Never Too Old…

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

…to be a brat. Mimi’s 19th birthday is coming up on Saturday, and she’s still finding ways to try my patience. This morning, she didn’t want to work. She wanted breakfast. We currently have access to the vacant property next door…it’s basically 4 acres of fenced dirt lot. Because riding in the actual arena would have meant shooing all 10 of the other horses back out to the pasture (always a fun trick), I decided to just ride next door. Pretty fun, because it’s a ton of space, and pretty good footing…if you mind the gopher holes.

But Mimi decided that today, she just didn’t feel like listening to my legs. I’ve been making a concerted effort to retrain myself to stay out of her mouth (I have a horrible habit of grabby hands and a distinct lack of release) and force myself to rely on leg and seat cues more. It’s a tough thing to do when your pony is conspiring against your best efforts. She did a fabulous “I’m ignoring you” impression as I asked her to circle away from the pasture gate…she curved away, but still managed to keep moving towards the gate.

Wrong answer, pony.

She got thumped on the side with my whole leg for her efforts.

That actually woke her up, and it only took one more decent thump (coupled with some disciplinary “eh-eh” noises and a couple cuss words) to get her actually paying attention to me. Me, unconventional trainer? Yeah, maybe.

And then we proceeded to have a pretty good workout. I kept it shorter today…I feel really bad because I was a bit too overenthusiastic in my last trim job on her…I had let her toes get way too long, so proceeded to do something of a remedial Big Trim on her.

Sometimes I think I’ve learned nothing in the two years I’ve been trimming.

So she was pretty sore for a few days afterwards.

I put her boots on today to make sure she was comfortable enough while riding, and that worked great at the walk and trot…but she was still a bit ouchy to canter. Considering her canter is sub-optimal on her best days, we didn’t pursue it today. No sense in asking for trouble and discomfort.

Some days I feel like such a bad horse mommy. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, been overly enthusiastic in my trimming to the point of making her a bit sore. I guess it’s all part of the trimming learning curve, and I’m probably taking longer to get it because I just don’t trim enough horses to get comfortably schooled in it.

But considering it’s now officially summer here, spending the heat of the day bent in half wedged under a horse just doesn’t sound like a whole ton of fun…

Fire Season

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

In the grand scheme of natural disasters, Arizona gets off pretty light.  We don’t have tornadoes, hurricanes, major earthquakes, or mudslides.  We sometimes feel aftershocks coming up from Mexico or over from CA, but those are rare.  We have monsoon rains, which occasionally flood washes and require a couple idiots every year to be rescued after mistakenly believing they could drive across said flooded wash.  Despite the “Do Not Cross When Flooded” signs.  We have microbursts, concentrated areas of wind and rain that are capable of causing as much damage as a low-lever tornado.

But we do have fires.  Big ones.  “Make national headlines and get declared a federal emergency area” kind of fires.

On one hand, I’ve been relatively insulated from them.  I live in suburbia, where the only fire danger comes from my chain-smoking neighbors.

But outside of suburbia?  Better have a fire evac. plan.

Some years are worse than others.  The last two years have been relatively minor, fire-wise.  We always get a few small ones here and there…Arizona is still a lot of open, uninhabited land.  Surprisingly, about half the state is actually treed forest.  Treed forests that burn really well.  And necessary forest maintenance — removing deadfall and all the stuff that fuels a fire really well, doing controlled burns — is always an unhill battle between those that don’t want to see a single pine needle touched and those that recognize the value of preventative measures.

But this year is already shaping up to possibly be a bad one.  Two major fires currently burning, one partway between Mesa and Payson (NE of Phoenix, close enough for me to see the smoke in the distance), and one south of the Mayer/Dewey/Humboldt area just before Prescott.  That one has required evacuations.  :(

I always worry about my horsey friends that live in fire-danger areas, and not just in this state.

Stay safe, everyone.  Have an evac plan, and hopefully you don’t have to use it.

Here’s hoping everyone stays safe and fire-free!

IDing Boots, An Experiment: Part One

/ Ashley Wingert / 2 Comments

irish horse had a great question in my post about differentiating between pairs of boots about actually IDing your boots.  It’s not something I’ve ever done…the times I’ve lost a Renegade, I’ve always known immediately that I lost it (something about the pony hopping up and down because she’s wearing a boot as an ankle bracelet is hard to ignore), so could get off and fix it right away.  So none of my Renegades have ever parted company with my horse.  However, the couple of times Dad lost one of his boots, the horse stepped entirely out of it and we had to backtrack to find it.

But I can definitely see the value of having some way to ID your boots…if you do loose one, hopefully some kind soul will find it and return it.  Dad did this with one of his early pairs of Renegades…a pair of boots we still actually have.  His method was permanent Sharpie marker on the inside sole of the boot.  He wrote on it when the boot was brand-new and didn’t have an embedded dirt.  I think this boot is probably four years old and has maybe 500-600 miles on it?

Ink is faded, but still visible. Surprised it didn’t get rubbed or
worn off, between hoof pressure and the sand we ride in.

I’m going to explore another option: Duct tape!

I grabbed an extra pair of Mimi’s boots (this is why I keep all my old/extra boots…endless experimentation!) and sat down to test a couple of ideas.

First, I cut a piece to fit inside the channel where the toe strap sits.  It’s thin enough that I don’t think it will interfere with how the toe strap actually fits.
Trimmed the lower corners so it doesn’t interfere with any
movable parts of the boot.

Then I grabbed the Sharpie:

The test will be to see if the Velcro toe strap rubs the writing
or the tape.

My second test was the same location on the matching boot, minus the tape:

Again, will the Velcro smudge or rub the writing?

My thought behind the duct tape is if it does start getting rubbed or smeared, you can remove the tape and reapply a fresh strip. You can only write over smudged duct tape so many times before it turns into an illegible blob.

The only downside I can see to this location is once the toe strap is in place, you can’t see there’s anything written behind it…so if the boot comes off with the toe strap still in place, there’s no guarantee people will undo the strap and see the info.
Step Two: I’m going to take these boots for a spin and see what happens.
I’m still surprised at how well the writing on Dad’s old boot held up.  We ride in a very dry, sandy environment, so I don’t know if mud and water will fade that writing faster or not.
Stay tuned for Step Two and the results of this experiment…which will probably happen some time next week.

Tips for Distinctive Boots!

/ Ashley Wingert / 14 Comments

I was recently asked if I had any suggestions for how to tell two pairs of Renegade boots apart when your horse wears the same size and color all around.

Permanent marker isn’t all that permanent and rubs off rather quickly. Ditto trying to get any kind of paint to stick to the boot material.

So my suggestion was to take a colored hair elastic and wrap it around the pastern strap, next to the o-rings.

Unvelcro the pastern strap entirely and wrap the elastic off
to the side of the o-rings. Orange would have made more of
a statement, but blue was what I had at hand.

It’s bright and colorful, but low-profile, unlike ribbons that might unravel, get tangled, get caught, or otherwise get in the way.

This afternoon, I thought another option: colorful duct tape.
I found this stuff at a craft store and added it
to my stash of stuff.

Same deal…tear off thin strips and wrap around the same stop on the pastern strap.

I don’t know if it’ll be as long-wearing as the elastic.
I’ll have to test it.
Mix and match! Both the tape and the elastics are available in a variety of colors. They’re cheap and easily replaceable. They’re low-profile and won’t interfere with the boot function.
(And if you’re like me, you have close to a zillion hair elastics floating around.)

Happy Mother’s Day!

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment
Cuddles with the four-legged critter that
calls me ‘mama.’  Or, y’know, ‘meal ticket.’

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

I’m completely biased, but I happen to think I’ve got the best mama out there.  Not only is she a great role model and one of my best friends, she’s encouraged and been supportive of my horse habit since the beginning.  She was an awesome Horse Show Mom when I was showing, alternating between stuffing bites of muffin in my mouth and letting my pony sip Gatorade from her hand.
And she puts up with horse hair in her washing machine.  :)
Love you, Mom, and thank you for everything!