Wonderful Horsey Weekend!

On Saturday I was able to get both the horses out for clipping and longing. Fritzy had been clipped not too long ago but Brandy hadn't been clipped in months.

Brandy was way overdue for a clip job! Her bridle path was almost as long as her mane, I was very lazy this year. I had to cut it first with the scissors before I could even use the clippers! Look at all this hair!

Here I am finishing up. Brandy still has so much winter fur! It is so funny how different Brandy and Fritzy are, Fritzy is almost done shedding and Brandy is still a total fuzzball.

This is what happens when I give my sis Pony Girl my camera. She finds the spider web complete with spider and hair from Brandy. My sis knows how much I fear spiders. I have found some interesting photos of hers that have some awful looking creatures in them.

After the clipping was done, I longed Brandy. She just loves to run and buck!

Unfortunately most of the bucking pictures turned out blurry.

After we finished and I put Brandy away this is what happened. Yeah, my Brandy loves the mud. Plus I am sure she was itchy from getting a good workout today!

On Sunday we were going to go on a trail ride. We had to cancel due to Fritzy coughing and wheezing after exercise. I was outside all day today and I did not hear one cough out of Fritzy. I will continue to monitor her and I will bring her out to longe to see if she still coughs or is still wheezing after exercise. If I don't see any improvement I will call the vet. She is totally fine in the pasture, she acts like her normal, bratty self and I am not seeing any nasal discharge or any breathing problems.

So Pony Girl and I took her boy and Brandy to the arena for some training. I was amazed how well Brandy did considering she hasn't been worked in so long. We decided to take them for a ride through my neighborhood. I live in a private development, everyone has a 5 acre lot, a lucky few have 10 acres. There is only one way in and one way out of my neighborhood. We don't get much traffic. The roads don't even have a yellow stripe down the middle, plus there is a wide, grassy shoulder of the road we can ride on.

When we first headed out the horses were moving quite slow. Like they didn't want to go. I think they always do this until they get out than they don't want to come back! At least Brandy doesn't usually want to come back. Here we are heading down the road. Brandy doesn't like to walk on the grass if there is a slope or a ditch too close. I think she is scared she might fall down the slope or something might jump out of the ditch. So we stay on the pavement until we get to a wider grassy shoulder.

The speed limit in my neighborhood is 25 mph. I think we are going well under the speed limit at this point.

We continue until we get to my the back of my neighbors property. They have 4 horses but only keep 2 on their property. They weren't out in the pasture today. So we stopped to have a photo shoot in front of their cool, water bridge.

We ran into this really pretty horse. They usually have a few horses but this is the only one in the pasture today.

Brandy and I cruising through a ditch. She use to never do this, those big, bad culverts usually are monsters to her, as well as the mailboxes. It is amazing how far this horse has come.

Here we are coming down the home stretch. We are almost there! It was funny because Pony Girl and I were having a good time and messing around and decided to let her boy take us home without any direction from her. Low and behold, he got us there! I knew he would! It is amazing how horses just know where home is. I guess we will never get lost in my neighborhood!

Once we got home, thanks to PG's boy, we cooled off the horses than headed back to the pastures to let them enjoy some of that pretty green grass. PG took a family picture of Brandy, me and Sadie. See that area of green grass behind us? That was my old arena. I had no where else to train at the time so I just used the most level piece of property we had. There obviously wasn't any fencing so this could make some training sessions very interesting!

Brandy and Bailey grazing together! Bailey must have been a horse in another life. He thinks he is a horse when he is around them. He copies everything they do.

Just another day on the Painted Creek Farm!

I was so proud of Brandy today. She was so good. She was calm and relaxed for our ride through the neighborhood. We usually have quite a few moments when we do this ride. Brandy has come along so much since she was given to me. I remember the days I couldn't even ride her 5 feet off the property!