TARANTULA!
Yesterday we has a little excitement. We found a tarantula. It was wandering about, minding its own business in the small turnout close to the stalls. Poor guy looked like he'd been harassed a little as he was missing some hair on his rump. We (Roxanne, Keara, and Marty) oogled over this anomaly and observed him until he curled up in a cool, damp corner and we went back about our day. I've never seen one "in the wild" so to speak so it was quite exciting. Later in the day I found he'd managed to get all the way to our patio and was hiding in a dark corner. I would have missed him, but the corner just looked a bit odd out of the corner of my eye and when I looked closer there was a group of fuzzy legs in the corner. His body was two or three inches long and as he moved he was about as large as my hand. Unfortunately this morning he was on his back all curled in the center of the patio. Supposedly they're resistant to pesticides (Chris sprayed last week), but I wonder since he was crawling about in daylight if he wasn't already close to the end and just looking for a quiet place to be.
Last Wednesday I got to meet myst_runner in person for the first time. She and her mom were in town visiting her Aunt (mom's sister) who lives in the valley. Managed to get together and have some really good breakfast at Chompie's in Tempe. Ate and chatted for two hours and had a good time. I apologized for the lack of "dry" heat and they noted it was actually a lot less humid than back home. I pity the Midwest!
I'm getting Panda back in the swing of work, getting her under saddle about three days a week. It's going quite well. She's finally starting to loosen up a bit so I can do some more lateral work with her (reintroducing shoulder-in, etc.). I'm hoping next week or the one after I'll be comfortable enough to put Keara on her and see how they mesh. I hope it's a good match. I really don't want to go through putting an ad together and having people that I don't know coming out to try her. My current plan is to grill them about their riding experience and throw them on Kitt first rather than straight on Panda. That whole expect the best, prepare for the worst thing. What I do not need is someone getting on Panda, clamping down on her or getting rough and having Panda mentally shut down and go. There's too many people out there that talk themselves up nicely and simply fall apart when it comes to their actual abilities.
Today after the lesson I pulled out Zetahra and put in some good ol' elbow grease. She was a bit filthy and her mane and tail haven't been touched in months and months. It probably would have gone faster has I hosed her down, but I didn't want to do that and didn't want to have to wait for her mane and tail to dry before brushing it. I was a bit lazy as I didn't just hand-pick through to preserve all the hairs, but once you see the pictures I think you'll agree that she won't be missing them.
Zetahra at a year and three months (closing in on four). When she's all cleaned up she looks a lot less like a scruffy little pony and a bit more like a maturing horse.
Remember when she was just two months old?
Her mane usually falls on both sides of her neck so I was quite happily surprised to see how it's shaping up after a few months of it being hidden under hair. Not quite a perfect set-up, but even then she's showing a lot of quality! Lovely neck, shoulder, hip, good short back, huge joints! Most yearlings are still a bit gangly and long-legged, but she's pretty stout. Last we measured her she was about 14hh and over 800lbs.
And there's that mane! It's super-thick and dense and surprisingly long for a yearling. Of course you can't ride the mane and it covers her lovely neck, but it's still nice to see it thick, long, and all brushed out!
And then there's her tail. Look at that! By the time I start her under saddle it's going to be dragging the ground! I'm going to have to start braiding and bagging it!
Not too much else going on. Art lessons are half over and then I guess I'll have to decide where to go from there. I might have some luck catering to the home-schooled crowd. I'm debating if I should do some Saturday stuff or not. It will definitely not replace riding lessons, which is part of the reason I was thinking I might not end up doing it during the school year and just have it as a yearly summer thing. I can't sacrifice the after school riding lesson times for art lessons so we'll see where it goes from there. I guess the important thing at the moment is that I've done some lessons and now have some experience at it.
Last Wednesday I got to meet myst_runner in person for the first time. She and her mom were in town visiting her Aunt (mom's sister) who lives in the valley. Managed to get together and have some really good breakfast at Chompie's in Tempe. Ate and chatted for two hours and had a good time. I apologized for the lack of "dry" heat and they noted it was actually a lot less humid than back home. I pity the Midwest!
I'm getting Panda back in the swing of work, getting her under saddle about three days a week. It's going quite well. She's finally starting to loosen up a bit so I can do some more lateral work with her (reintroducing shoulder-in, etc.). I'm hoping next week or the one after I'll be comfortable enough to put Keara on her and see how they mesh. I hope it's a good match. I really don't want to go through putting an ad together and having people that I don't know coming out to try her. My current plan is to grill them about their riding experience and throw them on Kitt first rather than straight on Panda. That whole expect the best, prepare for the worst thing. What I do not need is someone getting on Panda, clamping down on her or getting rough and having Panda mentally shut down and go. There's too many people out there that talk themselves up nicely and simply fall apart when it comes to their actual abilities.
Today after the lesson I pulled out Zetahra and put in some good ol' elbow grease. She was a bit filthy and her mane and tail haven't been touched in months and months. It probably would have gone faster has I hosed her down, but I didn't want to do that and didn't want to have to wait for her mane and tail to dry before brushing it. I was a bit lazy as I didn't just hand-pick through to preserve all the hairs, but once you see the pictures I think you'll agree that she won't be missing them.
Zetahra at a year and three months (closing in on four). When she's all cleaned up she looks a lot less like a scruffy little pony and a bit more like a maturing horse.
Remember when she was just two months old?
Her mane usually falls on both sides of her neck so I was quite happily surprised to see how it's shaping up after a few months of it being hidden under hair. Not quite a perfect set-up, but even then she's showing a lot of quality! Lovely neck, shoulder, hip, good short back, huge joints! Most yearlings are still a bit gangly and long-legged, but she's pretty stout. Last we measured her she was about 14hh and over 800lbs.
And there's that mane! It's super-thick and dense and surprisingly long for a yearling. Of course you can't ride the mane and it covers her lovely neck, but it's still nice to see it thick, long, and all brushed out!
And then there's her tail. Look at that! By the time I start her under saddle it's going to be dragging the ground! I'm going to have to start braiding and bagging it!
Not too much else going on. Art lessons are half over and then I guess I'll have to decide where to go from there. I might have some luck catering to the home-schooled crowd. I'm debating if I should do some Saturday stuff or not. It will definitely not replace riding lessons, which is part of the reason I was thinking I might not end up doing it during the school year and just have it as a yearly summer thing. I can't sacrifice the after school riding lesson times for art lessons so we'll see where it goes from there. I guess the important thing at the moment is that I've done some lessons and now have some experience at it.