whip it

After a too short vacation to Frankenmuth, Michigan, my husband and I returned home and back to the normal grind.

My first order of business, the barn! I checked my locker and found that the sticky mouse traps did not work. The mice clearly walked over the sticky traps, and pooped on them to spite me.  And even though the peppermint seemed to work at first, my mice like peppermint because they have been eating the  candy canes I bought for Shyloh. Now they have begin to eat my saddle pad. Ugh! I immediatly took all fabric type things to my car. Guess I'll have to keep some tack in my car and resort to deadlier methods to take care of the mice.

Fuzzy troll forelock

I got my fuzzy pony, loved on her a bit, then tacked her up. It was my intention to prep Shyloh for a special sledding guest tomorrow. So I took Shy to the outdoor arena and lead her around with the sled for a quick minute. Shy was normal and normal is good. No starts, nothing. I got behind her and started line driving her. She just chugged along. Then. . . I kicked the sled. I got  quick legs, but no forward motion (that crazy thing she does where she moves quick, but never pulls on the lines).  But another quick recovery. I kicked the sled again. No response. Kick, no response. I kept kicking at the sled throughout our session. Sometimes it even ran up on her and she was completely fine with it. I am so happy how Shy is doing!

Heading out the gate

Being awesome horse

I let Shy kinda decide where she wanted to go and she took us right out the arena! Funny, she didn't want to do boring circles. We walked around the property. . .then had another fight at the gate.

What happens when we fight

I made her go around another way and continued to line drive her around a little longer, then I sent her back to basics. I unhooked the sled and grabbed my lunge whip. We were going to walk past the gate to the pasture with no problem or we would continue walking past it all night.

Ain't no thang

Stinking Shy knew I had that whip and gave me no problem walking back and forth. Ugh! Good think I ordered a driving whip. . .it clearly works when needed! I still had her walk past the gate a few times before we ended our session.

I did find the whip worked really well to keep her going and send her in a trot. Just a tap on the rear and it seemed to bring her attention back to me when she got distracted. And Shy seemed to not want to give me as much trouble. Now I am kicking myself for not listening earlier. . .

Right now, I am glad we don't have a saddle. If we had it, I would be trying to work back and forth between attempting to ride and line driving. But without the saddle, we have been real consistent working on the driving and I think it has really paid off. Shy has been amazing and we have been having a lot of fun doing this. Cart. . ..here we come!

barn mice

The barn mice are like winter ticks. Except I don't bring the mice home. The mice have decided that my locker is comfy and cozy and I have just enough things for them to ruin for their little homes. I am not down with this. . .

I'm cute, but I will ruin ALL the tack!

They are pooping little mice turds everywhere. All over my tack, shelves, grooming bag. . .just everywhere. They have invaded an empty plastic bag and destroyed a sponge to make a nest. A nest where I am sure that they plan on having millions of little mousey babies. 

Mouse house

The kicker was when I discovered that they began to take the fluff from Shyloh's too big shipping boots! Heck no! I plan on selling those! (Anyone want horse size navy blue shipping boots?)Luckily they just began to tear into the shipping boots and you can't even tell. I promptly removed those to my car before any further damage can happen. 

Mice are cute, but vectors of disease. The barn cats are not doing their job controlling the mouse population. I think they spend too much time in the heated barn. Oh cats. . .

I really don't want to kill the mice. They don't bother me, besides pooping everywhere. But destroying tack is a no no. I can't afford to replace tack just because a mouse needs a home. My first line of defense was all natural. I heard the peppermint oil put on cottonballs will keep the  mice away. So I went to the herb store where I get Shy's raspberry leaves and got some fresh peppermint oil. I doused practically the whole bag a cottonballs and placed them strategically around my locker (in the paces where the most poop was found). The I dumped the remaining peppermint oil on the wood shelves and floor. I thought my work was done. And the tack room smelled quite strongly of peppermint.

Puh-puh-pul-leeease don't kill me!

A couple weeks went by and I saw no evidence of critters. Yay, I thought! A natural way to keep the mice away. But this week I have noticed a poop increase. Boo. The peppermint smell is still pretty strong, so I think I have to resort to more forceful methods. I don't want to use poison. It is much too dangerous with the cats and horses. So I think I will go to live traps. We have some at the house, but I keep forgetting to bring them out. Basically, the mouse is lured in a box and a trap door shuts behind it. It doesn't kill the mouse. But I'm not sure what I am going to do with them after they are caught. . .if I set them free, they will just come back. Any suggestions? What do you do for problem critters at your barn?

Super goatee Shy!