Attitude's And Issue's

I thought I had my camera issue resolved. But after the last couple days of picture taking, I have come to the realization that something more is going on. On Saturday I went out to work with Chance and my OH came out to watch, help me and be my camera man. At first I thought that he just didn't know how to use my camera, although he has used it before. Then he said to me that my batteries were getting really low. So I checked it out and sure enough, my batteries were almost dead. I figured that was the reason for the blurry pictures. But last week my batteries were not low and my pictures still turned out blurry. Even after I changed the flash settings, I was still not getting good pictures. I had another set of re-chargeable batteries in my office fully charged, so I switched them out. Well, on Sunday my sis came out and I gave her my camera. Guess what? Even the camera expert's pictures were terribly blurry. What the heck? I looked at the battery charge and it showed that there was half a charge left. What? There is no way that fully charged batteries could be going dead so soon, unless my re-chargeable batteries are toast. Once I came in from outside, I switched to normal batteries. I will have to test out my camera with those to see if it is a battery issue. The bad news is that all pictures in this post are either a little blurry, big time blurry and most of my pictures are so distorted that you can't even make out what the picture is of, so I couldn't even use most of them. Please bear with the terrible pictures. I am extremely disappointed, considering that this was the first time I have taken Chance out of her pasture for a little stroll and to the arena.

I had a 3 day weekend, which was much needed. I figured I could get some quality time in with Chance, and hopefully those 3 days would be enough for my body to recover from such a physical job. That pretty much ended on Sunday, when I took my knee out on the coffee table. I am in serious pain, can barely walk and unfortunately it is the knee I had surgery on 4 years ago. I think I might have bruised the bone, if that is even possible. I wrestle 1200 lb horses for a living and can come away with very minor injuries, but I can't even walk around my coffee table without seriously injuring myself. What is a girl to do?

So on Saturday I went out to work with Chance. My plan was to really tie her to my bungee for the first time, groom her, pick up all her feet, and then take her for a walk down the long run for the first time. My OH came out to assist, if needed. He pretty much was the gate man. We shut the lower gate and once Chance's 16 foot gate is open, it can be chained to a post, so if Chance somehow got away, she had no where to escape. She did so well tying for her first time. She loves grooming time and stands so quietly. I love horses with patience and am thankful that she is becoming such a good, patient little filly. She also did very well on picking all 4 legs up for me, I even was able to use the hoof pick, even on the hinds!! I am such a proud mom!

Then it was time to take Chance for a stroll. I figured there would be some excitement because where I would be taking her is where my horses could come right up to the fence, which could cause some distress.

Here we are stepping out of Chance's pasture. Behind us you can see the mud bog she has made.



We are heading down the long paddock, for our first stroll. Right in front of us is a mud puddle, Chance gave some attitude about it. We had to do some mud puddle training. Unfortunately, the picture's my OH took of this did not turn out.



Brandy got so excited to see Chance close up. From day one she has always been so interested in the baby, and I also think she gets a little jealous with all the time I have been spending with her. There was an area to my left that Chance kept hurrying by and basically trying to run me over. We had to work on this for awhile. She needs to learn that she can't run me over as I am leading her. We took it slow and before I knew it, she was walking calmly. I figured out that she must have been worried about the electric fence charger that is on a post in that area. It makes a ticking sound every few seconds and I am sure that was what was bothering her. She actually walked through the long run with a lot of curiosity. She did have her head up, ears forward, but she didn't balk and refuse to go forward. I think her curious and willing nature is going to make her a great trail horse! She doesn't freak out about a lot of things, which is good.



On our way back up to end our session, she balked at the mud puddle again. I just worked her back and forth until she finally stopped and put her feet right on the edge of the puddle. She ended up crossing over it. The puddle is not big enough for her to really walk through, but just by finally walking over it was a great thing. So I took her back to her pasture. As my OH was shutting her gate, she spooked, reared up and struck out. She has a tendency to rear when she is upset or spooked. Again, any suggestions on how to handle rearing babies, please feel free to leave me a comment! I obviously don't want that to become a habit.

After Chance was settled down, I turned her loose. We decided to turn our other horses out in the long run to enjoy some grass, and to let their legs dry of mud so I could spray some more Betadine on them. Since I clipped their legs last week, the mud is drying really fast, and the swelling and heat have gone down considerably. Plus the pink heels are looking really good, to the point that they are almost no longer pink. I am so glad my farrier noticed this, and told me what I should do. It has helped tremendously, and I hope they survive the rest of rainy, muddy season, mud fever free! I will keep their legs clipped all winter and spring, and continue with the Betadine spray. Thank you to everyone who left me comments on the other ideas for treating mud fever! It sure helps to have others out there that have experienced this and hear how you all have dealt with it!



On Sunday, I went back out to groom Chance, work with her legs, and take her to the arena for the first time. My sis had come up to clip her boys legs, longe him and then she came to help me with the gates. While she was finishing up with her boy, I had Chance tied up and I was grooming her. I started working on picking up her legs, I had only one more to go. My sis went to put her boy away, and Chance got distracted by the sight and noise of that. She had swung her butt towards me so she could get a better look at what was going on. I put my hand on her hip to move her back over. She usually responds by moving away from the pressure, but this time she got frustrated and kicked out at me. This is the first time she has done that, ever! I got my handy stick out so I could keep my distance in case she tried kicking out again. I used my handy stick to put pressure on her butt to get her to move away and sure enough, she was not paying attention to me and tried kicking out at me again. She needs to learn to handle other stuff going on while I am working with her. I am sure she will, in time. Right now she seems to get a little worked up with other activities going on around us. Once we worked throught the kicking issue, my sis had come up to open the gate so we could take Chance up to the arena. I wasn't sure how she would react to that, but she did so well. She slightly hesitated at the arena gate, but walked right on through. She was a little excited to be in this big area, and did a little prancing. She was very curious again, and wasn't terrified about the scenery. She gave a look at the picnic table, and I have a bag of cans tied to the arena fence, for desensitizing my other horses, she slowly walked up to it and sniffed it. I truely see my future trail horse! If Brandy ever saw something like that out for her first time, she would try to spin around the other way, crow hop, anything to get away from the scary object. But Chance just wanted to walk right up to it and check it out!

The next couple pictures are ones my sis took and turned out very blurry. This one isn't too bad, but I could only use a couple from Chance's first arena trip.



This one almost looks like I did some kind of editing to make it look blurry. Nope, just camera issues!



After my sis told me that all her pictures were turning out blurry, I let Chance off the lead rope to see what she would do. She immediately went to grazing. I was expecting running, bucking, something a 7 month old filly might like to do! So much for my sis trying to capture some great action shots! I started playing around with my camera. I tried flash settings, something and anything to prevent blurry pictures! I don't know about you, but I hate using the flash. It makes pictures look funny to me.

Here are 2 pictures that are almost exactly the same. This one was taken using flash. I just don't like the color. Maybe it is just me, I am not a professional photographer, so I have no idea what it should look like.



Here's the one taken without flash. This is actually what the surroundings look like, and the color Chance is, but with reddish highlights from the above picture. I felt the one taken with the flash made everything look fake? Camera experts?



All in all, it was a very good Chance weekend, minus a couple attitude problems and camera issues! Hopefully the camera issues will be resolved soon, so I can get some decent pictures!



I was hoping to get out to play with Chance one more day before I have to go back to work, but I am getting together with the girls from my last job for a holiday get together! I haven't seen most of them since May, and can't wait to catch up on everyone's lives!