Mare Maintenance and Cautious Scrappy

Though retired, Desire still requires quite the maintenance for her royal self. She grows hoof at an alarming rate, dreadlocks mane simply by turning her head, and doesn't roll enough to properly shed herself out. I don't begrudge her any of this, because it keeps us interacting often when, with busy life and riding horses and growing foals, she might otherwise slip below the radar a bit as the pasture horse. If you're shocked by that, you just don't have enough animals yet ;-)

Anyway Desire came out for a spa day and Sheza is generally that kid jumping up and down with her hand raised "PICK ME PICK ME!" when she sees me with a halter, so she joined us as well. If nothing else, standing bored in the cross ties is a fine exercise for an impatient red thing. And when she got too bored, I started leaning on her back and jumping around, to keep it more interesting.  You can see by her ears that she was questioning my sanity a bit, but fortunately she is still paralyzed by itches against all odds. Any concern over my actions, when treated with butt scratches, was instantly cured. 

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I had plans to try Renegade Vipers on Blaze on the 6 mile horse camp loop this a.m., while simultaneously babysitting fellow blogger Mel on her 4 yr old project. This morning I got Blaze all tidied up to go but when picking out his hooves I noticed that he had an abrasion and bit of a soft spot on his left hind heel bulb. Since he goes bare in the hinds and there is no way to protect that spot I decided to have him sit this one out, since there is no point turning a nothing into a something. We rode on very rocky trails at Whiskeytown this past Saturday and that spot no doubt came about from that. This is my ultimate legitimization for having multiple solid riding horses put into action, as I was able to let Blaze have his day and pull Scrappy out to babysit instead.

Scrappy has a new Hi-Tie, and thought M maybe had Scrappy food in her boot bucket, too

Spring trails <3

 silly wabbit

A nice quiet moment thinking about creek crossings..

Tig did a couple nice ones under saddle today

 Scrappy was comically determined to keep himself out of Tig's bubble today, after being cannon-balled into by a mare on our long ride Sunday. He has shown himself to be a horse that absolutely remembers things from one ride to another. Never let the sleepy geldings fool ya, they are clever self preservationists under it all! I certainly don't mind being along for "old lady" ride, as M likes to say!