Clinton Anderson style training- my progress

Today was my second lesson with Katherine, who is an avid Clinton Andeeson follower. She recently attended a 2 week training clinic at his ranch in Texas. She's working a day job at the camp two miles down the road, and in her off time "training" me and Tex at the same time. It's exactly what I needed- accountability, specific goals, specific activities/exercises to do, and someone explain it all and push me a little.

Last time we did three ground work exercises only- yielding the forequarters, flexing, and lunging for respect stage 2. I'm going to skip talking about all those for time sake. But one note for myself- I need to remember to point when lunging.

Today, 2 weeks later, we reviewed those three activities and added two in-saddle exercises: 1. The one-rein stop at a walk, trot, and canter, and 2. Cruising at a trot and canter.

Before the one rein stopping exercises, I told Katherine exactly these words- "This horse has a great stop on him." Boy did he make a liar out of me today! He ONLY attempted the nice sliding stop after he was dead tired at the end of cruising. He really leaned hard on the bit today. I will now start flexing him on the ground in the bit, not the halter. I didn't know that he was supposed to be that flexible and supple in the neck, in either a halter or a bit. That is my bad. I am supposed to bump, bump, bump his mouth if he knows to give but instead leans against the pressure.

So here's what I had to do- 1. Squeeze , then kiss, then over & under, until he trots. 2. Let him take 5 strides. 3. Sit hard and say "whoa." 4. Pull him around to a one-rein stop until he stops moving and touches my boot. 5. Flex him to the other side.
(repeat steps 1-5 a lot of times). I wasn't allowed to steer him at all during this time.

Next, do it at the canter. I let Katherine do that first on Tex, and then I did it. He looks so gorgeous doing what quarter horses are supposed to do- starting fast. I overcame 95 percent of my fear of loping on him today.

Then on to cruising- pretty much, i was supposed to lay my rein hand down, ask him to trot and keep him at a trot for 5 straight minutes, stopping only i he broke into a lope, and speeding him
up if he slowed to a walk.

I struggled not to steer him with legs and hands! At the canter, he kept going over some muddy areas and I got a little nervous about that, but made it through. We only cantered for around 1.5 minutes because it was time for me to go.

I am proud of myself for overcoming that fear and also learning what his "give" is supposed to feel like. And, both of today's exercises were quite fun, and something I can do on my own pretty easily.

Babies

Today, like every Wednesday, June and I spent the day together at home. The day started out wonderfully. She woke up late, around 8:45, had her milk and some cheerios. We went to the barn and let the chickens out, came back for her 10:00 nap (which she didn't really take), lunch at 11, playing, nap at 1:00, woke at 2:15, snack at 3, and dinner at 4:30. Then, right when I needed to be cooking and working, she got fussy, grouchy, needy, and clingy.

I can't help but think on days like this that I stink at this. I don't know what to feed her. I don't know what to do with her when she's in that "mood." And I feel very impatient when I'm sleepy and she's just wanting to jump all over me, but she cries when I put her down. How am I supposed to know what to do in these circumstances? Surely there must be a "parenting for dummies" or something like that. If only this could be like one of my animals or garden- plant at a certain time, feed it the same thing at the same time, read the manual from the ag extention office if you have questions. Does the ag extention office have pamphlets for fussy one-year-olds? :) Does anyone have any books or blogs for beginner parenting they would recommend?
TM

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Improved Purple Hull Peas (cowpeas)

Gardening always tends to remind me of the people who have given me seeds and starts to my plants, and it always brings back good memories. For example, Mrs. Jan Miller, my best friend's mom, gave me the seed for these improved purple hull peas five years ago when I went up there to help their family on their small dairy during a crisis time. It was a fun week, spent milking cows, hanging out with my best girlfriend's parents, feeding calves, tilling the garden, and even getting to AI (artificially inseminate) a cow. I don't think it was a successful breeding, but hey, it was good practice. (If we ever do our own cow-calf operation, which is in the long term plans, I'll be in charge of all AI on our cows, since I did it quite a bit during grad school.)

But back to the peas...
Last year I planted the purple hull peas from my grandparents- California Pinkeye Purplehulls. But this year I gave the improved a try again, and I'm glad I did. They seem to be much longer, which means more peas per pod. Most of them are longer than this ice cream bucket that I use to pick them. The peas themselves are very fat, too. I can understand why they're called "improved." One thing that's a little different about them- when they're deep purple, they're too dry. They need to be picked a little greener than the California variety.

I am now getting at least 1.5-3 bucketfuls of peas each day on a 30 foot row. I planted them around late March.

God's color palate

Garden plunder

This is becoming an everyday occurrence, minus some of the yellow squash, minus some of the bell peppers, plus a whole flat of tomatoes each day, purple hull peas, and some green beans. We've now canned 14 quarts of tomatoes and 7 quarts of squash.
Monday we picked the two rows of sweet corn- it was so tasty. The Merit variety seemed larger and perhaps a bit sweeter than the silver queen. Off two 30 ft rows, we got around 7-8 gallons of corn on the cob.
The peppers aren't doing well again. The plant just randomly shrivels up and dies. I don't know what's wrong!
I now have 24 chickens-- 17 young sex-link pullets around 2 months old, 2 rhode island red hens, 2 dominic hens, 2 cuckoo maran laying hens (new as of Tuesday), and 1 very lucky rooster.
The weeds are overtaking the garden! I'm trying to decide whether to spray with roundup between the rows or just get the old hoe and do some "hoeing around." ha ha.

May 21st pic and lesson with katherine

Tomorrow I am trailering Tex to te nearby arena for a lesson- a lesson for both of us. Katherine is a young, yet experienced, horse trainer, and also a friend. She said she will be starting us from the ground tomorrow, and will show me some exercises that will directly relate to in-the-saddle time. I didn't want to spend a lot of time on ground work because it seems like that was my only option with Tex for so long, due to him being little and then because I was prego with our precious little girl.
When someone "goes to a trainer," is it customary for the trainer to "train" both you and the horse, or just the horse? I really want both.
TM

Cow work- right on schedule

Last Sunday a neighbor invited us to come work a few cows with our horses. I decided to ride Chief for the initial rounding-up of the herd, and then threw my saddle onto Tex to see if he would give cutting in the small pen a try. (by the way, he has been around in a pen with cows about two other times, and has been tied to the fence near them during ropings and team sorting multiple times.)
In the pen with about 10 cow-cal pairs, I started by asking him to move one light-colored calf around the pen. He wasn't focusing at first, but the longer we worked, the more he seemed to catch on. It also helped me understand why it's important fo him to have a strong stop, fast go, and fast turn with a light front-end.

By the end of our little 30 minute work time he had sorted all of the calves away from the cows. They didn't stay in the corner where we put them, but that's ok. If we get the chance again to sort cows for real, I'll feel comfortable getting on him and using him for that work.

Pros- 1. There is definitely some interest in cows, and a little bit of a natural cutting feel to him.
2. Tex is being very calm in the arena.

Cons/things to work on-
1. I can no longer allow him to be lazy with his turns and going forward.
2. I must get on and off him multiple times to work on standing still. He is starting to walk off when I mount up, even though I've always refrained from moving for at least 20-30 seconds after I mount up.
3. He is still very nervous outside the arena. We nearly had a wreck once out on the trail with 3 other friends.
4. On the trail, he is pushing through the bit, wanting to go, go, go. But when we do pick up a trot, he gets super nervous. I'm not sure what to do about that. Suggestions?

Another random
TM