Desert Horses

Welcome to my horse blog, Desert Horses. We live in the desert southwest, near Palm Springs, CA, but board our horses up in our local mountains where it is cooler in the summer. I have 4 horses, all rescues. Here is the ranch up the mountains where the horses stay.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Finally~some horse time!

Well, I wasn't sick this 3 day weekend, like I was the last 3 day weekend.  No more breaks from school now until spring break, which is at the end of March.  HA~I hope I can make it that long!

Saturday the hubbs and I drove through Joshua Tree National Park.  Our son asked us to check out the campgrounds there, so we did.  It was a cloudy, overcast day until about noon.  By then, it was hot.

But yesterday I was able to spend time with the horses, during their lessons.  Every horse gets some turnout time and a nice grooming.  My trainer is working with Sunni and just getting him to relax at the tie rack.  She doesn't tie him...she just stands there and talks to him (or me) while he relaxes.  Quad now works the entire arena instead of dragging her around it.  He is a lot softer.  Gigondas now enjoys her grooming sessions and lets out long sighs.  Scout is much calmer and more collected and also doesn't drag people around any more.  She didn't do much with Lucille because Lucille, a couple of weeks ago, sprang into action in the arena and jammed one of her front shoulders on some hard sand.  She did get a turnout and she rolled and rolled.

It was quite warm up in the mountains and the owners' almond trees are pretty much DONE blooming.  I missed the whole cycle of their blooming because I missed getting up there last weekend...sigh...I always enjoy seeing the almond blossoms.  Darn it!

She has 3 horses in foal.  Her pinto mare went out for training and somehow came back preggers!  The sire is an Andalusian stallion, so the foal would be an Azteca.  And, she has two of her Peruvian pasos in foal.

And, hay prices are going up, due to the drought here in the Southwest.  Fortunately, the owner bought another whole load at current prices, before they go way up, but I'm sure that before long, I'll have to pay more for board...sigh...




2 comments:

Ranch Girl Diaries said...

Oh boy look at that blue sky and sun! So jealous! Hope the board stays reasonable. I have about one more ton to buy from my normal peeps them I'm going to be scrounging until summer. Luckily I can find hay pretty affordable ($7 a bale) but it could come down to me paying up to 24.00 a bale for Timothy if my local resources dry up!

Cheryl Ann said...

Oh, gosh! I wish we could find hay for $7.00 a bale here in California! The feed store has alfalfa for $18.00, but that was a while ago. I buy Timothy pellets and they are $18.00 a 50 pound bag...sigh...