Cow Clinic: 3

We always try our best to prepare our horses for whatever comes their way, but it isn’t always possible, is it? 

Nowhere is hindsight more 20/20 than in working with horses. 

On the day of the clinic, we woke to a cloudy, cool day. That was a change from the days that had come previously, and the days that have come after, which have all been warm, calm, and sunny.

That alone did not alert us to any real issues, because we have been working with Tweed and Epona in wind and rain all year. Not a biggie.  

In that 20/20 hindsight, however, I can see where it set a lot of pieces into motion, pieces we didn’t even know would exist. 

One of the pieces was how the weather set off the horses at liberty in the adjoining pasture. Behind the fence in the above pasture, and back behind me, to the east, their horses were loose and feeling frisky.

At first, we were just working one by one on a wonderful circle exercise where you keep your hands low, set the inside rein so you can see 1/4 of an eyelash, then use your legs to keep your horse on a circle. After a while you, turn directions keeping your hands still low, and directing their body the other way. Sounds easy, but it isn’t.

It does, however, really help when you introduce cows. Your horse has less to think about and can concentrate on moving them.

Right before lunch, our clinician gave us the choice to break and eat or bring the cows in and push them a little as a group.

We chose to bring the cows in.

Tumbleweed was the first to take the lead and push them.

He did great, and all was well. 

In these two photos, Tweed and Epona are close together.)

As the other horses took the lead to get their turn, and Epona got with the other geldings ahead of Tweed, he became agitated. He wanted to be in front pushing the cows, not behind, and he didn’t want me rating his speed or keeping him away from Epona. (As an aside, that is an issue we had with hill work last year, too.)

So, as I was there trying to get his mind back, the wind gusts picked up and all the commotion set the free pasture horses to running and bucking near us.

Tweed and the horses on the cows got more restless, but I’m not really sure what was happening with them all because what happened next happened fast:

My daughter turned around to check on me and T, and Epona got set off to running. My daughter turned her in and, in the commotion, got a little off balance causing her spur to come under Epona’s belly and get her bucking. My daughter took the opportunity to come off and hit the ground hard on her seat. It was a buck off, but it was also a deliberate “get off now while it’s still safe.”

She was rattled and sore, and a bit confused about how it happened since Epona didn’t seem at all nervous to her beforehand.

I dismounted and caught Epona as other riders went to help my daughter up, and we all met back together with Epona and daughter, who needed to rest up.

The clinician wanted to work with Epona while we broke for lunch and let my daughter evaluate her injuries. He ponied her around the cattle, then he let her free with them.

His opinion was that it wasn’t the cows at all. It was the other horses. Every time another horses came near her, she tucked her tail hard and looked bothered.

Let me back up here for just a second. If you have been following Epona’s journey, she hates arena work, but loves to work out of the arena. We knew that about her going in, but we didn’t realize how reactive she was to other horses getting in her space.

That said, the incident was the perfect storm of things, not just one thing.

After the lunch, everyone went back out and got more one on one with great success. Even my daughter got back on Epona and rode for awhile (until the herd of bison appeared, where daughter decided to call it good and end on a positive note.)

Tweed was not liking the bison, but we were the last ones to work cows 1 on 1, and it was after the bison appeared. He was able to bring his head back into the game, and I was able to, finally, rate his speed on the cows.

The clinician said he was a bit cow aggressive, but the more he works them the less he will care about them. He said that if Tweed went out for a long cattle drive they would soon be old news and he’d want to conserve his energy.

One of the things he had me do to rate his speed was work the cows, then stop and pet him. Then work them, and stop and pet him again. It was a successful technique.

I’m going to write one more post in this series about what has happened since the clinic. 

Cow Clinic: Part 2

(cows next door to the east)

Our pastures are surrounded by cows on three sides, and our horses are exposed to a lot of cow goings on. Today they will be introducing a new bull to the East pasture herd to cover the heifers, something they did last month in the North pasture.

Sometimes, like when a herd came running at us across the fence, and one cow happened to have a white garbage bag in its mouth, it set Tumbleweed’s hair on fire. 

But usually they get along peacefully and even bond a little over the fence. (At least Leah did with one sweet heifer a few years ago).

To prepare for the clinic, I asked one of my neighbors if we could ride the horses in his cow pasture, to give them the feel of being near cows on the loose. 

He said yes, and I could ride it any time I want. 

I started by riding T in our adjoining pastures each day and up to the fence where the cows were grazing. 

He did great with that and was only mildly interested in them. 

There was a time, not long ago, that riding Tumbleweed at home was pretty challenging. He’d get bothered to leave the herd behind. He’s not like that at all anymore, and has become a pleasure to ride at home.

I had a scheduled lesson with Katie to ride into the neighbor’s pastures, me on Tweed and her on Epona, then her on Tweed and daughter on Epona, but she got sick and had to reschedule to a day that I was babysitting and daughter was working. 

It was also the day before the clinic. 

I was disappointed not to be able to ride with her, but I thought it was still good to have her do it and let them experience cows at liberty before the clinic. 

Both horses did awesome for their first time pushing cows. They were unsure what to think when the big heifers would face off with them and give them the stink eye, or kick dirt up at them, but they pretty quickly figured out they were the bosses. 

We felt pretty good about the preparation and were excited for the clinic. 

Then we looked at the weather report for the clinic and saw they were predicting rain and wind. It was sun, sun, sun, rain / wind, then sun, sun, for as far as the forecast went out. 

Bad luck, but you can’t predict the weather when you schedule clinics. 

To be continued. 

Cow Clinic: Part One

 

It has been awhile since my last post, and that was on purpose. I have been preparing for our private cow clinic, and I didn’t want to write about it until it was all past.

Now it is past.

I am still reflecting  

But as I do, here are some photos from yesterday. (More to come)

There was high wind, rain, a herd of bison, and a herd of horses running free and bucking around us. Safe to say, our horses were less bothered by the cows than the other elements.

But we survived. We learned. We grew.

There was, unfortunately, one mishap. It also seems to be okay today, but there will be some work getting confidence back. (It wasn’t Tumbleweed and me.)

I will probably have to break this down into several posts, starting with our preparation and ending with the day of the clinic and then post-clinic.

For now, happy trails!

Out of Shape Horses & Hyperscale Data Centers

 

We met with Katie yesterday to do conditioning work with Tumbleweed and Epona, and it was clear that a month off had done them no favors.  

It was Tumbleweed’s third ride since getting back to work, but Epona’s first. 

Tumbleweed’s attitude has been exceptional. He is 100% trying to do his job with a good attitude. It reminds me of the saying, “the mind is willing, but the body’s weak.”

Katie didn’t want to overdo it, so she stopped after about 30 minutes and handed him over to me to do light obstacle work. 

He did everything for me, and more. We ended up dragging the log all around the park. He loves that “obstacle” now.  

Which reminds me, I’m putting together a private cow clinic for me and my friends at a local ranch. We’re trying to decide on the date, but it’s looking like the end of September. I can’t wait! Tumbleweed is going to love it! All day with my horse, good friends, and some cows. Perfect. 

I talked to Katie about his lack of conditioning and a plan to get him back in shape. She thinks one day of the collection work and the rest trails will be enough to bring him back. So, she’s going to do the collection work and I’m going to do the trails.

I’m adding an extra day of collection work this week on Friday. The forecast calls for rain for the next five days, but I look forward to working in rain. I probably won’t get a trail ride in due to my babysitting schedule, but grandson starts two day per week preschool again next week. 

In fact, that reminds me that I will have my grandson in tow Friday, too. (Good thing for Katie!)

He enjoys sitting and watching us ride horses, but his tolerance is about an hour and a half. After that, he needs to walk around and be part of it.

While Katie rode Epona through the obstacles yesterday, daughter and grandson walked around and petted the horses. One was a fjord who is used as a local ambassador. Her name is Dolly. 

Dolly’s owner called the grandson over to see Dolly and even gave him a trading card with Dolly and all her stats as part of the COPS and SCOPE program.

On the way home he clung to his card and kept spelling out her name and talking about her. 

D-O-L-L-Y, Dolly.

Before he went to bed, we asked if he could spell Dolly, and sure enough, he remembered and spelled it out for us just from that 10 minute drive home. 

Sweet Dolly really is a unicorn. A magical ambassador for horses.

I want to circle back to my anti-data center and AI post from a few months ago. Back then, I was blissfully unaware that a hyperscale data center had targeted our area and was in talks with our local politicians and energy providers, hiding behind NDA’s.

A stay at home mom put in a records request and uncovered the plot just in time for the community to impose a moratorium and figure out how to proceed in our best interests. If they had filed for permits it would have been too late. (Their sneakiness worked against them.)

This isn’t a Republican versus Democrat issue. Both parties are in on it and my state is number 10 in numbers of data centers, even though we have a MASSIVE energy shortage and drought. 

The one trying to go in about five miles from us wants to tap into our aquifer, which could drain our private wells.

They purchased 500 acres under a shell company formed in Deleware. It would be a hyperscale data center and will eventually take 1.2 GW of electricity to run. That is more than our entire city and county at peak, and we don’t even have it to give. 

That doesn’t stop them. They’re going to piece it together and even get some from the neighboring state of Idaho.

It’s INSANE!

I found out that much of this is being financed by SWF’s, or sovereign wealth funds, who are dumping US Treasuries for gold, land, energy, and water. Hard assets.

Lovely. 

Many of these hyperscale data center projects will be like Malls for tech where they can rent out space to run their AI programs. 

Big. Ugly. Tech Malls.

Man, I hate where this is going.

Back to It After the Fires

“Summer always overstays its welcome by about a month. After the Fourth of July, which has its charms, nothing but a stretch of relentless heat lies ahead, reaching toward Labor Day, and I begin to yearn for fall.”  Elizabeth Bruenig, “If Only This Could Last Forever,”

Wildfire. Smoke. Extreme heat. The triple whammy. No saddle time. 

Until, finally, today. 

Tumbleweed did great on the obstacles and on the trails, too, especially for having a month off and getting way out of shape. 

But we have some ground to make up. 

We had three blips in our trail ride:

1. He didn’t want to lead out, and away, and I allowed him to follow. Big mistake. I should have got right on that and told him to lead. It set me up for more “refusals.”

2. Going down the steep hill he wanted to speed up and get sloppy. It wasn’t as bad as last year, but something I tried to nip in the bud by doing more hills today. 

3. He tried to canter up a hill that led back to the trailer. Most of that was exacerbated by him being out of shape and wanting to avoid powering from behind. But I can’t help but think that first refusal contributed, too. 

He took the lead going home, so leading wasn’t a problem, leading out was.  It was like he sent a message to the other horse, fall back, I’m taking over, and she did and he did. He just plowed forward confidently setting a faster walking pace than the other horse. 

The three things he did weren’t that big or bad, and my friend didn’t even notice them. They were subtle and, I think easily fixable. 

My trainer Katie was down there riding a horse for another client and I told her I’ll need her help getting him back in trail shape starting Tuesday. 

At any rate, it felt so good to be with him again. When he tried to get into that canter up the hill, I decided to go up, but then take another trail away from the trailer and continue our ride. 

It was my gentle way of teaching him a lesson, and he got the memo.  Don’t rush back home or you get more work. 

That last leg of our ride was our best. He softened up and I tuned into him more and patted him, talked to him. It was like we got on the same page again. (One of the issues with riding with a partner is that we can get distracted from our horses when they need more support, and I think that happened today.)

When we got back to the trailhead we did some more obstacles and he was trying so hard for me by then. I jumped off after the last one and made a big deal over him. Really loved him up and then walked him back to the trailer. 

It was a good start towards getting back to normal. 

The forecast is decent this week, 70’s and 80’s and even a few days of rain. It has been so long since we had rain. 

We need it. 

Bring on fall!