Liz Howell

This weekend was very stressful. I had been advertising Maricita and Zee Zee for sale for the past month as one of them needed to go. I liked them both equally so it was hard for me to decide which one to sell. I hadn't had much interest in either one and then "Boom" I was getting calls and emails galore. A man came out Saturday to ride Zee Zee but she really showed her butt and I had to ask him to get off. He called later and said he wanted to buy her but I just could not in good conscious sell her to him as he was not a good enough rider for a green horse. A nice lady came out Sunday and Zee Zee showed her butt again but this time was not allowed to be bad, she was told to go on and ended up riding quite well for the lady. Zee Zee loaded right up into her trailer and I have been told she has settled right into her new home.
Sudden has taken the leaving of Zee Zee harder than Maricita who is happier than can be as she now gets her own stall with a huge paddock. She does miss having her out in the pasture though as they were running buddies and all Sudden wants to do is stand around the barn.  I miss Zee Zee too but, it sure is a lot easier taking care of two horses instead of three. Now if I will just stay away from the auctions, the classifieds, friends who know people who have horses, advertisements etc. ....

The horses really had a workout this past weekend. Kelsey and Jessica came Friday after school and stayed until Sunday evening. They stayed on the horses as much as possible and I think they had a pretty good time even though I made them do chores and did not let them go to the barn at 11:00 at night.  They wanted to sleep in the horse trailer one night but all I could think of was some crazy or some animal coming to get them so I had to say no to that idea.

We painted little Breyer horses and although none of us are very good painters and our paint was pretty thick we had a good time judging each others horse.  The video is of them jumping for the first time. Sudden has jumped small jumps before but to Zee Zee this was all brand new.  She got a little cranky later in the day as she is not used to being ridden so much, plus I just don't think Paso Finos are really built to jump.

My Niece and her family came to visit and the kids got to ride a horse I have in for some ride time. Rio is already broke to ride but is nervous and has picked up a few bad habits that his owner would like fixed.  We are trading off a Paso Fino saddle (which I really need) for a months riding which his owner needs, so it works out all around for us.

He was a little spooky at first with all the laughing, squealing, and running around but quickly calmed down. I really think kids are a great training tool for nervous horses provided you do it safely.

Well the Equine Dentist came out on the 6th of Jan 2010 to do Zee Zee's teeth. She had two extremely large wolf teeth, lots and lots of sharp points and uneven rowing had started. I had never used this dentist before but I was so pleased with him. He never got the horse upset, was gentle with her and extremely professional. He took the time to tell me what he was doing and to show me the areas that needed work.  Zee Zee was an easy drunk and took her tranquilizer without a hitch.

Its now been a few weeks and I have seen an enormous improvement in the way she eats and how much she is eating. I am so glad this was the ticket as I have been a nervous wreck trying to keep weight on her. The other day the girl that rides Sudden came to ride and out of the blue informed me that Zee Zee was getting fat.  I hadn't even told her that the dentist had came out and done her teeth so I was quite thrilled to hear this comment. Crap now I will probably have to put her on a diet.................

Zee Zee my little paso fino is doing so great under saddle. We have actually started gaiting around the pasture now.  She is so funny, she will get going along at a good clip and then scare herself and come to a dead stop. I pet her and tell her to "come on keep going" and off we go again. Please forgive my poor riding posture and flip flops I don't get fancy when riding at home, plus the nerves are little high when riding a green horse.

Zee Zee has lost a bit of weight since she came here and I am at a loss of what to do. Sometimes her appetite is really good (she always eats her grain) but a lot of the time she snubbs her hay. I give her the best quality coastal and alfalfa hay that I can find yet she still just picks at it. I have an equine dentist coming Wednesday so hopefully that will fix her hay issues.

Today was my new Paso Fino Zee Zee's 6th ride. She was so much better today than she has been, today we only had a couple of balks and temper tantrums which is a remarkable improvement over the way she has been working. Her previous owners did such a good job with her that I haven't had to do much ground work with her at all and have been able to just get on with the riding portion.  We are still in a walk but thats ok I want her to be comfortable with being ridden before I ask for anything else.

Zee Zee is such a sweet girl but I feel so bad for her.  All her life she lived at one place and had the best life kept on pasture 24 hours a day being brought in a stall just for feed and treats.  Here, she is in a stall with an attached paddock and turned out to a sparse pasture for only a couple of hours a day. She eats twice as much feed as Sudden does, won't eat the alfalfa and picks at the coastal.  She lost a little bit of weight because of this but seems to be putting it back on now. I have never had a horse not like alfalfa and I hope she eventually decides its good as I would rather over feed hay than over feed horse feed.

For the past 3 or 4 weeks Sudden has been ridden once a week by a 12 year old girl named Kelsey.  Kelsey had put an ad on a local website wanting a horse to ride and since I can not comfortably ride Sudden I thought it might be a good match.  Kelsey said she was experienced and had taken lessons but from her first ride I knew that to not be exactly true. She certainly knows how to sit on a horse but we had to fix her hands, legs and heels.  I have given her some tips and hollered many a time and made her legs hurt with some exercises just enough that I think she is beginning to get the hang of it.  I try to not butt in too much unless she is doing something really wrong as I feel it is important that she learn to think on her own and figure things out.

Sudden is being a perfect angel and gives her just enough trouble that Kelsey realizes she can't just be a passenger but has to actually ride.  Today Kelsey was trying to learn how to post correctly but every time she would go up Sudden would either go back into a walk or a really slow jog. I tried to explain how to squeeze as she went up but was unable to get my point across so I had her practice riding the trot without her stirrups to help build up her balance and strength. I don't think Kelsey was very happy with me today either that or she was just frustrated.

After the ride Kelsey, her sister and her cousin took turns riding Sudden and then they gave her a bath.  It was really cute to see the three of them washing her and arguing amongst themselves about who was doing what.  Sudden really enjoyed the bath and soaked up the attention.

Thanksgiving week was an up and down week. Jim was sick most of the week which of course made my week not so great.  We went to the neighbors for Thanksgiving dinner and they were both sick.  Jim took about two bites of his food and turned solid white so I told him he needed to go home immediately.  I guess what little he ate came up on the walk back home, poor guy I felt so bad for him.  I wish the neighbors hadn't gone through all the trouble they did to make all the delicious food as they really needed to be resting and not having company.  I quickly ate, said my goodbyes and went on home all the while praying I didn't come down with what all these sick folk had. Several hours later I too was able to re-taste what I had eaten earlier Yuck. Talk about being bummed, I was really wanting to hit the Black Friday sales and this was the last thing I needed.

Friday morning Jim wakes me at 3 am saying "Come On we gotta go get in line".  I moved around a bit testing my stomach stability, and decided that Yes I was going to be able to make it.  Target had a 1 TB external hard drive at the lowest price I have ever seen and I really really needed it. My computer drives, and all my external drives were full and in the red. We got in line around 4 am and boy was it cold, by the time 5 am came around the line was almost around the building. You should have seen the folks running through the store once they got past the doors. Jim had gone back to sit in the truck so I was on my own finding the hard drive.  I made my way back to the electronics section without being run over and started looking for the drive, about that time Jim comes around the corner pushing a cart saying "Honey I got the drive for you".  I looked at him dumbfounded and said "how did you get in front of me I thought you were in the truck?" Turns out he had not gone to the truck but went to sit on the benches up by the door. He said that once they opened the doors he saw a break in people and took it. That was so cool, we were able to get the drive, pay for it and were out the door in under 20 minutes.

Our next stop was Best Buy. We had missed the 5 am opening but wow was that store crowded. I found the digital picture frame that was a door buster, got Smallville season 8 and tried to find Supernatural season 4 but they were out of it. The checkout line was crazy and took over 40 minutes to get through but wasn't without entertainment.  I looked to my right and saw a woman barreling her way through all the barriers Best Buy employees had setup for the checkout line. A Best Buy employee steps in front of her holding his hand up yelling "Mam step away from the barriers" and tried to push her back away. This poor woman was yelling, hyperventilating and having a panic attack all at the same time, and all she wanted was to get out of the store. I told the employee "Dude, shes having a panic attack you need to let her out of here."  Several other people started chiming in with what I had said and the employee gave us a look that said OMG its going to be a riot.  He got the woman to calm down enough to follow him towards the back of the store so I guess he let her out the back door or calmed her down in their break room. The rest of the checkout process was very uneventful.

Next we hit Hardees for their yummy steak biscuits and our last stop was at PetSmart.  All of their Christmas merchandise was 50 percent off so we went ahead and bought Naomi and Abbies Christmas.  She is going to go crazy when she gets the toy with 16 squeakers in it.  That was our week. Whew!

I have been actively horse searching since Mariachi's untimely death and it hasn't been easy.  Several times I said "I am getting out of horses" and then Sudden would holler and I would once again set off looking for her a buddy. I found an ad for an un-broke 5 yr old mare and 2 yr old gelding. They were both unregistered Paso Finos at the same place so I gathered up Jim and Abbie and we went to see them. They were really cute and the mare had actually been saddled (I rode her with them leading me) but the owner did not have a current Coggins and the horses had never had a West Nile shot. Disapointed we went home and I searched some more.

My friend Janet and I went to look at 3 Registered Paso Finos that happened to be at the same place.  Two of the horses were totally wild and could not be caught. One was very friendly and appeared to be well gaited but when he would run it looked like every other stride his hocks were catching causing his back legs to get tangled up. Bummers I really liked him, he was very cute.

I looked at a 7 year old gelding but he was a run away and a 12 year old mare who was very mare aggressive. Neither of those horses would work. I was becoming very depressed as Sudden was so lonely, I felt helpless that I could not console her. Then a miracle came, the owner of the first two horses that we had looked at called to say that she had pulled Coggins and gotten their West Nile shots. Well the coggins came in and Janet and I went to get the mare.

The mare had different ideas though about going to a new home. We did everything we could think of to get her in the trailer and she just was not budging. Whipped we left and decided to come back with more reinforcements and a bigger trailer over the weekend. Saturday came and Janet and her boyfriend Buzz went with me. Well the mare still was having nothing to do with going in the trailer so Buzz and Caroline's (the owner) son got behind her, picked up a leg on each side and walked her on her front legs into the trailer. Thank goodness she is only around 600-700 pounds and not a 1000 pound horse!  We got home and Sudden hollered like she always does when she sees a horse trailer and to her surprise a whinny called back to her.  Janet and I were dying laughing as Sudden's head flew around as she realized "Hey someone is in there".