Naomi's visit to the barn...

For Naomi's 9th Birthday this year, Jordan and I gave her a gift certificate for "An Afternoon at the Barn". Today, she came over to redeem that gift. It was a lovely, sunny day- very windy, but the horses behaved despite the wind.

We started off with grooming and pampering the horses. Both horses are very fuzzy with their winter coats. This made it especially difficult to make Phoenix look clean, as he doesn't wear a blanket, and thus appears more dirty. (Hickory is really quite filthy too, but the blanket makes him look a bit sleeker and shinier when you take it off.)

Unfortunately, our poor neglected horses haven't had much grooming lately, and both had large tangles in their tails. While Naomi groomed the rest of the horse, I sprayed copious amounts of de-tangler in the tails and brushed the knots out. Hickory's knots were far worse- actually it seemed like his whole tail was one big knot. This has happened recently as a result of his ambitious rolling habits, which prompt him to find the area of the field with the most stiff weeds in it and to roll in those weeds vigorously, causing them to be entangled in both his mane and his tail. As Hickory has very thick hair, he gets ALOT of stiff, dry weeds stuck in them, which cause knots to form very easily. It is quite comical to see a big attractive thoroughbred wandering around with stiff weeds poking out from all over his mane and tail. He looks rather less regal like that. Although, really, Hickory never looks regal. Its funny that that was originally his name when he came to us. I think of him as all but that!

Anyway, back to the story of the day. You can see us below, doing our jobs grooming Phoenix.

 

Jordan gave us moral support while we worked. (No, actually he was working on our addition for most of the time. :)   )  Hickory gave us sound effects while cribbing on the stall the entire time.

 Shoes. :)

 We determined that blue was a more 'manly' color for Phoenix and it complemented his coat quite nicely. All in all, Phoenix looked very good when we were done. Below, he is helping me by resting his nose (and all the weight of his head and neck) on my shoulder.

We got Phoenix all tacked up and ready to ride and Jordan hopped on to make sure that Phoenix was going to be ok, as it was quite windy out. Phoenix generally doesn't do the lesson horse type thing, so it was good for us to check, but it turned out there was nothing to worry about. Phoenix was a pro at the whole thing.

Getting all adjusted...

Trying for a trot... we got one eventually, but it took a bit for Phoenix to be motivated.

 The happy cowgirl...

 When we were all done riding, we undid all the ribbons and bows and let Phoenix eat the fresh, green grass growing in the roundpen. Along with some 'nickermaker' treats that Naomi had brought for the horses, this was a good reward for a job well done.

All in all, it was a lovely day, and I will leave you with this final picture of Hickory hanging out while we rode, doing his favorite thing, cribbing. 

Maybe next time, Hickory, we will get to ride you!