Welcome to Fern Valley

Here in central Alberta prime farm country,my husband Martin and I work together raising beef cattle and Appaloosa horses. Fern valley appaloosas have long been known for their quality of temperament conformation and color.I have recently rediscovered a love of writing and have published 2 collections of poetry. "Telling Tails" and Tails Trails and Campfire stories" . I look forward to a future spreading my wings as an author and as a horse woman .

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

A little side project

I have taken  on a  little project, not  for  long  but  something a  bit different. My Uncle  Bill has  a 3 yr old  QH  filly, she is  currently  living  at  my cousins  place  just  down  the road. Now Uncle Bill has likely forgotten  more  about training  than I will ever know but I am  pretty  good at  ground  work, and  he  has  recently injured his knee, so while she is in  the  neighborhood...

Our  first session was   last week, she  was a bit  hard to catch and  pretty  reactive overall but did  settle  nicely in time. Today  took only a little  bit of  time to get her  to stand  nicely in  the big pen to catch and  was much  calmer.
Taught  her  to longe , and  worked on  softness and  flexion, then ,well because I can I decided to play  with  my  jacket on her. I did  this  for  a couple  reasons,1. its a nice  way to sack  them out, the  jacket is  light and it 2. makes  some  noise, nothing like  riding along  and needing to take off or  put on a  slicker and  finding  that your  horse is NOT OKAY with  rustling  fabric !
Anyhow, it  went pretty  well, other than when  she  flipped  the  jacket over her  face and ears, thought  for  a minute  she  should leave, but did not pull hard and after she  settled I was able to easily  slide the  jacket  off her ears and  down over her  face(Smart  little  dolly!)

Tough  to take  pics with a  rope in one  hand  and a whip in  the other  but I did  get  a few






Hope all is  well and  everyone is  enjoying  the week
As  always  friends , stay safe 

9 comments:

IanH said...

I envy you the side trip! if I was just a few years younger....

aurora said...

What fun! Love the "what is THAT doing on my back" photo, or maybe it's "little help with the zipper please" or it could be "Does this jacket make my butt look big?" Either way, nice job on that good looking girl!!

WishIHadAHorsey said...

Oh goodness, now you are making me drool!

kden said...

What a beauty! Sounds like a fun project....and now that you have all that extra time :-)

Unknown said...

oh my she is a pretty little thing isn't she?

Paola said...

Good luck with the project!

Cut-N-Jump said...

She is CUTE! CUTE! CUTE!

I hear ya on the jacket!

Willow said...

Love those jowls . I enjoy starter ground work, it is that first inpredictable baby year on their back that can sneak up on my aging body now. ;) great ground work sets such a good stage for many things.

GoLightly said...

What a lovely kind-eyed mare!

She's very lucky she has a kind eye lookin' back at her.