2022 Riding Journey

#6 Mistletoe Escapade + Wind

I knew the wind was going to be constant throughout the day from the south / southwest, and sure enough, when I arrived, it was already blowing.  Ugh.  

Guess what my first job was?  

Yep, feed sacks.  Then I was to fill up all the water tanks that needed filling.  

In the pen that Yucca was in before he became a gelding, was a new horse that I hadn't seen.  Sea Monster was gone.  This horse looked young, but of the same breed as Sea monster.  He's a flashy bay, and throughout the whole time I was there he kept calling out to the other horses.  This was understandable since he'd only arrived yesterday, as I later found out.  

It was still early in the morning, and the hose hadn't had time to thaw out yet.  From experience I knew that if I ran the water long enough, it'd push the ice out.

It took long enough I was wondering if it was every going to happen.  While I was waiting, my trainer had caught Sage and tied her up on the arena fence.  Then she went to catch Riggs.

Now, Mistletoe and Riggs's pen has a H brace that's not fenced next to the gate.  I've always wondered if Mistletoe, being as little as she is, could slip under it.  But she'd never tried it in all the three months she'd been living in that pen.  

However, I guess Riggs being taken away from her triggered something, because what do you know, she slipped right under it.  It didn't take her but a moment to find out she was FREE!  And boy, was she excited about it.  

My trainer wasn't too concerned, I think because she knew Mistletoe would stay near where the other horses were.  She put Riggs in the feeding pen first before going to catch her.  

I would have helped, but my trainer didn't say anything to me about it.  If she didn't, I wasn't going to do anything because I didn't want to mess up my trainer's catching plans.  

My trainer patiently trailed Mistletoe all over the property.  Mistletoe was having a ball, trotting and running around with her tail high in the air.  She did look like a million bucks.  She excited the other horses, especially the ones in the lesson horse pen.  My trainer said in passing to me, "There goes my time to ride."    

Eventually my trainer opened the gate of the pen she'd escaped from wide.  Then she kinda worked Mistletoe back towards there, and herded her into the pen.  So, nothing came of the escape, and Mistletoe was safely back in her pen.  

To keep her from escaping using the H brace again, my trainer jammed the two-wheeled wheelbarrow into the H brace gap.  It was enough to deter 

My trainer told me, as she came back from wrangling her, that the Germans have a word called "Schwung."  (Not sure if that's how you spell it or even the word she meant.)  And it means the natural brilliance of a horse.  Like what Mistletoe was doing as she pranced around.  And that everything we do as riders is to try to bring back that natural brilliance, only under saddle and under our control, instead of running around in the yard XD.  

Anyhow, after that my trainer went inside the house, and I dragged the hose down to the buckets in Mistletoe's pen.  When my trainer came back, she had some scissors, and she cut off the edges of Mistletoe's tail with them.  She also dumped out the buckets, to get the grime out of the bottom, and said I'd need to dump the bucket in Sage's pen too.  She also mentioned I'd better take a weapon to fend off the baby horses XD

So, after filling up Mistletoe's water, I picked out a halter and ventured into the pen.  For the most part the left me alone as I dumped the tank, I wish I could have cleaned it out better.  

I held the end of the hose through the gap in the fence just enough so that the water went into the tank, but I could fend them off from playing with the hose.  The Bay Filly, the Red Roan Filly, and Tidbit all crowded around to drink.