RYU

Fuku Ryu - Lucky Dragon - is shedding.

Another New Addition

I am going to do trade work for Clint.  I will train some of his horses (put hours on them so Clint can take over and not run the risk of over extending himself physically -- work injury) and he will give me a horse in trade.  This was going to be later this spring....But I have acquired the traded gelding already.  So I have 4 horses now.

I don't have his papers yet, so no name.  But the total investment in this horse has been $1,000 plus.  So I will have to work that off in a few month.  He is a year and a half.  He has been out to pasture, so I will start feeding him more heavily with grain and a weight builder supplement to put the size on him he will need to have to be ridden. 

I am working him on the ground slowly.  He is very skittish considering he had not been handled a lot.  He is starting to trust me and is very curious when I take the other horses out.  (I put the saddle on Joe my 9mo...he did not have any halter or rope on..he just sat there and looked at me with the expression...and? -- It was so cute.  Cant wait to see how he is going to be in a year and a half)

Big Storm - like they all aren't.... :-/

Wyoming weather can be quite fun. - ha, ha ;-)  I am however getting used to it.  I took some pictures while I was driving Sarah to her dance class.  It gets windy and very icy.

Yama Update

I have decided that I really need to focus training Yama. I can ride him because I know what I am doing, so I havent seen the need.  Most like to ride him, but he is really not respectful and can be over anxious and touch sensitive.  This makes it difficult for the inexperienced riders to be soft on his mouth and comfortable in the saddle.  I have a goal to ride him at least 45 times in 60 days (weather willing).  I rode him for the 6th time today. He seems to get nervous and prancy when ever I try to teach him new things.  He tends to anticipate and over endulge in what he is asked to do.  He is soft in moving his front and hind quarters, side stepping, stopping and backing out in the open.  But put him by a gate and he goes nuts.  So I have been working him on recognizing the cues and stopping when  the cues have been taken off.  He is now doing a lot better - IE side stepping one step at a time at the gate.  By all means not where I want him, but making progress.  He is losing weight and will look a lot better when we are finished.  My goal is to get him good enough that my daughter (Amanda) will be able to compete on him in trail riding in June. 

Cute Black and White Things

If you could not tell from my last post that I was being really sarcastic I apologize.  I was really worried that I wa going to have problems.  I guess I was worried too much.  I have not seen them again.  Knock on wood.  :-)

The Joys of living out in the Open

I went to feed the horses this morning.  I was in the barn throwing hay out and noticed a 'cute' little furry black and white thing scurrying across the back of the barn.  As I watched its moves, I joyfully watched another one scurry out from behind the other.  They went back and forth the back of the barn 3 times going in and out of the stalls...My guess is because the horses dont like being stalled up the couple is preparing a home for their family...SO much fun to watch these cute little things homestead in my barn...sigh!

More Information on the Property

 

 

This is the hill to the north of the pond.  (The pond will be off to the right)  This is where I will put my new house.  I was plannign on buildign up and out on the one we are in, but it will not be worth it.  There would be too much to do.  So the house we are in will be a guest house.



http://www.loghomefloorplansonline.com/rustic-luxury-log-cabins-plans/

This is the house we will build there.  And landscape it pretty much the same.  The basement link on their website did not work.  To ck out the basement plan go to link above.



Tthis is looking down from the hill. (Where the house will be)



This is the horse barn.  It took us 2 large trailer loads to remove all the garbage.  Including an old freezer with oats in it...It was a mouse habitat.  There is a pasture fenced to the right.



This is a corral in front of the barn.  I will use this as a warm up arena.




This is left of the barn.  From here to the road I will put a 50' round pen, patience pole and small round pen to train horses.  Up to the left of that electrical pole I will put an outdoor arena.  Behind the barn to the right I will build an indoor arena.  Directly behind it and before the horse pasture we will build Dave's Dojo. 



This is outside of the barn (left)  To the right of this is another horse pasture.  We will plant trees next year in this and aroudn the property.  There is a ground well on the otherside of this pasture.  We will see if we can utilize it.  We are also planning on drilling a well as soon as I have researched where there is good water underground.




The garage by the house. It has a concrete floor. It also has a wood burning stove. Dave is excited to have his tools/shop in here. There is also a lot of room to store all our stuff that won't fit in the house. Plus the suburban. Behind it we will fence in more pasture.