Happy Horses in a green Texas!

Just got home from a weekend of camping.  I decided to let the girls onto a part of the property they haven't been on.  They were happy as can be at the green leaves and knee high grass available to them.  The picture of the single horse is Rachel.  She's doing very well and is very happy!  Gotta love spring in Texas!  All is good in my neck of the woods.  Just thought I'd share what I thought were some pretty pictures.

Quick Update

Things have been busy for the green teamster these days!  It's been awhile, so I figured I'd better do a quick update.

Had an awesome Easter wagon ride with my friends.  They were so captivated by it, that they wanted to go again.  This, to me, is the ultimate compliment.  I love it when other people find the enjoyment that I do from a wagon ride.  One of the things I enjoy the most is when my wife goes with me, and she sits up front with me.  I know that horses are NOT her thing, so when she participates, it's really cool.

My harnesses are in the same state as before.  I just need to finish scrubbing the speiders and tugs and I'll be done with the majority of the harnesses.  I need to buy some new yoke clips and hardware for the breast straps.  After I get that done, I'll just have to buy myself a yoke and a double-tree and I'll be set to have the horses drag stuff around.

Now for the mares.  They are ... well ... being mares.  I took Pam to be bred over at the Double M Warhorse Ranch in Terrell Texas.  (http://www.doublemwarhorseranch.com/)  Mark and Bev are good friends of mine, and I really like their stallion Vegas (see the website).  When I arrived with Pam, it turns out that Pam was ready to go.  I got to witness a pasture breed for the first time.  This really reaffirmed to me that I do not want to own a stallion.  Once those hormones get control, they are a bit crazy!  Vegas is a gentleman though, and was very nice and gentle, and even took her out for a nice bit of hay afterwards.  ;)

I was out of town all last week, and since I got back, the mares have let me know that they missed me.  When working with Pam, I tried lifting her rear hoof to clean it out.  She decided to be a butt, and flat out kick at me.  I tried over and over with the same results and I ended up leaving her tied for a few hours.  Then I went out and brushed her and turned her out.  Sometimes it's hard to remember that these are not reasoning animals.  I left her tied because I found myself getting angry, and I did not want to react poorly and do something I'd regret.  The next day at meal time, Rachel let me know she missed me by trying to kick me as I walked around her after feeding time.  Really?  Rachel?  We've been doing this for over a month now, same routine every day, and now she does this?  Needless to say, she went without food because I am the boss.  Quite a welcome back from those mares!  (sadly, I love mares, because of the dynamics like this in their moods.  To borrow a quote ... mares are like a box of chocolates ...)  :)

That's it for now.  As I get more done, I'll be sure to post about it.

Horse Grooming

So this afternoon I tried something when grooming the horses and am VERY impressed.  Right now the horses are losing their winter coats, so it takes a lot of brushing.  Well due to my wife being a vet tech, we own 2 brushes for dogs called "The furminator".  These are expensive (35 bucks), and we love them for our dogs.  Our Great pyranees has such thick fur, and this brush works well.  I am aware that they have a furminator for horses.  It's the same as the dog one, only a bit wider.  Well the wife and I thought we would brush the horses and see how they look after the furminator was done with them.

Wow!  I now have enough hair to be considered carpet outside, and the horses look great.  I was really pleased with the results.  This brush did an excellent job.  You have to be light when using it, and not push it in hard because of how sharp the metal edges are.  It just removes all that winter coat.  Way awesome!  I'm not so sure it will work well on just a summer coat, but it worked amazing for helping shed that winter coat.  Attached are 2 pictures of the girls.  Both were done.  Rachel still has the halter on cuz tonight she's taking us on an Easter Wagon Ride!

Something else to remember Lily by

After we lost Lily, we went back to the vet clinic and took some hair and a hoof print from her.  Well a week ago, my wife pulled out her old craft paint and painted the hoof print.  I don't think it's the colors she would've preferred, but it's what she had that wasn't dried up.  I really like it, and it will hang on the wall at our place next to the other tribute I got.  I just figured I would share what it looks like.

Restoring an old harness, Step 2

For the past 2 weeks, I've been slowly working on the leather pieces of the harnesses.  It's a little daunting to see all the leather and know that I need to scrub all of it.  Since I broke the harness completely down, I decided to just work a few pieces at a time.  So here's how I'm going it:

First, I put a dirty piece of the harness in my work area.  Looking at the picture you can see how I'm doing this.  I have a towel laid down.  Before I begin working the leather, I take a wire brush, and brush all the hardware.  I have a wire wheel on the drill that works very well for this.  There are some spots that just need a hand wire brush though.  Once the hardware is shiny, I lay the leather down, and get ready for scrubbing.

I'm using saddle soap and a plastic bristle brush to scrub the leather.  You can see in the picture the pink block of saddle soap, and the red handled brush (3 pack of brushes for a few bucks from Tractor Supply).  First I scrub the saddle soap block, then I dip the tips of the brush in water, then I scrub the leather.  This works pretty good.  I get a good lather.  I have found that it's kind of hard to see how clean it's getting because of the lather, but if I really question it, I have a sponge that I can just use to wipe the suds away.

After srubbing all the leather, I use the sponge/scrubber to go over the leather a final time.  This removes all excess saddle soap.  Then the leather gets laid out to dry.

The parts in the picture to the left have all been scrubbed and are clean.  What you see there are all the hame straps, lazy straps, and crupper billets.  I also have the cruppers done, and the actual lazy strap tug loops.  The leather is in great shape, and it's much nicer now to touch it.  There are some straps that are still a tad sticky/gummy, but they are much better than they were.

I was going to apply a thin layer of neetsfoot oil to the leather once it was dry, but I'm second guessing that now.  The leather seems to be pretty oily already, so I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to add more oil to it.  I may just bypass that step and down the road apply more if needed.

I've also got the Hames almost done.  They are painted black now, and the leather strap loops have been scrubbed.  They look pretty good.

I have some Brasso that I am going to apply to all brass parts (both the hame balls, and the buckles and hardware for the rest of the harness).  I'm hoping that a layer of protection on the brass, will help it to keep from getting that green crud building up on it from the horse sweat.

Tonight I took the speiders and back saddles and scrubbed the hardware on those.  I still need to do the leather, but all the rings and hardware is clean.  I also took apart the breast straps tonight.  That was rough.  The bolts holding the hardware together was completely rusted, and I had to drill one of the bolts to get it out.  The center snaps are completely pored and rusty, so I may just buy some new ones.  I also need to buy some new snaps that snap onto the lower hame rings.  Seeing how rusted and bad these were, really drove home the fact for me that if you have a harness, occasionally take the bolts out and put them back in.  Do what you can to keep those things from seizing up!

Things are getting closer.  Can't wait till I have enough of the leather done to start assembling it again.  It's going to look really good!

Changes to my wagon

Give me a nice sunny day, with nothing to do, and I'm a happy camper!  First I finally fixed the trailer brakes on the goosneck trailer (which ended up being broken wires in the actual brakes), and then I worked on my wagon.  Check out the pictures to see what I did.  First I added a new drivers seat.  This is a bench seat out of a 2004 Ford van.  I attached it with chains and it worked really good.  It is much softer than the 2x12 I used to sit on, so I'm really excited about it.  Next, I decided that it was time to add some benches to the back of the wagon.  This went pretty quick.  I'm pretty happy with the results too.  The wagon is filthy and needs a good washing.  After I do that, I'm going to stain all the parts that are not stained.  Then the wagon will look really nice.  I also worked on the brakes.  I'm halfway done with the fabrication.  The brakes now sit in the correct spot, held up by a spring.  So now I just have to fabricate the actual lever that is going to push the pads down on the tires.

I also worked on my harnesses, but I'll add another blog entry for that.

More Pictures of the wagon ride

My sister in law just posted more pictures of the wagon ride.  You can see some new additions to the wagon (including safety chains!).