Getting Ready for Christmas

Today was a great day.  I got to spend some good time putting miles on the horses.  It was 6 miles by the time it was all said and done.  I had the bells on the horses and they did wonderful.

What prompted todays trek, was a need I had to deliver a hay wagon to a friend who lives 3 miles away.  I will be pulling this wagon in the Greenville Christmas night parade, and it needs to be decorated how my riders want.  I knew right away I could just drive it over, but then I needed to have a ride home.  I came up with the idea to load my forecart onto the hay wagon.  This would give me a ride home.

My pioneer forecart strapped down to a hay wagon.  Quite the ride!!

I should probably back up a few days.  On Wednesday I had the farrier out and he put shoes on the horses.  (I got Rachael's shoes from Graber steel again.  Love those people, and love the drilltek shoes!)  Rachael got iron on all 4 feet without a problem.  Pam was REALLY being a moody preggo mare.  For the first time she kicked at me.  I couldn't believe it.  She stood for the farrier perfectly for the front feet, but when he went to work on the back, she swung her rear end towards him and kicked at him.  I was baffled.  This is definitely not my docile mare Pam.  I don't know if it was the cold weather, the preggo, or something else, but that mare was a tad unruly.  Since she's pregnant, the farrier didn't want to tie ropes around her.  We discussed how much I'll be using the horses on the road, and he felt that I would be fine with only shoes on the front for Pam.  This saved me some money, and saved us from fighting Pam a day before Thanksgiving.  :)  

Since the horses have iron, I had no problem running them down the road.  It was a nice ride too.  Both girls were stepping nicely and responding well to the lines.  I had the bells on, and the girls didn't mind them at all.  I actually enjoyed the ride sitting so high up.  I had a birds eye view.  I was sitting in the implement seat on the forecart.  It worked well.  I set out alone, but after half a mile, my white dog Saphra was following me, so she got pulled up on the wagon and came along.

A birds eye view.  This must be what a nice hitch wagon is like.

Another shot while riding the hay wagon.  Note the bells!! 

After I dropped off the wagon, I hitched up the forecart, and headed home.  The point of view was much different.  Instead of looking down on everything, I was peering between the horses at the road.  The pictures show this well.  The girls did enjoy having a lighter ride home, and they trotted well for me.  Driving with a dog  between your legs on a forecart was the most difficult thing I encountered.  :)

Forecart view on the way home.  Compare with above.  I prefer the high ride!!

My wife took this picture from behind me as I drove up the driveway. 

My wife took a video of me as I was pulling into the driveway.  It's listed below.  You can really hear the bells cut through it.  It was a fabulous afternoon!

Getting the girls used to bells

I decided that for my parade and wagon rides this holiday season, I'd like to see about getting some sleigh bells. I began searching for bells, and I found that real brass bells are pricey!  I was looking for the bands that go around the girth of the horses.  They were upwards of 100 dollars a piece for the nice ones and $300 a pop for the REALLY nice ones.

I did more searching and found some made by Weaver.  They are black leather, 72" long, and just nickel plated bells.  Probably not as nice sounding as the others, but they were 22 dollars a piece.  I decided that for that price I'd give them a try.

Last Saturday I got Rachael and Pam out.  After I tied them to get them ready for harnesses, I walked over with one set of bells around my neck.  Rachael was completely relaxed and didn't mind the bells.  Pam had her head set very high, and her ears were tipped a little back.  She was concerned.  I talked sweet to her, and let her check them out while I brushed them out.  I then put one strand around each horse and left them tied for a bit.  Neither cared at that point.

I then harnessed them up and off we went to my pal Pat Chase's house.  I needed to visit Pat for a variety of reasons:  1) it's been a while since I've hung out with my friend, 2) I needed to do some upgrading of hames at the Pat Chase Tack Shop, 3) I needed to borrow the hay wagon that I'm going to use in the Greenville Christmas Parade.

As always, it was great to be out at Pats.  I was surprised to see him working his 2 year old gelding.  It's been a while since I've seen him, but wow has he grown.  It was awesome to see him harnessed and pulling a sled.  Pat has done awesome work with him.  He's nearly 17 hands tall and is going to be an amazing horse.  This summer Pat learned some great training tricks from Cathy Zahm, and he explained them to me.  Very cool!

For those who may not know, Pat keeps a bit of harness stuff at his place for sale/trade.  He has collars, hames, and other things.  For the past 6 months, my new harnesses have needed smaller hames.  The harnesses were originally used on bigger horses, and the hames just didn't fit my 24 inch collars very well.  Not only does Pat have the gear, he has the know how.  He quickly measured, and told me I needed 26" hames to go with my 24" collars (2 inches bigger is the rule).  In no time, I had new hames that fit my collars perfectly for a very reasonable price and trade-in.

We then worked horses for a bit, and went for a wagon ride.  It was great to just relax and hang out with my friend.  My horses did very well with the bells on their harnesses.  I ground drove them all around Pat's place.  Unfortunately we couldn't hook them up to Pat's other wagon, so we only took Pat's horses and wagon out on the ride.

After the wagon ride, I had to get home, so I loaded my horses and off I went, with a hay wagon being pulled behind the horse trailer.  I had to keep it under 45, but I made it home just fine.

Looking forward to getting the girls shoe'd over this Thanksgiving break.  Then I'll start hitting the roads a little more often and working those muscles back into shape.  I don't want the girls to go from Summer Vacation to 3 hours of work a night all at once.

I hope everyone out there enjoys Thanksgiving and finds something to be thankful for.  There's plenty of reasons for all of us if we look close enough.

Driving with my son

My son with lines in hand

Today I decided to do some things just for me.  I came home from work early, and decided that I'd work the horses.  It's funny to me that whenever you think you can do something quickly with horses, life happens.  My first delay was getting Whinnie (the little buckskin filly) back into my pasture.  She managed to get in the neighbors field somehow, so I had to cut the fence, get her back on my side, and then fix the fence.

Delay #2 came from a preggo mare Pam acting like a total butt.  She refused to let me halter her.  This meant we spent 30 minutes of her running away from me while I slowly walked behind her (like a murderer in some slasher movie from the 1980s).  After 30 minutes she finally tired herself out, and she stood.  I chuckled when I saw how sweaty she had made herself.  After that, she was a perfect mare.  She had no more strength to act up.

My boy driving the sled across the pasture.

About that time, my son got home from school.  To my surprise, he told me he wanted to come out and work the horses with me.  We had an awesome day!  He helped me halter Rachael, and also helped me groom them and harness them.  We hooked the girls up to the sled, and I started driving them.

He actually did pretty good at keeping slack out of his lines

About that time, Riley asked if he could drive.  I quickly agreed, and he took over.  He did so good!  I was very impressed with him.  I took a few video's of him driving the horses.  The first one below is of him starting the girls from a stop.  It took him 3 tries to get them to respond to his voice, but he got them to listen.  (turn the sound up and you can here him talking to the horses)

The next video is of Riley turning a 180 degree circle.  He completely impressed me with his ability to command the horses.  By the time we finished working the horses, Riley had driven much longer than I had.

There is something very fulfilling about sharing this stuff with my son.  I love that he wants to be involved, and I love that he does so well with the horses.  Had a fabulous day with my boy!!

Team Line Trick

Yesterday I was calling around to different harness shops looking for pricing on Bells.  For this Christmas season I was hoping to add some sleigh bells to the wagon/horses to really complete the Christmas theme.

I got referred to the Samson Harness Shop in MN.  I called and they were so pleasant!  I ended up talking with someone for hours (Bernie Samson maybe?).  We talked about all kinds of different things.

One thing we discussed was using team lines.  He asked me if I had any issues with lines getting hung up.  I mentioned how I had the team line buckle pull through my spreader once.  He asked if I also had times when the cross checks would get hung up under the team pole.  My answer was a “Yes”.  That seems to happen every now and then; never from actually working, but by standing still and them moving their heads around.

Bernie then laid out to me an old trick from the early 1900s.  He described using 2 sets of spreader rings to solve the cross check problem, and using 3 extra rings on the cross check line to prevent the buckle from pulling through.

For the 3 ring thing,  you just get 3 sizes of rings (6 total – 2 per size).  They should be sequenced such that the smallest ring will not pull through the middle one, and the middle one will not pull through the biggest.  The biggest needs to be big enough that it won’t pull through the spreader ring.  You put these on each cross check, in sequential order, before you run it through the first spreader.  These rings will then prevent the buckle from pulling through.



Drawing of team line setup using 2 sets of spreders



For the last part, I was having a hard time understanding verbally what he was describing, so I had him send me a fax with a drawing.  I found this very interesting.  I’ve never heard of this, but it looks pretty good.  The extra set of spreaders will keep enough line on the tension that you don’t get that droop in the middle of the cross that can get hung up.  I like it, and I think I’m going to have to get some spreaders to try it out.

This kind of rig seems ideal for a guy like me;  someone who works the horses alone most times.  when this kind of thing happens for me, I usually have to hope the horses stay still, and walk around myself to un-tangle it.  This means that there is a time when my hands are not on the lines.  If running an extra set of spreaders can fix this, then I’m all for it.