The return to blogging

Well it's only been, er, a few months.... so much to catch up on but some brief highlights are:

Benhorse - he is doing great, keeping his weight on nicely over winter. He is clipped (was an absolute twit to clip, especially around his head and neck...) and I did his teeth again just before winter so he's all good to go. Have had a few lessons on him now, which have been great although have shown how stiff he is so he has been started on some pentosan to help his joints.

Oscar - also fat and hairy although I've been trying to clip him for the past few weeks with no success due to the wet weather :-(

Sonny - has been in the wars a bit and disappeared almost 6 weeks ago for a week and turned up with his pelvis in multiple pieces. So he's had a rather expensive visit to the specialist vets which luckily turned out cheaper than it could have since I used to work there. He is almost at the end of his 6 week imprisonment in the dog crate (has to be confined to let things heal up) and is desperate to get outside again. Sheryl is seriously unimpressed that he turned up again.

Georgia - celebrated her first birthday and is still growing! She absolutely loves fetching sticks, and if you ask her to 'find sticky' she'll find you a stick to throw for her. Ben has been taking her out to the forest heaps and she has been having a blast. She's still a bit nervous around the cows (so much for a working dog!!!) but loves hooning around the farm. Especially if the quad bike is around too... Here's a couple of pics of her having fun at Muriwai Beach.

The farm - pretty muddy here already although we have quite a bit of grass as we don't have as many cattle on as we did last winter. We do have a new washing machine though (as of last week) which is fabulous, didn't realise how bad the old one was washing things until now!

We had a good crop of hay this summer - 1230 odd bales this year which is pretty good. Now just in the process of selling it all.

At the end of summer we also had visitors (and blog fans!) from Ireland - Alan and Martina came to stay. Alan and Ben trekked in Nepal together a few years ago and it was great to finally meet the man I'd heard so much about. We had a fabulous dinner up the Sky Tower which I'd never done before and Ben spent the day with them over at Rangitoto - kind of good when you have visitors, you do all these things you wouldn't normally do.

Think that is about it for now - will try and upload some pics soon and try not to be so long between posts...

Benhorse is a new man

Had a fabulous weekend with the horses - forest on Saturday with Oscar (and Spyke & Ellie) and then arena on Monday with Benhorse (and S&E). The forest ride was a bit longer than planned but we found some new trails and that is always good fun.

Benhorse has shoes on now and we had our first decent schooling session on Monday at a lovely arena near Woodhill Sands - it's huge and the surface is good. So it's no problem having two horses working in there at all - must be about 60 x 80m?

Anyway got some good pics from yesterday - and some video of our canter work which was lovely but the transitions need work! He's just so easy to do stuff with, doesn't get silly, just does what you ask. He was a bit pooped after yesterday I think, starting to get a bit muscle tired which is fair enough.

So here's a couple of pics that show how far he's come in the 3 months I've had him:

18 July 2010

25 October 2010

First ride on Benhorse

Took some more update pics of Benhorse today, first in almost 3 weeks, oops... decided to try saddles on him so got him all geared up then did some ground work with him. Ellie arrived and I was feeling brave so I hopped on. Lunged him first - he was a star, the easiest horse I have ever lunged, soooo much easier than Oscar. You could practically stand in the middle and eat your lunch lunging Benhorse. With Oscar, you are more likely to run around chasing him keeping him going and stopping him from trying to run off to his buddies. Bless him.

Anyway, some update pics - and riding pics too :-)

Looking cute all tacked up

And some ridden pics :-) Poor pony he had to be ridden in a black saddle, tan stirrup leathers and a brown bridle. Oh the shame....

I'm soooo excited about the summer!!! Once he's fitter I'll organise some lessons with him too, should be fun.

Spring is attempting to arrive here but it is still really really muddy and wet, just been way too much rain lately. Today was fine and things dried out a bit but we really need a week or so of this to dry out properly.

We sent 9 cows off to sell today, and hopefully will get a few more smaller ones back if they are going for a decent price. So we only have 8 on the property for now after selling a few earlier in the winter too.

The hay paddock is starting to come away really nicely now so should get some good hay this season, fingers crossed we don't have too many weather dramas...

The garden is also starting to do things - my garlic is sprouting really well and I have some seed potatoes that are sprouting so they'll be planted soon too I guess. Not grown potatoes before so we'll see what happens.

Week 6 pics

Benhorse is in full moult, and after looking at him today I'm thinking I might hop on in a few weeks. So will start out leading him off Oscar for a bit. Of course that means I have to ride Oscar which could be interesting given our last sproing at the forest.

Ellie's boys are up here now so there's been a wee reshuffle of paddocks - Tai and Spyke are in the driveway paddock (Benhorse's old paddock), and Benhorse is in a taped off part of one of the cow paddocks with Bert who is having a sleepover for 2 weeks until his new grazing is ready. Everyone seems ok with the new arrangements except that I have to separate Bert and Benhorse otherwise Bert pushes Benhorse away from his feed and Benhorse doesn't even attempt to assert himself over Bert. So Benhorse is currently eating his dinner while Bert gazes at it longingly over the hot tape.

Onto the pics!

He's looking a bit like a broodmare right now with his flabby belly but once we start some work he should tone up a bit. Not that I'm complaining about him having a flabby belly!

Week 5 pony pics

Benhorse has been here for over a month now and is looking more and more like a normal-ish horse that is just a bit light and out of work. Yahooo!!!!


His coat is coming out in huuuge amounts so his summer coat is definitely coming through. He still looks a bit rough in places and has a few baldy patches, hopefully that is just his body changing. Will have a chat to the vet anyway - has two palm sized bald patches between his front legs and is a little bald either side of his tail, but doesn't seem to have pinworms.

Took Oscar for a ride at the forest last week, first time in ages and he clearly found it quite exciting. Although to be fair, Oscar's idea of acting naughty is best behaviour for some horses. He just wanted to go for a hoon although he's so unfit that halfway through the ride he went into plod mode and was sweated up heaps when I took his saddle off. Big unfit fatty boy!

Ben is just outside planting more vegs - he got some peas, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, and beetroot. The pigs are about a month off being ready to go as well so soon we should have some yummy bacon in the freezer again :-)

Georgia seems to have grown up heaps in the last two weeks, seems more settled. She got a new bed today (thanks Aunty Ellie!) and just thinks it is fantastic. It's one you fill with beans from a bean bag and she loves snuggling down into it. Best of all it is huge so even when she is fully grown she'll still fit it.

More horse pics

For some reason the back end pics of Benhorse are all in the wrong places... can't figure out why so here is a special sequence of bum shots!

Benhorse update

He's been here 4 weeks now, here's a new lot of photos:



Definite big improvements since day 1!! I did his teeth on Friday, they were fairly awful especially on the offside and I think I'll do them again in 6 months as I couldn't get rid of as many problems in there as I wanted to. He was just like Oscar too - sucked up the drugs big time. At least Choc is a cheap drunk. It was a bit of a makeover day for Benhorse on Friday - teeth, tetanus shot, feet trimmed, and sheath cleaned (it was very YUCK).

Georgia had her first sleepover at a kennel on Saturday night, which she LOVED. I was up north working and Ben was working too so she went to K9 Heaven - Country Club for dogs. Talk about spoilt... she fitted in really well apparently, just as well, as she's off there this Saturday too as I'm away working up north again.

The goats headed off on Friday to their new home, Rosie and Caramel loaded onto the trailer fine but Basil was a bit thick about it and needed some encouragement. Rosie and Caramel just saw the hay there and got stuck into that.

Still very soggy here right now - we are all a bit over the rain! The driveway is a mess and paddocks are fairly wet too. Oscar will be ridden this week for the first time this season so hopefully that goes ok. He had his feet done on Friday too so is all good to go now :-)