle because it was really sort of cute. But after half a circle, I stopped because I figured sooner or later someone was going to get out of sync and cause problems and I truly did not want that. I locked the donkeys in the goat pen and started Shadowfax walking in circles again. He actually did really well walking at the end of the lunge and after about 5 or so circles, I asked him to trot. He didn't trot right away and I had to ask more forcefully and flip the whip a little bit to actually get him to trot, but he trotted eventually. When I asked him to go back to walk, he did so promptly. When I asked for trot again, he did a little better and he was always willing to slow to walk.

However, when I asked him to canter, there were some fireworks. He wouldn't go from just the voice cue, so I had to flick the whip at him several times. I finally actually touched his rump with the whip, not forcefully, just enough for him to feel it and he bucked and kicked out. I yelled, "NO!!" and he immediately went into a hell bent for leather canter. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was a canter and he wasn't pulling on the lunge line or anything. I let him run around about five times, then tried to slow him to a trot. At first, he just kept running. I tried different things to slow him and finally figured out that speaking extreeeeeemmmmmmmllllllyyyy slowly and letting my voice drop in pitch and volume was the way to get him to slow down. He gradually slowed down and finally dropped into a trot. I trotted him two circles, then asked for a walk, and he slowed to a walk. And then I asked him to stop.

Sadly, he doesn't seem to understand "Ho" at all. The only way to get him to stop is to pull the lunge line shorter and shorter and he'll eventually stop. It's a bit frustrating, but I suppose there are worse things. I'll ask JJ what I can do to teach him to stop when I say "Ho".

I switched which side the lunge line was attached to and started him walking in the opposite direction. This time when I asked for trot, I got it a bit more easily, I still had to make tsk, tsk noises at him, but I didn't have to flip the whip. I walked, trotted, walked several times, then I asked for canter. Again there were fireworks, but a loud "NO!!" was all it took to make him canter instead of buck and kick out. (He only did one buck and one kick before he went into the canter on each side and I sort of wonder if he would have gone into the canter after expressing his displeasure even I hadn't yelled. Who knows.) Anyway, he did hell bent for leather canter again and I let him go for several circles then I started slowing him down. I asked for a slower canter, by saying "canter" in a slow drawn out way on a descending scale, and he actually slowed into a nice controlled canter. After a couple of more circles, I asked for a trot and got it immediately. I asked for walk and got it fairly quickly and then I had to pull him in to get him to stop.

I switched directions again and asked for walk, trot, walk, trot, canter, trot, walk, and got everything I asked for reasonably quickly and with NO fireworks. I tried asking for stop again, and again had to pull him in closer to finally get him to stop, but he did stop a bit more easily than before. I decided that that was a really good positive note to end on and didn't lunge him in the other direction again. Maybe the lunging was a bit uneven in numbers of circles in each direction, but I wanted to stop on a positive note and wasn't sure it would go as well in the other direction. I gave him a carrot stick and told him that he'd been a very good boy.

I led him back to the trailer, switched the lunge line for the lead line and held the fly spray bottle out to him again. At first he pulled his head back, but then seemed to remember the carrots and nosed the bottle. I gave him another carrot stick. I closed everything back up in the trailer, led him over to the gate to the backyard, took his halter off, gave him another carrot stick and petted him a few times. I let the donkeys out of the goat pen, petted them, petted Shadowfax again and came inside.

It wasn't a very long lunging session, and it certainly wasn't perfect, but I am very happy that it went as well as it did. And even though my arms and shoulders are a little tired, my ribs and tailbone don't hurt any more than usual, so obviously it didn't strain my injuries. Now that I know that I can lunge Shadowfax, I will try to do so several times a week. Hopefully, he and I will both improve our lunging abilities, and it will strengthen our relationship.

Who knew deer ate cat food

Last night as I was reading, I heard a clattering noise on the front porch. I thought it might be raccoons or possums eating leftover cat food, so I went to scare them away. As I was approaching the door, I could see through the side window that it was neither coon nor possum eating the cat food, it was a deer. I opened the door and the deer looked up at me momentarily frozen. I looked at the deer and said, "Cat food? Really???" She unfroze, tried to spin around, slipped, fell down, scrambled up and bolted out of the front courtyard.

Who knew that deer liked to eat cat food.

Bugs and Butterflies

In the past few months, while I was taking pictures of flowers, I also managed to get a few nice pictures of various bugs and butterflies. Now good pictures of bugs and butterflies are a lot harder to get than pictures of flowers. For one thing, flowers don't run (or fly) away from you. Also, the chickens that follow me around whenever I'm out in the yard don't have much interest in flowers. But let me see an interesting bug and as I am crouching down to get a nice close shot, a hen will dart in and gobble the bug up before I can take the shot. Admittedly, part of the reason we have chickens is to help keep the fly and bug population down. But when you're trying to take a picture and your pet chickens keep eating the subjects of your pictures, it can be a little frustrating. However, even with all of those difficulties, I have managed to get a few nice pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

A big pretty yellow and black butterfly that I followed around for 10 or 15 minutes in order to get several nice shots.

Side view of the butterfly as it was sucking up moisture from some mud.

The butterfly in flight.
Identified by Mary as a Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes)

The butterfly flying above its own shadow.

A smaller white and black moth.

A very small orange moth that I managed to get a nice close picture of before a hen ate it.

A red and black bug that apparently eats flower petals. I wouldn't mind if the hens ate him, but they didn't.

A medium sized orange butterfly (moth?) that a chicken attacked before I could get a closer shot. Fortunately, the butterfly got away.

Identified by Mary as possibly a Checkered Skipper

A leaf brown moth that was very cooperative and allowed me to get several good shots, including an extreme closeup.

A small blue dragonfly

And a pair of black and white polka-dot moths mating. At least I assume that is what they are doing.

Identified by Mary as Giant Leopard Moths (Hypercompe scribonia)

I hope you enjoy the pictures, and if you know what any of these insects are properly called, please tell me.

An Irrational Body

I can feel my shoulders trying to curl inward and downward. I can feel my back muscles pulling against my spine, twisting it sideways. My body knows that it is in pain and doesn't understand why I am moving around and doing chores. It just wants me to stop. But sitting down just makes things worse as my body tries to avoid putting pressure on my broken tailbone or dislocated ribs. And even laying down, my muscles twist and turn and attempt to find some position where nothing aches. But it doesn't work. There is no position where there is no pain, and my body's attempts to find that elusive pain-free zone merely cause muscle ache and fatigue and pull my body out of alignment. I wake up in pain, I move in pain, I sit in pain, I live in pain. And about half of this pain is caused by my body's attempts to escape the pain.

I know that allowing my body to twist itself into a pretzel doesn't really help, but my body insists that it will. I have to constantly monitor my body and consciously straighten my back and pull my shoulders up and out and try to keep everything in its proper alignment. When I stop paying attention, my muscles surreptitiously contract and pull until I am twisted and hunched. Sooner or later I realize what has happened, usually when the muscles that have worked so hard to get me into this distorted position begin to realize their own pain. Then I have to convince my tired body to straighten itself out, to try and pull itself back into its proper alignment.

I carefully stretch and move about, persuading my muscles to loosen and relax. The tightness and cramps gradually release, and the muscle pain diminishes. Then I can go back to what I was doing. But even though the muscle pain has been relieved there is the still the pain of the broken and dislocated bones. And so, as soon as I stop paying attention, my body again starts to try to escape its pain. My muscles contract. My body twists and distorts. And soon I am in more pain than I was before.

It's a brutal cycle that makes no sense. And it leaves me feeling exhausted and helpless, trapped within an irrational body.

What's Blooming -- Late March

This past March, my friend JJ posted some pictures of the wildflowers blooming near her new house and asked her readers to post pictures of the flowers near their houses. I grabbed my husband's fancy camera and started taking pictures and a new hobby was born. Turns out I really like taking pictures of flowers. I've always liked taking pictures to some extent, but it was mainly during vacations and at special events. I had never really thought much about taking pictures of ordinary flowers. Of course part of my enjoyment comes from having such a nice camera to use. I can take really close up pictures of teeny tiny flowers and blow them up nice and big so that they can be seen without having to crawl around on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass. I like taking pictures of larger flowers as well, but my real joy comes from discovering the itty bitty flowers that would normally be overlooked and making them prominent in the picture.

At first I tried to look up and identify all the flowers that I didn't know the name of, but that turned out to be very time consuming. I eventually gave up and just gave simple descriptive names to the flowers I couldn't identify. BTW, if you know what any of the unknown flowers are, or if I have mis-labeled any of the flowers, please let me know in the comments section. You can see some of my better pictures in my What's Blooming -- Late March photo album. But here are some of my favorite pictures and pictures of some of the unknown wildflowers that I would like to identify. All of these wildflowers bloomed in the Texas Hill Country in late March. (I know... I know. These pictures are from March and it's now May. I'm behind on my posts. Sorry.)

The ever popular Texas Bluebonnet.

An intact Dandelion puff.

An unknown itty bitty blue flower.

Showing exactly how small the itty bitty blue flower is, less than a quarter of an inch in diameter.

A peach blossom.

An Old Blush rosebud.

A Lady Banks White rose.

Unknown tiny white flowers, about a quarter of an inch in diameter.

Unknown very small white flowers, about a third of an inch in diameter.

Unknown grass bloom.

Unknown narrow petaled yellow flower.

Unknown small pink flower, less than half an inch in diameter.

Unknown tiny pink and purple flowers, less than a quarter inch in diameter.

Purple Prairie Verbena

Wild Allium

Unknown yellow flowers

A pretty lavender blue Anemone

White anemones

Bladderpod. An unattractive name for a cute little (about 1/2 inch) flower. You can see one of the pods behind the flowers.

A white Iris

A mulberry bloom

Pear blossoms

Sherardia Arvensis, tiny lavender flowers, less than a quarter inch in diameter, but very prolific.

Tiny Yellow Clover. It's actually called "Tiny Yellow Clover", that's not my description.

Spiderwort

Ok, so I posted a lot of pictures. I actually took hundreds, so I've edited the selection down a good bit. I hope you enjoyed looking at ones I posted. If you want to see more, check out my What's Blooming -- Late March photo album. The names of the flowers (known and unknown descriptions) are at the end of the direct link if you are curious. Feel free to make comments and/or tell me the names of flowers.

Okay, so I lied...

I did not get pictures and a post about the Lysts of Castleton up in a timely manner. In fact, I'm still not really posting about Lysts. Turns out every time I try to edit the pictures, it reminds me of how upset I was that I was not able to participate in the first Lysts held since I finally got my own horse. I get all cranky and frustrated and end up doing something else just to escape all the negative emotions thinking about Lysts generates. So who knows if I'll ever get the pictures edited or a post made. I'm writing this post to basically give myself permission to move on and write posts about all the flower pictures I've been taking, the new hens I bought and all the other more positive stuff going on in my life.

Unfortunately, there is some negative stuff remaining in that I am still in pain from my broken tailbone and dislocated ribs. I can't even sit on a nice squishy chair without pain, so I definitely can't sit in a saddle. SIGH... The chiropractor says that it isn't unusual for a tailbone to take so long to heal. Since you can't immobilize it and it's in a part of your body that you really can't avoid using, it can take a really long time to heal. Dr P also noticed that I was still favoring my right leg even though it quit hurting a while back. He told me to be aware of it and to try to take more even strides and it would help with both my tailbone and my rib pain. I'm not sure why my ribs are still bothering me. Maybe because I keep doing things to aggravate them like trimming and hauling large tree branches and mucking out the stable. But these things need to be done. Oh well...

I'll start posting more upbeat stuff soon.