monday musings by shyloh #113

Allie is a liar. I was promised no more parades and next think I know. . .I am getting decorated for another parade, in a snowstorm!

At least this one was smaller and the kids were respectable. The parade officials actually listened to our request and thanked us for participating! We were not by any scary or loud floats. The only downfall was that the amazing parade announcement that Allie came up with was not announced as we walked by. They mixed us up with the Gypsy Vanners, who didn't even go! And Allie would like to point out that they were the ones who convinced us to do this parade :)

This is what they were supposed to announce, "See the dynamic drafts of Hidden Creek Draft horses! These horses are all around fabulous! From showing in local shows and county fairs to trail rides, barrel racing, dressage, and wagon rides, the drafts do it all!  The horses at Hidden Creek Draft Drafts range from 3 to 18 and include 2 Percheron geldings, a Clydesdale gelding, a Shire mare, a Haflinger mare, 2 mini horse geldings and 1 mini mule."

We were running super late because of the roads. . .and the fact that we almost always run late! So I was not nearly as cute as last parade.

The bows actually looked nice at one point, then I shook my head and let my mane blow in the wind.

Checking out other floats getting ready in the distance

Jaime and Dexter!

Kyle and Clutch!

Terry and Reba came this time!

We were so good!

Bug horses decorated 

Dexter trudging through the snow

All of us in the parade!

Me and Allie. I was Scrooge McHorse and wouldn't keep my antlers on my head.

We were all so good and everyone loved us! The kids asked if they could pet us and we let them. They said "Awww cute ponies!" to me and Dexter and "Wow, big horses!" to Clutch and Reba. I guess that even though I was promised no more parades, I had fun at this one. But really, no more parades!

~Shyloh

freezing cold parade

Well. . .I think I got my parade fix in for the rest of my life. There is a ton of work to put into a parade. Getting the horses ready, buying the stuff, getting to the parade, going through the parade. Waiting, being behind bands and monster trucks, kids screaming and running, bells and whistles (literally). And the rewards for going to the parade are non existent. Also, it was freezing! I'm talking 15 degrees F freezing. 

Shy being an Arab. . .She was wondering why Clutch was all worked up.

The parade we went to was a huge one. We took Clutch, Dexter, Shyloh, and one of Kyle's friends and his horse Sniper. Jaime helped me deck Shy out with a red mane roll, tail bow, and red polo wraps. I also put red and silver garland around her neck, with silver bells, and strung battery operated lights around the garland, up her mane roll, and around a red halter. And she had reindeer antlers with lights.

Missing that pretty tail, but it is going back up in a wrap soon.

We wrapped empty boxes to fill up Dexter's cart. Kyle put green tube lights underneath and battery powered lights all around the cart and wheels. Dexter even had his own antlers.

Calmest pony there!

Clutch didn't have many decorations, mostly some garland for his reins and red polo wraps on the front. 

Then the waiting began. . .we warmed up in the truck while the horses ate hay. Did I mention it was freezing? At some point, I went to check on Shy only to discover she had broke the red halter and it was hanging off her face. Ugh. Good thing I had her regular halter that I just washed. It is blue, but it had to do, so I wrapped the lights around that halter. 

Our little group: Jaime, Jenna, me, Kyle, and Brandon

The first part of the parade is a fireworks show. They did a few test fireworks about a half hour before the show. Shy shot her head up at the first bang, but she had hay, so happily went back to eating. When the actual fireworks show was going on, I had Shy watch. And she did not care one bit about all the noise. 

Hay makes nothing else matter

Then it came time to line up. Good thing they put the horse group directly behind a band and two entries after the monster trucks. Yay. Parade officials are so horse friendly. . .

Cart lights!

Shy was not down with the band. I really didn't blame her, they were not very good. Each person was just playing their own thing, not together or anything. I walked Shy away to a quieter spot to calm her because she kept wanting to move. I let her move in circles. She started to get a little pushy and the halter I had had a fleece nose and crown piece, which did nothing for controlling her. Luckily, Jaime had a lead with a chain and that worked wonders. At least Shy was not trying to run me over anymore. I kept walking her around and going to spots with less commotion and noise to keep her calm. She wasn't being crazy, she just wanted to keep moving. 

The flash is so bright!

I did almost pull us out of the parade. I did not want this to be super overwhelming for her and I did not want this to end up as a bad experience for us. But we started moving shortly after and Shy was doing much better.

Me and Shy

I was really happy with the way she handled herself during the actual parade. She was curious about all the people, she was looking around with ears forward but listening to me. She took in the whistles, the truck horns, bells, people every where, lights, motion, loud speakers, trailers, and other floats with a questioning glance, but not a overly worried look. 

Dexter with his cart of awesome

If there was something she was unsure of, she stopped. A couple times Jaime's sister threw candy up towards Shy, which caused her to scoot a few steps. And I did discover one thing Shy does not like. . .fire. People had fires out in their yards and Shy was not a fan. She would speed up when walking by the fires and give them a wide berth. 

More noms

But we finished. We survived. We did not freeze. We did not have any major spooks or bad behaviors. I was really proud of my pony,

Dexter was amazing. It was his very first parade and he walked through it with that wagon like a champ. He was not bothered by anything. And of course Clutch was great. 

Jenna, Jaime, and me freezing

It may take me a couple days to unthaw now, but it is good to know that Shy can deal with a lot going on. I talked to her a lot during the parade and I think she trusted me to get her through. I think the key was to let her keep a controlled movement when she is nervous. But I still think our freezing cold parade days are over. Unless I get talked into the parade next weekend. . .

filling the weekends

I feel so lucky that my weekends have been jammed packed with horsey fun! Really, I have to get all my horse time in two and a quarter days since I can't make it out to the barn at all during the week. Luckily, school and internship are done in April, but work is never ending. . .

Last weekend, we went to a local horse expo. I found the one thing that I always wanted for driving. . .

It's a chariot!!

I already blogged about Isaac's first actual ride and trying Gunny in the cart.

This weekend we had a local Christmas parade (already!!). We took the boys and the hitch wagon. The totally un-horse parade people put a marching band behind us. . .not cool. Jaime made the decision to excuse ourselves from the parade. It was a good decision, better safe than sorry. Notch and Clutch weren't spooky or bad, but the band was loud and the wagon was packed full of people and the horses were just comfortable. We took a side street back and they were much more relaxed being out of the parade atmosphere. 

At the line up

Kyle and Tommy

Tommy working the wrecker that we used to take the hitch wagon to the parade

Dog with a cart! Too cute!

Haley came up again and rode Isaac. He is a really good horse and not bothered by having a rider at all.

Isaac the elephant!

Good boy!

Jaime shaved the defining feature of Clutch. . .he has scratches and the feather had to go. He also go his mane roached to match Notch. Jaime is not a fan of hair on horses.  

Bye bye feather. I tried to shave a leg. . .I am a terrible clipper!

And, we are putting a new, bigger pasture out back. This is how we made sure our pasture lines were straight.

We just had Kyle point the truck at a cone and drive towards it!

It was a bumpy ride! We also tried to spray paint a giant smiley face in the field, but ran out of spray paint.

Gonna cut this up for corner posts.

The only crappy thing for me is that Shyloh is probably going to have to stay up front in a small pasture because the big one will have a round bale. And she just can't handle having access to all the hay.

Terry had some friends out to experience riding and driving Reba. That is a good mare, but such a handful! She loves to work and even though she was a sweaty mess from driving around out back, she didn't want us to unhook her from the forecart. 

She looks good in yellow!

We also rode the 4 wheeler around out back. The mini Aussies love going for rides!

Haley and Bindi

Piper hopped up for a ride with me

Four wheeler...also how we take poop out back

And I acted as a dead buck. . .with a corn cob pipe that I found on sale!

Now it is pouring rain with a tornado watch. Yuck. Oh, and I will be holding yet another contest from Horze this week! Happy weekend!

Enjoy this photo of Clutch as a turtle with a chicken on his neck.

shy's parade debut

I was way more nervous about how we were getting to the parade then the actual parade itself. I know if I am on the ground next to Shyloh, she is pretty comfortable and not spooky. But how we were all getting to the parade. . .

The plan was to drive Notch and Clutch with the hitch wagon and pony Shy off of them. The rest of the parade participants from Jaime's barn would also be riding their horses to the parade line up point. This was a 45 minute horse ride. Eek!

Could my out of shape chub of a horse keep up with two giant drafts? For 45 minutes? I had no clue. I have never pony'ed her before. I could only hope that she would just go with the flow and not decide to plant herself. Nervewracking!

The fact that we would be taking roads didn't bother me too much. Shy has never had a problem with traffic. . . the only thing she ever did when she saw cars or trucks was stop. She can't just stop while being tied to two moving drafts and a wagon! That wouldn't end well for her!

Put the bows in at the barn

Well, when we got to the barn, Jaime discovered Clutch had pulled a muscle or something in the mud and she did not want to hook him to the wagon. So Jaime's barn owner hooked her two Haflingers to the hitch wagon. And I sat in the back with Jaime and held on to Shy. 

Shy put up a pretty meek effort at not wanting to go forward. But Kyle got out a driving whip to tap her on and Shy caught on to the whole point of ponying real quick. After Kyle got back on the wagon, we had another horse stay on Shy to keep her moving. I took this crappy little video. Jaime took a bunch more from her phone and sent me them via text, but I couldn't get them off my phone. Sad face,

Besides the two Haflingers, there were six other people on horses in our entourage. We trotted pretty much the whole way there: over railroad tracks, past jerk drivers who wouldn't slow down, mailboxes, yard decorations, machinery in yards, and a ton of other potentially scary things. Shy did get wide eyed, but never spooked. She was awesome!!

When we finally got to the line up point, Shy promptly found some grass. 

Nom nom nom

I decorated her in bows, jingle bells, garland, battery powered lights, antlers, and red polo wraps. She was mighty cute! 

There are mini lights wrapped around her halter, but they are hard to see.

Shy could have cared less about the fire trucks honking and making their fire truck noises, air brakes, all kinds of lighted floats, tons of people, and cars.

Once the parade started, Shy was beyond amazing! She finally started blowing out (never once during this whole day did she make her "thinking noise"), but her head down, and walked the whole parade without a problem. The people didn't bother her, the candy being thrown didn't bother her, and the floats didn't bother her. Shy kept up with the wagon and all the horses. I was so proud of my little mare! She is a parade pony!

me vs the mini

I have never handled mini horses before. But I agreed to walk Pancake, the mini, in a local parade with Jaime and Kyle. Pancake was a pro, she did the parade last year. Should be easy. . .right?

Wrong. Pancake made it difficult for me from the get-go. I went to catch her in her little mini field with her mini buddies. She was worse than Shyloh at her worst! Pancake had all the horses tearing ass around the mini field.

zoom!

Funny thing about minis is that they are so small and funny, everything they do is cute. . .at first. Jaime  got some grain and we (she) finally managed to catch the little rascal. I walked her to the trailer and little Pancake refused to get in. She reared, holding the rear and sitting back on her legs. Cute and funny. Kyle said one time he just picked her up and put her in the trailer. Silly mini. We did not have to result to that and Pancake got in the trailer. 

Kyle was pulling the trailer with two minis and a horse. Me and Jaime would be driving Notch and Clutch to the parade in this:

Her brand new hitch wagon! It was awesome! And scary. It was the first time the boys were hooked to it. It was high (and I'm a bit afraid of heights). It was big. But Jaime and I climbed all the way up and off we went. 

So high!

After a while I relaxed way up there. The boys were amazing! I really can't say enough how great of a job Jaime did training Notch. We trotted pretty much the entire way. And we showed up to the parade in style!

At the parade start point, I put some antlers, bells, and a bow on Pancake. She was far from thrilled about the whole decorating thing. I began to wonder just how much it would hurt to get kicked by a mini, because I was sure that was going to happen. It didn't though. When I went to brush her front legs, she ripped my hat off my head and almost bit my head in the process. I was less than pleased. Jaime and Kyle out lights on the hitch wagon. It was so cool!

She sure is cute!

Itty bitty!

Poor Pancake acted like she had never been in a parade before. She spooked at everything. The eight shiny reindeer (mules) terrified her as they went past. 

They all had "anters" and pulled Santa!

And once the parade started, Pancake wanted to run like someone lit a firecracker under her! She was pulling me this way and that way. I held on tight right up at her halter and she pulled like she wanted to remove my arm from its' socket. I gave her slack on the lead rope and she was running back and forth in front of me. Little Pancake was literally dragging me down the street. Eventually, I got smart and let her run circles around me. At least this way I could guarantee that my arms would stay attached to my body. And she was screaming! Calling for other minis, since there were mostly big horses around. We were fighting the whole time and I think I was losing.

Of course, once the parade was over Pancake was a little better-ish. I would take a draft horse over a mini any day!

Sorry for the grainy photo