Another nice walk, and a video of Mag filling his trough

We had another nice walk today, only an hour and not as much fun cuz I chose to stay in town.

This was after the 10th tail washing, and it's starting to look less yellow but not as fast as I thought it would go. Then I trimmed a tiny bit off his toes and I'm happy to see his hooves have that "road trim" look, and I think the thrush is going away simply because we do so much walking on pavement (and trotting too, I ran a ways today).

I put a surcingle on him for the first time just to see how he girths up, and took breaks between each hole tighter, telling him the rest of his life it will be like this, I'll never tighten his girth in less than 3 stages. I'm surprised that a horse so much taller than Mara has so much less girth to him. She was a bratwurst.

We went out happily, calmly letting cars pass us several times, wondering when a horse drawn carriage would finally go by when we're out. There is a new one in town pulled by two dark grey ponies, so incredibly pretty as they trot up our street. I haven't yet seen Mag's reaction but I know he's at least seeing them from his pasture.

I sat on a huge fallen tree and he ate and peed and navigated over fallen branches with me. I'm always trying to find big things to get up on and even stand above him.

Then we went though a gauntlet of homes with people working in gardens on both sides of us and a person walked two dogs past us, and suddenly a Haflinger came out of a barn - hadn't seen him in a long time, since he's alone I imagine the other one died. He wasn't looking so good. His walk was more sideways than forward and his eyes were swollen. He snorted at Mag and it was very exciting to have a horsey friend turn up.

I "tied" Mag up for a few minutes to a tree but he was so good we moved on.

I decided instead of staying on roads we'd make the loop down through the woods along the creek where all the fish ponds are. I took a new-to-me trail and it turned out to be the most technical thing Mag has ever done - the trail itself all but disappeared and we had to navigate over roots and at the bottom where it joined the trail we know, we had to scramble down a couple of steps made from roots. I didn't know if Mag could do it but we found out he could.

He didn't hesitate at either the creek or the bridge, and then we were at that caribou farm (really not sure what kind of animals those are). I saw two enormous deer clacking their antlers together. Then a larger one with antlers so wide they  must span 6 feet. How he holds his head up I don't know.

I looped my rope through a tree to immobilize Mag so we could watch, but he never noticed them, they were behind so many trees. I noticed that he accepted being "tied" very well again, like it's just one more weird thing we do together.

Finally when we moved on the entire herd of deer decided to move up away from us, and that got Mag's attention. I promised him they are more scared of him than he is of them, but for the first time the herd did not actually leave, they just trotted a couple strides and then watched us. I'm really glad Mag didn't freak out and cause me to lose him.

When we got home I practiced moving his hips toward me by running the rope around the opposite side of his body and putting pressure on the rope until he untangles himself by walking a circle. I had him mostly lined up with our little garden wall that I was standing on, and gave him the cue, but instead of moving his hips toward the wall to line up, he backed away from it and then did his entire circle. That's what he thinks I want, and he really doesn't want to run into the wall with his hocks (his only injury here so far).

I'll keep messing with it until we figure it out one day.

Today I got him mostly lined up with the wall and I leaned my body over and put most of my weight on his back. To my surprise he did not move. He is not mounting block trained, if you remember. I did it a couple more times and then praised him and put him away. I don't know how long it will take, but he will be excellent at mounting blocks someday!

Remember that I hung up the two Jolly Balls from tree branches? Well this morning when I went out, they were both on the ground, the hay twine chewed through. Hm. What can I use then? I found some old cheap electric rope and used that. It's good practice for Mag to stand there as I set up a ladder on the raised area behind the wall, so I'm up over him. By the time I took the ladder back down and dragged it noisily behind him, he didn't care. We'll see if they chew the balls down again!

Tonight, supposedly, we're supposed to get our first ever load of wood chips for our muddy path. We haven't had rain in a few weeks (but ice every morning), so our pasture is finally nearly dry. Rutted and hard to walk on, but not slick and dangerous. I have to go out there and take down a divider fence so the tractor and trailer can get in.

Since I feel bad that my animals must spend the day here, I opened up the walnut tree area in our back yard for them. Bellis was very happy, going right to work on grass she has been looking at since last Summer. Mag, not being as greedy, was prancing around chasing her in circles but she's too clever to get pushed too much. Now they're peacefully eating. I was worried about all the snowbell flowers out there, they're poisonous, but I saw Mag put them in his mouth, investigating them, and then decide they're not food. Whew.



They both rolled, Mag several times. Hopefully the area won't be destroyed by the end of the day.


Moving Bellis around (note her ears).


Blanket looks like a dress on him.


He's just not comfortable down there, it's a pretty small area and new to him. He eventually came to the barn to eat hay and left Bellis alone down there.


Here he's moving Bellis again but she's too clever for him, she goes where she likes.












I was in the house the entire time so he never knew he was being watched. Here he looks longingly at the barn, the familiar area. Because of his getting shocked there his first week here, he forced Bellis to go first when he wanted to go back to the barn. Bellis obliged, and then promptly left him there alone. He was fine with that.



The donkey kicked up her heels at him 3 times that I noticed.







Drinking out of the frost-free bucket, yay! The other two have ice on them every morning, so it seems to work.


OK I'd better go move fence. Of course gravel would be optimal, but we're not allowed to lay gravel on the path we're borrowing from the neighbors. I'll be sure to get before and after photos.

***

I was filling Mag's trough and he was standing with his nose almost touching my knee with his eyes half closed. We were breathing together a long time. It's easy to be in a mindful state while water slowly fills.

Eventually he took the hose in his mouth and I thought of how Mara used to spray everyone in the vicinity. In case, and not to startle him, I switched the sprayer to low pressure because it was on full blast. This made our trough filling take even longer. Then I remembered I had my camera in my pocket. He chewed and chewed on it but it's a very high quality hose, he didn't damage it. He never once lifted it out of the trough, maybe next time?