Not So Kind Mother Nature

It's not like Mother Nature is ever kind to me, especially this time of year. But she has been extremely not so kind the last 2 weeks. It went from rain (the usual) to freezing temperatures for a few days to more rain, extremely heavy rain. Then the big windstorm hit. Thankfully we didn't lose power, somehow we got lucky there. Then the day after the big wind, it snowed. The snow just had time to melt off when the temperature dropped into the 20's. That was last night. And it is going to stay that way for a week. Highs during the day will probably be in the mid 30's. So where has that left me?

Well, it has put a big ole damper in any outdoor plans. Not like I do a lot outdoors this time of year, but I was planning on getting back to working with Rio again. That has happened once in 2 weeks. Like I said, Mother Nature has not been so kind. The one day I did work with Rio, it was in the upper 20's and I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her. Not due to the cold, that I can handle. But when it freezes, well, that means the 6" of mud I have on a daily basis, freezes. So it made for very dangerous footing for Rio, as well as for myself. So what I did, or what I only was able to do, was after I scooped poop out of her corral, which by the way is a real pain when the ground is frozen, was walk up and pet her. I didn't shut her into the smaller corral and I didn't use my stick/glove to start with. I just walked up to her, slowly of course, and reached out my hand and started petting her wither. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. It is not that simple. She really wants to leave when I get too close. You would think by now she would be comfortable enough to let me walk up without wanting to leave. But no. Nothing is easy with this one. After petting her wither for a few minutes I moved my hand down to her shoulder and then up her neck. The last time I really worked with Rio we had a major setback and I wasn't able to pet her neck with my hand. She did not want my hand anywhere near her face and would turn her head away from me or walk away. But this day she let me pet up her neck. I was only able to pet about half way up her neck, and I petted her for about 15 minutes then walked away from her. During the petting session, she could have totally left me and gone up into her shed. I never shut the gate. But she didn't. I wouldn't exactly call this session a total success. Yes she could have walked far away from me at anytime but didn't because she enjoyed having a human petting her, or the frozen mud could have made her think twice about running off. Whatever the reasoning was, she allowed me to walk up and pet her without locking her into the smaller corral or using my "crutch" stick first for 10-20 minutes, I will take it. With this one I will take anything, no matter how big or how small.

Before our extended break of Rio sessions, I was taking carrots and throwing them in a rubber feed pan that was in front of her when she let me get close to her and when she let me pet her. My plan was to reward her when the human came close, when the human touched her and when she stuck around for the scary human. Hoping she would associate me with the good yummy and maybe, just maybe I could bribe her to like me. I mean, what horse isn't food motivated? I only had a couple days of doing that before the weather turned bad. So I didn't get to see how that would all work out. Since she will not turn her head to me, she will NOT take treats or carrots out of my hand. She prefers to not even get a whiff of a human hand. So no matter how bad she wants a carrot, she won't take one from me. It has to go in a feed pan. But I will try this again when I get safe ground to work on, after our big freeze.

She definitely has her moments. Like that she never used to poop in her shed. Until the rain came and the mud has gotten pretty bad in about 3/4 of her corral, so when she is in her shed eating she just goes there instead of walking through the mud and going where she usually goes, down by the water trough. Rio is quite particular about where she poops. And she is pretty good about keeping it in one area of her corral. Which is very nice for me. Maybe she wants to make it easy for me? Oh wait, who am I kidding? She hasn't made much easy for me yet, so that ain't it. Anyways it makes it easy to scoop when she poops in one area. But now that she is going poo in her shed, well, not all the way in her shed, she poo's right at the entrance, yes, there's the particular part. So after I feed horses in the morning, I go into Rio's shed to scoop poo first. She usually hangs down by the water trough until I am done in there, but there are times she will walk up and wait a couple feet from the entrance, snorting at me like I am the scariest human being on earth (well, I guess I could be). Then the other day she went into her shed right away when I fed so when I went into her shed to scoop poo, she ran out. But she came back to a couple feet of the entrance and watched me. No snorting. It was like I wasn't the scariest human being on earth anymore. Now when I say she thinks I am the scariest human being on earth on some days, it's not because of what I am wearing or not wearing, or of the apple picker, or of the wheelbarrow. Absolutely none of that bothers her at. all. She could care less about objects or clothes. They aren't human, they don't breathe and they are definintely not the predator. I am. So it is me she snorts at. Not the object, the clothes or the movement of said objects or clothes. Yes. She is a mystery. And one I WILL solve one of these days.

My OH said to me a few weeks ago "I just don't know about that one." Yes, he was talking about Rio. I keep telling him that they are all different. Some are super easy and some are super hard. We just happened to get one of the difficult ones. Of course it doesn't help that I don't have a good work area now that winter weather is here. And it won't get any better. Probably not until May or June. I can't round pen anymore due to mud and we have had so many days of torrential down pours that it makes it so difficult to get any work done. But I won't give up. I don't ever give up. I don't care if it takes me a year or two. It's not like I can't touch her. I just can't get anywhere near her head. And she can't seem to figure out that me, the human being, petting her does not hurt her, that I have not hurt her so she should start trusting me more, right? Well, she trusts me somewhat to allow me to pet her, even though I know she really does not want anything to do with it, or even me. But ever since my OH put the drag rope back on, she won't even let him pet her. She only allowed him to do that once, when I was there. She's not scared of him, she just lost a lot of trust in him. But he doesn't get to spend much time with her either due to his work schedule and it being dark when he gets home.

How this post went from bad weather to my mystery mustang, well, I have nothing else to talk about so I am just rambling on! Other then that, not much else is going on around here. Been busy trying to keep my crazy kittens under control. It's been quite difficult to do my day to day household chores with those 2. I can't even make the bed. You should see the scratches on my hands. But I love them. They keep me on my toes, make me laugh til I cry every single day and hey, it's cheap entertainment, right? I kinda need some of that in my life right now!