If you recall, this is the phone that is so old and obsolete that it’s been turned in to lost and founds twice.

So normally, losing my phone is a temporary inconvenience: once I figure out where I had it last, I can always go pick it up.

This morning, however, I was supposed to be meeting two people at the barn, so it was not a good day to be phoneless.

But what can you do? It was lost and no amount of searching was turning it up. I left for the barn.

A friend was meeting me there, so she got to meet Aiden. I turned him out in the arena; it was still pretty waterlogged, but it was dry enough that I felt ok leaving him out for a few hours. I was going to show him off, but he wandered around like the old soul that he is.

The saddle fitter showed up shortly after, and Ro was popping out of her skin (high protein diet + limited turnout/work opportunities for a week = one wound up horse). It’s sad when an eighteen-month-old has better ground manners than the six year old.

We got her to stand still long enough to do a few last checks on the saddle, then I tossed her out with Aiden.

All that done, my friend and I left to run our errand. When we came back, instead of the quiet, water-logged barn I was expecting, the place was packed with trailers and families.

And the arena, which had looked days from being rideable just four hours before, was dry enough to ride in. Which was why, apparently, the barn was packed—some boarders were out, a couple lesson students were out, and a drill team had trailered in to practice.

We popped my horses back in their stalls and my friend headed home. I was planning to leave and come back later, and then decided better of it.

My saddle was back, after all, and I had boots in my car. Ro had been turned out for several hours, so I figured she had used up the worst of her energy.

I tacked her up quickly and we joined everyone in the arena.

Here’s how much Ro has matured:

The guys had let the steers in the chute that runs along the arena, so the steers could graze on grass for a bit.

The drill team was working on their pattern in the middle of the ring.

Kids were playing on the swingset right by the ring.

A couple boarders and a couple lesson kids were cantering around the rail.

Neighborhood kids were running 4-wheelers and motorized bikes and such along the road by the arena.

The neighbors were playing around with big trucks on their property.

Ro… was perfect. Not a spook, not a foot wrong, and a productive ride in between all the things going on in the arena.

Also, somehow I committed to being a stand-in rider for the next drill team practice if they are short a horse.

And I rode sidesaddle, on one of the drill team’s horses. Only at a walk, because it was hard enough for me to manage that (talk about a different balance point!) but it was pretty cool.

By the time I put Ro up, she seemed relieved to see her stall. It was a nice change from all the jumping out of her skin that she’d done that morning, and with the arena dried out, we can get back into work again (well, for a few days—I hear rain is forecast for later this week).

I put her up, cleaned all the mud off Aiden, and headed to the grocery store. I was hoping against hope that my phone had been turned in to the lost and found, but no such luck.

No luck either with having people call my phone while I was in my apartment.

And that bummed me out, because that meant my phone was well and truly lost.

Like it or not, I was going to have to buy a new phone. Probably a smart phone.

After a brief mourning period, I went online to suspend service to the phone, only to find out that AT&T was doing an upgrade and my account wasn’t available. Instead, there was a friendly “Call this number…” message.

Hey, AT&T? Consider this: if people need tech support? They may not actually be able to call. On account of how their phones are broken. Or in my case, lost. So it would be really helpful if you had a non-phone tech support option for us.

Just saying.

That was really a bummer. I couldn’t suspend service, and I couldn’t order a new phone.

I went to get a cider out of the fridge, figuring I could at least curl up with a good drink and a good book and hope AT&T got its act together soon.

And, um, I found my phone.

It was in the case of cider.

I must have dropped the phone in the bag when I was unloading my car last night, and it landed in the case. Then it went into the fridge and I just never noticed it. And the battery died, which is why I never heard it ring when my friends tried calling.

I’m not complaining, mind you. This means I don’t have to go buy a smart phone—I just have to find my charger. Which is at work. I hope.

This means the horses are all shedding their winter coats, and Ro is shedding her winter inhibitions.

She was throwing herself at all things two-legged today—so they could scratch her itchy coat—and all things four-legged today—so they could scratch another itch, so to speak.

I am seriously considering trying a marble on her this year. I don’t particularly want to deal with Regumate or any other artificial hormone therapy, but I’m not keen on watching her try to molest the geldings every month. My vet will be out in the next couple weeks to booster Aiden’s vaccinations, so I’ll talk to him then.

It’s just embarrassing to own a horse who, if she were human, would have an “All Aboard” tramp stamp in six languages, you know?

Meanwhile, Aiden is doing fine. He did indeed discover that wormer tubes are awful things, and the last two days we’ve had quiet discussions about them, but we are done with the PowerPac now. He’s starting to shed out his coat a bit as well, although not as quickly as Ro. He was really pretty good about picking up his feet tonight, although the thrush is not responding as well as I’d like. If I don’t start seeing some progress in that soon, I’ll get my vet involved—but I’m hoping that the fact that he is becoming less reactive when I pick out his feet is an indication that things are improving.

Aiden’s feet have had their first trim. There is still a lot of work to do, but the plan is to work on them slowly, every couple of weeks. However, he already seems to be walking a little more comfortably.

The day we did the front feet, he behaved about how you’d expect a baby with no experience to behave. Not bad, but definitely not good either. I think part of the problem is that the fronts are fairly thrushy, and probably a little tender and sore from that. We ended up stopping once the fronts were done and calling it a night.

A couple days later we did the back feet. This time, we had reinforcements lined up—someone stronger than me to hold him, so he couldn’t barge forward at will, and a twitch. We gave him the benefit of the doubt when starting, though, with me holding him and not using the twitch. I’m glad we did, because he was very well behaved. It helped that he was being hand-fed hay, I think, but whatever it takes to make it a positive experience is fine by me.

When I was cleaning out his front feet tonight he was still pretty bad about them, but we’ll get there. He’s not mean or obnoxious about it, so I think it will just take patience, repetition, and lots of rewards when he’s good. He’ll get it. He’s pretty smart.

His mane and feathers are still there.

This is not, if you know me at all, a given. Hairy horses just make me roll my eyes, and not in a “I’m going to faint because I’m so overwhelmed by the romanticism of it” kind of way, if you know what I mean. But I have had several people promise to kill me if I cut his hair off, so I am behaving. For now.

I also finally got the PowerPac today, so deworming has begun. He seemed pretty clueless about the dewormer tube when he first saw it, but he was thoroughly disgusted with me afterwards. I suspect it will not be so easy tomorrow.

Ro, meanwhile, still hates him and is as jealous as a horse can be. It’s been iffy on whether or not I’ve been able to ride with one thing and another, but we’re getting in some saddle time.

And that’s life in the quiet lane.

So I thought I could teach her to walk off a leash without any problem.

We went for a stroll around our neighborhood, and all was going well, right up until a little chihuahua came running out of its yard and chased my dog two blocks back to our house. When I caught up with them, Sam was quaking on the porch, curled up in the tiniest, most miserable ball she could make, and the chihuahua was yapping at the bottom of the steps.

I never tried walking Sam off a leash again, and I never thought I’d see such a ludicrous example of Small Thing Intimidates Big Thing again.

Until today.

Ro is afraid of Aiden.

Granted, there is not a huge difference in their heights—he’s about 13h, she’s about 14.2-14.3ish. Six inches? Not too bad.

But she’s a grown horse and he’s a baby. He ambles around. He backs away from mean witchy mares.

I was sure Ro would put him in his place and that would be that.

Instead, Ro took one look at him and galloped off. His ears perked up and he cantered after: Awesome! Let’s play!

She swerved out to the rail and galloped faster.

He couldn’t keep up, so he swung into the center and cantered little circles, happy as a clam.

Really, he couldn’t have been lunging her more effectively if he tried.

I ended up having to catch Ro a couple times and let her get her brain back, but they did settle down.

Which is to say, Ro went and hid in the furthest corner possible while Aiden stared at her with a bemused expression on his face.

Every once in a while, Ro would canter a lap around the arena and then go back to her corner, blowing and snorting.

When she passed Aiden, he’d cock his head at her: Srsly?

Poor Ro.

Fortunately she won’t have to suffer long—I’m just using the arena for a bit of turnout because we’ve been rained out (yay!) and the turnout paddocks are unusable. Once they dry out, Aiden will be hanging out in the big 24/7 group turnout.

And Ro can go back to her princess life. Maybe she’ll appreciate it more now that she’s seen there is an alternative, and it’s small and bay and fuzzy…

The answer is: a lot.

For a couple hundred dollars (and in some cases, more), my little grade pony could become an X, Y, or Z pony.

I am equal parts bemused and disturbed, so I did what I usually do in that situation—I built a website.

At some point in the past I joked about creating the TAHAR (That’s a Horse All Right) registery. Well: now it exists.

However, I was able to get a little bit of him moving around:

And a couple photos. His feet obviously need work, but vet and farrier have both seen them now and are on the same page about what needs to be done and the best way to get there (frequent trimmings, with only small changes each trimming).

Opinionated little goofball, isn’t he?!

I window shop on the big name sale sites, and I window shop on Craig’s List.

So when I saw an ad for an 18 month old grade draft cross gelding, I figured I was, you know, looking at an ad for a horse that held no practical interest for me whatsoever. What do I need with a baby? Especially a draft cross?

This explains why I own him now, right?

Here’s the thing.

His photo in the ad? He looked like he was nicely put together. Very nicely put together, considering his age and that draft crosses tend to have conformation that I dislike.

I waffled for a day and then emailed his owner for breeding information. Apparently, his dam was a Shire cross and the sire is a mystery.

A little more emailing back and forth, and she sent me a brief video. I figured the video would put an end to my interest, to be totally honest.

Instead, the video showed a sensible youngster with, really, quite a nice trot considering he wasn’t doing more than amble about.

The next thing I knew, I was heading to check him out.

He has an average walk, but it’s clearly four beat with no lateral tendencies. His trot is much, much better than the video suggested. He canters both directions and it’s nice and balanced, with decent reach underneath himself. Out in his paddock, he did flying changes on a straight line.

He leads, he stands patiently (very patiently, for a baby), and ties. He let me walk right up to him and handle him, gave all four feet, and let me check out his mouth.

Also: he loads and trailers. I confirmed those last two after money changed hands, obviously.

The bad news?

His feet are a mess. I’m taking a risk here and assuming they can be cleaned up and managed.

It freaks me out a bit, and I actually left him there on Saturday because of his feet, but I decided to throw logic out the window and see what we can do. I tried to get ahold of my trimmer, but no luck. However, one of the guys at the barn trims/shoes his own horse and took a quick look—he didn’t see anything too concerning, and he does a good job on his horse, so I feel a little better about the situation now.

So. I own an 18 month old grade draft cross gelding. I think I’m naming him Aiden.

Pictures/video to come—my camera battery was dead today.

(Ro is unamused. Despite exaggerating her reactions on this blog, I’m not one of those people who thinks horses actually have human emotions—but if horses can feel jealousy, then she is jealousy incarnate. Poor thing. She was not happy with the amount of attention I was giving him, or the amount of attention he was getting in general. But she’s going to have to get over that, and quick.)

At a recent roping evening, I could feel Ro was getting tired and they needed someone to work the chute. The obvious solution: I hopped off, tied Ro to the fence, and prepared to work the chute.

Ro was confused. Then offended. Then she went beyond confused and offended into some other emotional territory that defies description.

She was tied up. Stuff was happening. She was not part of it. No one was petting her, no one was holding her and whispering soothing words in her fuzzy ears, no one was holding her hoof and telling her It Was OK.

Ro spent most of the evening calling out and trying to dig a hole to China, but since she wasn’t freaking out I left her to it. I rescued her once, when she went beyond impatient and started to look anxious, but once she settled I tied her back up again.

Last night, we repeated the lesson—I’ve been kicked off steer pushing duty because one of the ropers is teaching his young kid, well, the ropes, and, um, as shameful as it is to say it, said four/five year old is better at pushing steers than Ro and I. So we’ve been fired. We still hang out with the ropers, but I’ve more or less been demoted to chute duty if I’m not on Ro’s back.

So after we had amused ourselves quietly in the corner for a while and Ro had had her nightly “horses can too hang out in groups without kicking each other” lesson, I tied her to the fence again and went to work chute duty. Where, um, the four/five year old once again proved better at moving the steers around than I am.

Look, the steers and I are great, until they decide they want to go somewhere I don’t want them to go. Or don’t want to go where I want them to go. And I did not get the Boss Steers Around gene, so I stare at them in confusion. And then the four/five year old rescues me.

It turns out I am not a cowgirl, ok? There, I admit it. I am not a cowgirl. I’m a city slicker of the worst sort.

And Ro cannot comprehend why she gets tied to fences and left to cope. This does not happen in her world. In her world, she’s ridden and then she’s put away. Baths are optional, a chance to graze is preferred. But nowhere in her contract is she required to stand quietly while her human is off playing with steers (badly!) and other people are doing other things that do not involve her as the center of attention.

She was better last night than the first night—she called out some, but not incessantly, and she did not dig holes nearly as deep as the night before.

Unfortunately for Ro, I absolutely think horses need to learn to stand tied—quietly—while their people are off doing other things. It is not something I want to do routinely, but I want to know she’s capable of it. All the better if there is lots of other stuff going on at the same time. There may come a time when she needs to stand quietly on a trailer while I run into the show office, and there may be a line. Or she may need to stand tied while I run to the port-a-potty. Or whatever. I don’t really care why—she needs to learn that she can stand tied and unattended without dying.

But Ro is not thrilled, no, not at all. She’s coping, but she is absolutely certain she has enough virtues and Patience is for… well, everyone else. She’s above such things. She’s certain. Just ask her.

If I look at the pictures of your $$$ stud and the first thing I think is “Wow. That is a truly awful Photoshopping job,” there is something wrong with your marketing.

Signed,

If Real Invisible Aliens Were Involved and the Foals Will Come With Their Own, Get Back to Me. That’s Kind of Awesome.

When she’s in season, she’ll throw herself at any gelding on the place—and even some of the mares (she’s a modern, open-minded hussy).

But this is merely lust.

Over the past couple months, Ro has discovered love.

The barn manager got a weanling filly. Last month, we got quite a bit of rain (relatively speaking), and there were stretches where the paddocks were too wet to turn out in. As often as possible, I kicked Ro out on the property for an hour or two to at least let her stretch and wander around some.

More often than not, she disdained the grass (it was wet) and tried to wander back in the barn.

For a while, I thought it was coincidence that she was at the filly’s stall every time I caught her.

Then it became clear that she wasn’t stopping by to say hi to the filly, she was stopping by to do the horsey version of “Ooooooh… wook at de pwecious baaaay-beee! Whoooza cootie pie, den?” (Sorry… I don’t do googly baby talk. They all look like Winston Churchill to me. But you get the gist of it.)

When I would go to kick her back outside, she’d balk—something she never does normally when I kick her out—and look back to the filly.

Ro is fascinated. Entranced. In love.

It’s kind of cute, until I imagine her bringing up baby… “Oh, no, sweetie. We don’t go out in the mud and the rain. Mud and rain are for common ponies, and servants like Lady Who Feeds. Let’s go down the barn aisle and clean up any hay or grain offerings from the other ponies. They know it’s their duty to tithe to us…”