While it didn’t start out so well with Merlin escaping into the back pasture, it ended great. Around noon a woman that I had met a few weeks while she was out riding her horse on the road in front of our house called and asked if I wanted to go for a ride with her. Well of course I did. She was up at the barn where I took the lesson getting her horse ready.
Oh my … being able to ride with her depended upon whether I could catch Merlin or not. He gave me a little bit of trouble, but I caught him in five or ten minutes. Yea! Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Now to get him ready and tacked up as quickly as possible. He cooperated perfectly.
Along with my saddle and bridle, I brought out a small pair of cordless clippers that I had bought some time ago to trim the dogs’ feet (for agility). They are not very powerful and relatively quiet. I thought I’d see how Merlin reacted to them. Quite frankly, I expected that he’d blow up, but he didn’t! Whoo Hoo! Looks like I’ll be able to clean up that shaggy head a bit. I’ll try our large clippers today. They are not cordless and much noisier so he may not tolerate them as well. We’ll see. If I can’t get it done with these clippers I’ll try to borrow some cordless clippers over the weekend.
Our ride was fun. As it turned out, I had Merlin ready to go and was able to ride out to meet her. Gel and, unfortunately, Rose, went with us. Rose started to follow and I thought she’d turn around after a few minutes and go back, but she didn’t. It wasn’t a problem until we got down closer to the road. The plan is for us to ride again today and I’ll make sure Rose is confined before we head out.
There was a coyote (coyotes?) in the yard last night. Rose was barking quite aggressively and Gel was looking out the window so I got up and looked out and saw the coyote. I opened the window and yelled and it took off. It must not have come back because Rose settled down. Between the long ride yesterday and being up working most of the night, she’s going to be a tired dog today.
I am so blessed to have so many places to ride right where I live. The woman I road with showed me even more trails. Unfortunately, some of them were not clear because of the fall floods. We tried to go through them, in fact, she pushed my envelope on some of the trails. At one point, Merlin had vines wrapped around his rear legs. I was praying that he wouldn’t blow up as it would have been a mess. He was perfect. I didn’t know how he’d be riding with another horse, but again, he was perfect.
I love this horse. He has opened up so many doors. I’m really looking forward to the clinic next Saturday. There is another one scheduled at another facility in March. Right now, it is full, but I’m on the waiting list in case of a cancellation. The more and more I hear about this clinician, the more excited I get about it. Sometime over the weekend, we plan to hook up the trailer, load Merlin and take him for a short ride. Hopefully that won’t be a problem.
This morning I got up early in an attempt to get the water barrels on the truck and filled so Wally could help me haul water up to the sheep and Buster. The hose was frozen! I dragged it down the hill to drain it, but for some reason, it must not have drained completely. That was irritating. I tried to run a different hose from the mud room off the washing machine faucet, but that wouldn’t work either. Now I’ll need to wait until the ice in the hose melts and I’ll have to haul water with the ATV. Not fun. That means everyone up at the house will have to wait on fresh water as well. This is going to be the last really cold night for the next week or so. This weekend we are going to get a shorter hose and install a quick release on the pump so that we can completely take the hose off the pump and drain it completely on cold nights. We’ll plan to move the sheep this afternoon so we’ll have to haul water twice. The animals are drinking a lot of water lately. The air is very dry.
Off to feed the animals. Until later …