monday...

We started again at 5 am. It's getting cooler in the morning again. Looks like fall is coming :D I was soo busy I didn't have the time to be cold. I made a video of Fire in the arena. He got a vaccination yesterday and was pretty stiff today. Poor boy ! But still, he had his fun being attitudy in the arena. It was funny to watch. After we worked all the horses the chiropractor came for Cody. She found two vertebraes out in the withers, three in the lumbar area and the pelvis was down on one side too. I really hope Cody feels better now. He stretched his head down when Emilia worked on his back. It was so nice to see.

rain forest visit

The five of us went to the Ancient Forest near Dome Creek. It was so nice to see all the old cedars. All of them are pretty old, about 1000 or more years. Sure, there also were the mosquitos but not that much.. It's amazing to see there are hidden places where you never assume it. I never would think of a rain forest in the Canadian Rockies ! I was so surprised. After our visit there we detoured to McBride to cool off with an ice cream. Delicious, like always. :) Home again, I just was lazy and read in the shade. We will go to the pub for dinner. It's a nice change from time to time.

good teacher

My day started like the days before at 4.45 am with feeding Fire, Bluey and Twister. Then get all the stuff for Fire from the tack shed and get him ready for riding. He is always so pissed when I groom him while he eats his breakfast :D The next one was Mojo. She was nice and quiet while I got her ready. As soon as I wanted to lunge her in the outdoor arena she started to play her little game.... She reared up pretty good and tried to impress me ! WOW, I am scared now !!! If she wants to scare me she has to try something else then that. Bandit could scare me with that but now I just got after her for that, without emotions ! Just crack the whip, push her forward and stand behind her girth... She clued in pretty fast this didn't work on the left side.... but on the right side. This is her "trained" side and she is pretty fast ! Holy... ! But I learned with a little help from Birgit how to prevent that ! :) After this lunging session I was pretty tired ! Hard work and not even a piece of breakfast in the belly.
My next teacher was Machlon. I try since a longer time to get him in a frame which never seemed to happen... til today ! Hell, I worked so hard on this horse today ! I was sooooo tired afterwards again. Now I know how I can get him in a frame. I only need some practice in this case and of course muscles.

still hot and dry...

It's still hot and dry here. So dry it's not allowed anymore to make a campfire :( We start at 5 am til about 11 or 12 am. The hot time in the afternoon we have off. At 5 pm we have to be outside again to feed the ponies. I will bake white chocolate chip cookies ;) in the afternoon and have to get supper ready so we can ride in the evening.

hot hot hot....

Since a few days it's extremly hot ! Between 36 and 40 C. We started today at 5 am with horse work. It was soooo nice and cool til about 8 am. We have a siesta now til 5 pm and then after the lesson I will ride Machlon. I hope it's not sooo hot anymore at this time. This is a good way of work. I am so lucky to have my room in the cool basement :)

kids horse camp

Friday til Sunday were the kids horse camp here at the farm. Everyone of us had a part theory and riding to do. I had to talk about feeding/feed, bedding and anatomy in the mornings and in the afternoons I was in the round pen and let Machlon thru an obstical course while a kid rode bareback. The kids had to ride over a 'grill', play broom polo, ride a figure 8 around two barrels, bag jumping with the horse beside them, ... all this when the sun was shining and it was 36 /37 C in the shade ! Crazy but funny ! The kids were pretty keen to learn all kind of stuff around horses including anatomy. Yes, it was fun ! In two weeks will be the next kids camp....

trip to Jasper

On Wednesday we went to Jasper and Jasper National Park. We took this day off 'cause it was pretty hot and we wanted to have a break before the kids camp on the weekend. Birgit, Alana and I went to the Athabasca Falls (pic's) and to the Angel Glacier. Both was unbelievable nice. The one bad thing were all the tourists ! There were soooo many of them in Jasper. We stopped at the ice cream shop and enjoyed a tasty ice cream :) Then we went to two gift shops just for the fun of it. I am not used to so many people anymore ! I was a bit shocked ! Unbelieveable how fast you can get used to something...! After the two gift shops we headed home again to feed the ponies.