Oil Spill

Well I haven't talked about this before, mostly because there is plenty of drama surrounding it already, but the stupid has become entirely too thick for me to ignore.

Randy Prescott, a representative of BP, made the comment “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp.”

WTF over?

Stupid on these levels shouldn't be ignored, tolerated, or tacitly approved. Since Mr. Prescott's company email and office phone number are now public knowledge, I'm going to post them here. Call, email, tell him he's an idiot and/or a dick, or whatever you'd like to say to a person in his position who displays that much dumb.

Randy Prescott
Email: randy.prescott@bp.com
Phone: (719) 323-4093

And, when you see a BP station... drive on by. Perhaps big oil is all corrupt and all about the money in their pockets, but not all companies are displaying this level of contempt for the consequences of their own screw ups at this particular moment.

And yes, I'm aware that most BP stations in the US are independently operated. They are affiliated with the company, however, and BP makes a profit from them. Short of saddling up and going back to hayburners, there just isn't a whole lot else we can do to financially impact the company, so if you have any other ideas, feel free to share them.

Pictures!

Farmmom was more than willing to take come pictures for me, since it meant she got to hang around and giggle at the fight.

So here's a brief photographic look at what we did yesterday:

First, we got saddled and worked the round pen, just to wake her up and get her listening.


Then, we started on ground driving. She wasn't really fond of the lead going around her butt to start with but she got over it and walked nicely, as you can see.


After that, it's a brief reminder on rein cues coming from a person in the immediate vicinity instead of on the end of a long lead.

Followed by stepping into the stirrup... just a note, I've been pulling on the saddle and leaning on her and hopping around beside her ever since I got her saddled the first time, just so that this would go smoothly. It did, she backed up a few steps to try and get me by her head so she could give me the "what the hell?" look that I'm growing so familiar with, but when I stayed right where I was she gave that up.


We did this several times, moving around the pen, making sure she was, if not totally kosher with it, then at least resigned.


For those of you who aren't all that interested in the horse training aspect, look at it this way, at least it gives you plenty of pictures of my butt....


And then we were on, and walking!


All in all it was a very successful day, we only bobbled and wanted to buck when I asked for a trot. The rest of the time, it was like this:


Farmmom was highly amused at her version of bucking, which his basically "hop hop hop stop" and her giggles and snorts were hard to ignore, but somehow I managed it.

This evening, we'll trot, whether she likes it or not. I did get about a half circuit of the pen at a trot out of her, without interruptions, she just has this idea in her head that if she doesn't like what's going on, she can refuse (in this case, stop and stand and try to graze) and it will stop. It doesn't work that way but she'll get it figured out, along with leg cues and that it's so much easier to just give to the bit instead of leaning on it. Leg cues aren't something you can start teaching before you actually get on, so that's just gonna take time, and she'll figure out leaning on the bit on her own as long as I'm consistent.

She's a smart cookie, and she's doing very well. Some trainers would say that I'm rushing her, but she's retaining what we're working on and her personality is such that if I give her a chance to get bored, she's going to take the opportunity to think up her own entertainments, which I can promise I wouldn't enjoy.

From here on out it's just getting the basics down, and then a lot of saddle time.

In Other News

While I know people* love their Kindles, I'm intrigued by B&N's Nook. The Nook and the Kindle both have the same kind of display, display size, adjustable text size, etc.

What Nook has that Kindle doesn't is what makes me want a Nook instead of a Kindle (not that I'll get either any time soon because I just can't afford it)... Nook has Wi-fi, including free Wi-fi in B&N stores. It also has a new beta software pack to allow some web surfing.

Nook has a microSD slot, too, for more memory. B&N offers more ebooks in Nook's format than Amazon does in Kindle's, more than a million titles, so the memory expansion might actually be needed. Five hundred thousand of those titles are free, and you can read any ebook free while sitting in a B&N store... Up to an hour of reading time without buying the book per day.

Nook also offers the ability to lend your ebooks without lending your device, sharing the book between blackberries, pc's, and Apple devices. I think there's an imposed time limit, two weeks, IIRC, but still.

Hardware wise, Nook has a color touch screen below the reading screen for browsing your books, and you can browse your library by cover art through this screen. It also has a replaceable battery, which I like.

If I had a spare three hundred bucks laying around I'd buy the Nook. Unfortunately, I don't, so I'll just sit here and sigh at it, unless some generous reader wants to show their appreciation......

Anyone? Anyone? ....... Yeah, I didn't think so, but it was worth a shot.

*I'm looking at you, Alan and yes this post is mostly to make fun of you. Deal with it.

A Couple Things...

First off, for those of you who loved Monster Hunter International and are waiting eagerly for the next installment of Owen Pitt greatness (but have somehow been living under a rock and not seen this on Larry's blog) Monster Hunter Vendetta is available as an Electronic Advanced Reader Copy (E-ARC is, I believe, the proper acronym) for fifteen dollars. Sure, it's more than the paperback or the later ebook will be, but you get to read it NOW instead of waiting until September.

Believe me, you're gonna love it.

Also, things are going well with the filly, she's learning quickly. This afternoon we're going to start ground driving, and if she grasps that as quickly as she's been grasping everything else, I may go ahead and get the first ride in while she's kind of wore out from the other work. That way she won't have quite so much enthusiasm when she's trying to get me off her back.

In any case, it'll be today or tomorrow. She's dealt well with the steps up to this point so I don't see any major issues with ground driving... she may get a little excited but she seems to have settled quite a bit since I sacked her out the other day. It's amazing how much can be accomplished with an hour and a plastic sack.

May have pictures for ya'll if Farmmom feels obliging.... little girl looks pretty good under saddle, even when shes got her annoyed face on.

Progress!

Well, after the battles we had to begin with about getting caught, the filly decided today that she would let me catch her.

She may change her mind about that tomorrow considering the indignities (to her mind) that I subjected her to today.

See, today we started on round pen training (it does take a bit of training to get them working good in the round pen) and we also got the bit for the first time.

She was very displeased with this turn of events, needless to say. Not rear and throw a fit displeased, but displeased nonetheless. I didn't have my phone with me so I missed what would have been great shots of her trying to shove the bit out the side of her mouth with her tongue, but here are a few I did get:


"If my mouth is open it will fall out. I'm sure it will. No, really. It'll fall out..."


"Well maybe if I put my head up it'll come out... maybe? Come on get this thing out of my mouth already!"


Notice the ears, above. She's gone from cranky in the first photo, to confused in the second, and in this one, she's annoyed.

This is about thirty minutes into the whole debacle. Right after this is when she decided that the bit wasn't going anywhere no matter how hard she tried and closed her mouth on it and stopped trying to spit it out. I was sitting on the fence pointing and laughing at her, and this annoyed look she gave me was just too good to pass up a picture of.

From here on out I'm not going to be able to take pictures while I'm working her, because I'll have my hands full actually working her. Tomorrow we'll go through the same stuff we did today (more briefly, hopefully) and start in desensitizing to have things on our back and around our front legs (because hobbles are handy). With any luck, we may get saddled tomorrow, but I'm not counting on it. She'll be saddled by the weekend and riding some time next week though, or at least that's my prediction. How long it takes to get riding depends entirely on how stubborn she wants to be about giving to the bit while tied around and ground driving, and that we won't know until we get there.

Spoiled Little Brat

So, I've got a client horse in this month (yay! Money!) and I gotta say this folks: there is such a thing as spoiling your horse too much.

I'm not talking about too many treats or grooming them until they melt, or even letting them have some candy sometimes. I'm talking about spoiled little brats that don't listen and have learned that they don't have to.

This filly I've got in to start, she's lived in the same pen, with the same other filly, since they were weaned. She learned early on that she could push the other filly around, of course, since the other filly is a more submissive little creature. Then she tried it with her owner.

Obviously, it worked, because now I'm dealing with her trying to deliberately step on me, shove me, throw her head up and intimidate me, and various and sundry other examples of what a horse shouldn't get away with.

She's halter broke, and she leads well, but when she gets tired of being led she'll get in behind me and start pushing, trying to step on the backs of my boots. Or she'll try to turn away from me and when the lead comes tight she'll act like she's startled.

Today we had the "You can't catch me" fight. Needless to say, I won, but I'm a little sore from winning tonight.

See, she's worn a catch collar at home, because apparently she doesn't want to let you put the halter on unless you already have a firm grip on her. Since she'd never ridden in a trailer before, I pulled it before I loaded her. First trailer ride + things to get caught on something = not a good idea, since they will find something to snag a halter or catch collar or saddle on.

So, she didn't have the catch collar. I figured that once she settled in she wouldn't be that bad to catch, if nothing else run her into the alley and give her less room to make a fool of herself in. I was wrong, but that's why they make ropes.

I'd gotten her eating out of my hand by the simple expedient of having the only food available in the pen when she was hungry. So, I held the rope up in front of the bucket and let her stick her nose in it, and back out, and stick her nose in it, and back out... when she was distracted munching on the little bit of food in the bottom of the bucket, I flipped the loop up over her ears and tugged the slack out.

Of course she went nuts. She was surprised. I let her run around the pen for a little bit until she stopped worrying about the end of the rope trailing behind her, then eased my way up to grab the end. I started slowly coiling the rope, and she gradually inched her way towards me, until I could grab the trailing end of the rope under her jaw and give her a little bit of forward pressure. She walked nicely with me with just the rope around her neck, back to where I'd laid the halter and lead over the fence.

She stood while I petted her and told her what a good girl she was. Then, when I had the halter on her nose and reached across for the strap, she took off.

I let her run herself down a bit more (no point in chasing her, she'd get tired soon enough) and repeated this process, getting just a little further with the halter than I had the time before. We did this about three times, before I got fed up.

She was starting to look like this was becoming a fun game, and that wasn't the plan, so this time, instead of letting go of the rope and letting her run herself down, I let it slide through my hands until I got the end of it, and I ran with her. She made a circuit of the pen and stopped in a corner, and looked over at me like "What?!? You're not supposed to be on the end of the rope!!" and took off again. She was quite obviously indignant that I had changed the rules, but I just kept up with her (easier than it sounds, actually since I had less distance to run than she did, and could pretty much do it up and down the middle of the pen instead of making the wide circle) and was standing on the end of the rope again when she stopped again.

I reeled her in and led her a little way, then told her firmly to stand, and eased the halter on. I hadn't let her get away with her little game that time, and she decided to do what she should have in the first place. I led her around the pen a couple times, and when she stopped trying to climb over me, I took her out of that pen, and into the next one, where there's grass and weeds growing, and let her graze in-hand for a few minutes.

She got something she liked for doing something I liked. She'll come to see the correlation soon enough.

By that time there was a storm moving in, so I didn't work her in the round pen today. We'll start that, and learning how to carry the bit, tomorrow. I did leave the halter on her to hopefully simplify matters tomorrow.

And if she decides to play any "you can't catch me" games tomorrow, I'll just tie one of the lunge lines around an old tire before I leave, and let her drag it around for the night. That tends to put a damper on the whole running away thing.

Holy Crap!

Today Farmmom and I went to the Redneck Walmart (tack, feed, tires, clothing, toys, tools, fencing supplies and every spring, baby ducks, chicks, and turkeys, so yes it IS more redneck than Walmart) to get some panels.

See, I've got a little filly coming in to get saddle broke tomorrow, and discovered that I was a wee bit short of panels for a round pen. The place here didn't have any, but I called Redneck Walmart for a price quote and was quoted a hell of a deal. I jumped on it, figuring it was some off-brand that was on sale, we hooked on to the trailer and away we went.

Only to discover once we had paid that what they thought I had purchased and what I thought I had purchased were two different things. I had called asking about horse panels... in my lexicon, lightweight fencing panels that would hook together. In their lexicon, apparently, it meant something that I have always called "pig panels"... panels of four gauge wire laid out in a four inch square grid.

The guy who came to help us load looked at me and smirked when I told him that wasn't what I wanted, said "I didn't think so, and I tried to tell her. Oh well not my problem. Pull over there and we'll get you loaded up."

So he loaded me three name brand sixteen foot long panels. This particular name brand is quite expensive... for good reason of course, its some of the best ranching equipment out there.

The price I paid for each five foot tall by sixteen foot long panel was $59.99

The manufacturer's recommended price is $188.99

No, I did not make any salacious offers, nor did I reveal any inappropriate portions of my anatomy. Hell, I didn't even wink at the guy. I did say thank you and get the hell out of there before he got caught, though....