Chewy's Birthday
Chewy, our Haflinger mare, is turning twenty years old today.
We threw a party for her Saturday and I mailed out and gave out a lot of invitations beforehand. The turn-out was excellent, there must have been over 50 people who showed up. There was cake and carrots and my students (both present and former) brought apples and carrots as well. We set up for the students to have their pictures taken with Chewy and I e-mailed them out on Monday.
Poor Chewy reached the point where she didn't want any more apples and carrots. Her apple threshold is apparently much lower than the one for carrots as she was still chowing down in carrots well after she'd lost interest in the apples. Fortunately there were plenty of other horses to also give apples and carrots to so she didn't get too bloated.
I also sent cards to the lady we purchased Chewy from and the address of Chewy's first owners after the breeder on her registry papers (she was sold by her breeder when she was about three). Kim sent back a postcart of appreciation for letting her know how Chewy was doing and providing a good home for her. Yesterday I received a call from her first owner!
It was quite cool to sit and talk about Chewy's first seven years. Apparently she spent a lot of time tending to her own foals and had at least a half dozen of them. She was also a really good mom, which makes me sad that it didn't turn out with her last pregnancy. The foal would be coming four this year. Dottie said she'd try and mail me some pictures of Chewy and her past foals, which would be just plain awesome.
Chewy never learned how to drive so she's just been a riding pony and mostly a walk-trot one at that. I don't remember if Dottie said she'd been to any shows or not, but it sounds like a lot of her offspring have turned out to be really nice horses themselves.
In other news, I've finally completely finished the website for Sunnyside Farms! Hurrah! Now I can do other things with me time! Of course now I need to buckle down and get the gun illustrations finished for Mom. After that project is done I think I need to redesign my website again. And this time finish it. REALLY finish it.
I've put out some flyers for the summer art lessons out and gotten some response, which is great. Hopefully it'll be something to keep me busy this summer and supplementing my riding lesson income as I usually have some drop off as it gets hot. I need to put art lessons on my website as well and spiff it up and be more professional on that mark.
So things are clipping along rather nicely. I'm keeping busy with lessons and I think we're getting close to taking Cinnamon out on her first trail ride. I rode her yesterday in the arena. She actually gave me a couple strides of a very slow, compact canter. We were trotting and I was trying to work her to the outside as she was leaning in. I was using my leg trying to get her to move over and she kept lifting it rather than moving it to the side and ultimately gave me two canter strides and dropped back to the trot. I do believe that if I made the decision to do it she'd come along gaited. She occasionally, actually, rather consistently now, gives a little gait-like thing as she moves from the walk to the trot. Of course before I can start messing with that I have to get her moving forward well on her own first. I think most of her issues come up in the roundpen as she doesn't see the point in having to work in such a small area. She wants to see the world! I rode her to the arena yesterday and worked her quite a bit. She gets less grumpy the more she works, I think. I believe she's a little like Kitt and Santana. She'll become more willing the more she realizes that it's good to go forward and it's easier to simply move forward than to try and argue about it.
Marty and I are going to take her to Horseshoe park after I get back from the trail ride with Trish this morning.
Speaking of which I need to finish getting ready.
We threw a party for her Saturday and I mailed out and gave out a lot of invitations beforehand. The turn-out was excellent, there must have been over 50 people who showed up. There was cake and carrots and my students (both present and former) brought apples and carrots as well. We set up for the students to have their pictures taken with Chewy and I e-mailed them out on Monday.
Poor Chewy reached the point where she didn't want any more apples and carrots. Her apple threshold is apparently much lower than the one for carrots as she was still chowing down in carrots well after she'd lost interest in the apples. Fortunately there were plenty of other horses to also give apples and carrots to so she didn't get too bloated.
I also sent cards to the lady we purchased Chewy from and the address of Chewy's first owners after the breeder on her registry papers (she was sold by her breeder when she was about three). Kim sent back a postcart of appreciation for letting her know how Chewy was doing and providing a good home for her. Yesterday I received a call from her first owner!
It was quite cool to sit and talk about Chewy's first seven years. Apparently she spent a lot of time tending to her own foals and had at least a half dozen of them. She was also a really good mom, which makes me sad that it didn't turn out with her last pregnancy. The foal would be coming four this year. Dottie said she'd try and mail me some pictures of Chewy and her past foals, which would be just plain awesome.
Chewy never learned how to drive so she's just been a riding pony and mostly a walk-trot one at that. I don't remember if Dottie said she'd been to any shows or not, but it sounds like a lot of her offspring have turned out to be really nice horses themselves.
In other news, I've finally completely finished the website for Sunnyside Farms! Hurrah! Now I can do other things with me time! Of course now I need to buckle down and get the gun illustrations finished for Mom. After that project is done I think I need to redesign my website again. And this time finish it. REALLY finish it.
I've put out some flyers for the summer art lessons out and gotten some response, which is great. Hopefully it'll be something to keep me busy this summer and supplementing my riding lesson income as I usually have some drop off as it gets hot. I need to put art lessons on my website as well and spiff it up and be more professional on that mark.
So things are clipping along rather nicely. I'm keeping busy with lessons and I think we're getting close to taking Cinnamon out on her first trail ride. I rode her yesterday in the arena. She actually gave me a couple strides of a very slow, compact canter. We were trotting and I was trying to work her to the outside as she was leaning in. I was using my leg trying to get her to move over and she kept lifting it rather than moving it to the side and ultimately gave me two canter strides and dropped back to the trot. I do believe that if I made the decision to do it she'd come along gaited. She occasionally, actually, rather consistently now, gives a little gait-like thing as she moves from the walk to the trot. Of course before I can start messing with that I have to get her moving forward well on her own first. I think most of her issues come up in the roundpen as she doesn't see the point in having to work in such a small area. She wants to see the world! I rode her to the arena yesterday and worked her quite a bit. She gets less grumpy the more she works, I think. I believe she's a little like Kitt and Santana. She'll become more willing the more she realizes that it's good to go forward and it's easier to simply move forward than to try and argue about it.
Marty and I are going to take her to Horseshoe park after I get back from the trail ride with Trish this morning.
Speaking of which I need to finish getting ready.