{"id":10459,"date":"2024-03-05T16:14:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T16:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/?p=10459"},"modified":"2024-03-31T13:38:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T13:38:53","slug":"bella-stormy-march-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horsesavvy.co.uk\/index.php\/2024\/03\/05\/bella-stormy-march-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Bella & Stormy – March 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sun 3rd<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

So, this morning there was an incident in our field…a young fallow deer was injured, probably got stuck on a wire fence jumping it and hurt it’s back leg getting off it. It’s really sad when this sort of thing happens to wildlife and it was hard to see it struggling in the field, it lay exhausted while I saw to S&B. We do have good gamekeepers on the estate here so I contacted one of them and they said they’d look and see what needed to be done. I sort of knew it was suffering and needed to be put out of its misery but it didn’t make it any easier. On that note I told them that I’d take S&B out of the field and bring them back to the house paddock so that they weren’t in the way nor upset by anything they had to do and that’s what I did…..<\/p>\n

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Bella and Stormy doing a great job walking past the Highland cows today.<\/p>\n

I walked them back rather than riding as they’d just had their breakfast.<\/p>\n

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Stormy following behind Bella, they like to follow each other but also it puts them on the nice bit of grass verge they like to walk on \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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S&B in home paddock \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Tues 5th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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SO it’s been a few days since the horses came home and I asked the estate gamekeeper to help the injured fallow deer. They went to sort it immediately and I’ve known the field is okay to go back to but I wanted to do a ‘smudging’ before the horses went back.<\/p>\n

Smudging is where you burn sage (or other things) to help cleanse an area of negative energy and I’ve done it before in the field when one of our horse has\u00a0 passed.<\/p>\n

I took some time and walked the field where I’d seen the deer and played some lovely Native American music too. It felt good to take the time to do this ceremony and if nothing else I feel better going back into the field after the memory of the young deer in such sad circumstances.<\/p>\n

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Thurs 7th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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A day later than planned but today we took S&B back to their big field this afternoon.<\/p>\n

Called S&B with my ‘horsey whistle’ and they both came over to get haltered for me.<\/p>\n

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I decided to walk them home rather than ride as I LOVE getting back our relaxed connection through walking step to step together.<\/p>\n

Both S&B were so calm and happy to be walking back home. Once back in the field they had a lovely yeehaa run about and Stormy did his usual rolling to get a his normal muddy self \ud83d\ude42 lol<\/p>\n

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Muddy boy \ud83d\ude09 lol<\/p>\n

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Sat 9th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The weather has been wet and windy today with pretty low temperatures ;( But I needed my horsey fix today so went out and had a lovely short fun session \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

First we did some distance pedestal work. Bella stood on big ped with 2 feet and then all 4 feet while Stormy showed off doing 4 feet at liberty.<\/p>\n

Then she did some lovely sidepassing around the pole square, both left and right.<\/p>\n

3rd task was some weave on a circle left and right then going straight into doing some fig 8’s using different cones with each turn \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

The last task on-line was some trot through the narrow gap which was really good.<\/p>\n

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THEN…I took Bella’s halter off and we did a really lovely session at liberty.<\/p>\n

We’ve been practising our liberty at breakfast time since last year and it’s paying off now as she used to move off after her halter came off.<\/p>\n

First liberty bit was sidepass over the drainpipe (L&R)<\/p>\n

Then she did a great job with fig 8’s around cones…..going through the narrow gap and also a fab jump \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Tues 12th<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I did S&B’s breakfast and field clearing today and as usual I put in some time to do some Liberty play with Bella…Stormy joined in too which was fun and helped Bella \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Asking S&B to draw towards me and then backup together<\/p>\n

Then asked them to follow me and place themselves either side of the big pipe<\/p>\n

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Bella took a rest and watched Stormy come into the narrow gap, halt for 5 seconds and then draw towards me<\/p>\n

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Bella got close for a good look<\/p>\n

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Storm then came and played with the tarp, stood on it with a lovely halt and then I asked him to sidepass off the pole he was standing over<\/p>\n

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Bella then decided she wanted to go for the hulahoop challenge and walked to it from a distance…..<\/p>\n

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….she’s so clever and loves to put her feet into\/onto something \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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I went down a hillock to empty the wheelbarrow while S&B walked along the ridge….<\/p>\n

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…then sweet Bella came away from Stormy to be with me <3 what a sweetheart she is <3<\/p>\n

Finished the morning with Bella showing off her bestest task…standing on the pedestal \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Sat 16th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Bella trying to catch my attention to play and get treats this morning after I gave her and Storm their breakfast and was cleaning the field \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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She’s just too smart \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Went out with Mark in afternoon, weather nice enough to try a wee ride….<\/p>\n

It’s been 17 days since last ride, always seems too long when the weather has been so bad.<\/p>\n

I moved all the agility obstacles, put them around the round pens to make it more interesting…<\/p>\n

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….kept it mostly to walk to just stretch their legs and minds and then Bella and I did some trot work over random poles in my ‘arena’ to help get her mind more focused and pick her feet up a bit better.<\/p>\n

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Tues 19th<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another nice Spring like day today. Mark and I go to ride S&B and slowly work on our fitness together \ud83d\ude09 I start off by working on checking my body position when riding walk\/trot circles\/arcs. I sometimes don’t put my inside shoulder back in this move so I work one handed leaving my inside hand loose which helps me really notice what my shoulder is doing.<\/p>\n

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We also popped a couple of jumps as it’s fun \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Then Bella & I stood while Stormy and Mark had a yeehaa canter along a field track. It’s a good test as over Winter S&B get a very close and it’s hard for them to not just follow each other in direction and gait. I held her from cantering off too and she quieted as soon as I asked \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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All clean before riding…..rolled in mud after riding \ud83d\ude42 LOL<\/p>\n

To be fair they were both a tiny bit sweaty so knew they would roll to dry themselves out.<\/p>\n

Am SO glad I have a brown horse, the dirt needs cleaning but doesn’t look so bad when she does it \ud83d\ude09 lol<\/p>\n

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Sat 23rd<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

So I’ve not managed to get out and do much with S&B recently due to the awful on\/off rain, wind and cold temps we’ve been having BUT I did manage to video a couple of things when out recently to poo pick the field and Bella came over to play…here is one of the vid’s for you now \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n