Stand-Still Fall Down

I was out riding one day not too long ago when I decided that I was going to try something new with Miracle. What I was doing new is too hard to explain on paper but anyway I was trying to get Miracle to do something that he knew how to do but instead turning his head the opposite way… following me? Thus it was the same leg cue but it was like in reverse… Now then I tried doing this going to the right and once he really tried doing what I was telling him to I gave him time to think. Then kept that up until he was able to do what I wanted him. When I tried doing the same thing again quite awhile later except on his left side he was really trying at first but when he just couldn’t understand what I wanted him to do he got angry with me. First let me say something though, since you might be thinking “if he knows how to do it on the right shouldn’t he be able to do it on the left?” the answer is “no” horses have from top to bottom different “characters” on their left and right sides. Proceeding to the story; once I realized he wasn’t trying anymore but trying to get at me I “turned up” his head (so his nose was touching my leg) and was holding him there waiting for him to calm down when all of a sudden he just falls over! Without even laying down or anything! Just like if you had a 2 by 4 piece of wood standing up and you push on it with your finger it will fall down flat. That’s what my asinine Horse did! I was laughing by then because it was so funny that he just fell over (no one got hurt) but then I realized maybe he did that to get rid of me. Consequently I got back on him and kept up what we had been doing previously. Instead of falling over this time he laid down real fast! Oh no. He was going to get into a habit of lying down or something so I would stop what I was doing. Well I quit what I was doing (I didn’t know what else to do) and went on to something else. When I was heading home about an hour later I decided I would try it again. Sure enough when I tried it again Miracle went down on his knees preparing to lie down. Immediately I stopped what I was doing and swatted him with my reins on the forequarters to keep him from lying down and he scrambled back up. Ahha! I got him! Making this already long story short he went down on his knees again and also did a lot of almost lay-downs before he finally learned what I wanted him to do. He can now do what I wanted him to do, to begin with, thoroughly! (He is way to fast of learner! Imagine… he learned to do something totally new in one day!) To end this here is a “chart” of different things Miracle has done with me on him:

Slipped: 6 times

Fall/lay down: 3 times

Gone down on his knees: 5 times

Bucked me off: 2 times

Bucked: A gazillion times

Reared: 1 time (although he has half-reared about 4 times)

My Turkey

About a week and a half ago Dad said that he would take Ethan and I on the Youth season turkey hunt. We woke up at 5:30am Sunday and it was pouring down rain while the wind was blowing hard! Ethan said he didn’t want to go if it was still pouring down rain like it was. But at 6:00am (the time we needed to be over at Tim’s) the wind and rain had completely stopped! It was amazing! Anyway at Tim’s place we grouped up and headed into the woods behind his house. It was decided that Tim and I would be in the blind and Ethan, Dad, and Dave would call their turkeys to them somewhere else. Not an hour later a turkey flew up. He was still a little too far away to shoot so I waited awhile. And Man! I have got to say that turkey wasn’t skittish at all! He came right up and I took a shot but completely missed. But hey, I have a good excuse; the gun I was using didn’t have a bead on it, it was my first time turkey hunting, and turkey heads are small.J Well after I shot the turkey, he just kinda jumped away a few feet and started acting like nothin’ happened. Oh and also after that he started gobbling!
Let’s see I think it was a half hour later when two more gobblers flew up. By this time Tim was pretty excited. I was excited but not enough to make my heart beat wildly. Anyway I took the shot and... YES! I hit him! He started flopping around and Tim ran out there and held him down so he wouldn’t fly away. It took awhile but he finally died. Tim said that I had almost shot 2-in-1! We met up with the others to find out that when I had fired I had scared away the turkey they were going to shoot. HEH HEH. With Dad, Ethan, and Dave there we looked around for the other turkey in case I had killed him but couldn’t find him so we took my turkey back to Tim’s house and got the meat off him then headed home because we needed to be back at 9:30am to get ready and be at church by 10:34am*.
One thing that was amazing about my first turkey hunt was that the whole time we were sitting in that blind the turkeys were gobbling like mad! So it was exciting all the way through! Tim and Dave were really nice and made a fan out of the Turkey’s tail for me. Once I get the pics I will post them on here so you can see.



*our church used to start at 10:30am but Pastor changed it to 10:34am because he likes the passage Acts. 10:34.

From a chunk of metal to a chunk of metal and plastic = Moto4

I was probably about ten years old when my Grandpa Cliff gave our family his old 1986 Yamaha 350cc Moto4. Ever since then (being that old of a bike) it has needed constant repairs, which I always tried to do myself. But for that mean time us kids got plenty of use and abuse out of it…such as pulling sleds behind it or flipping it over or running into the house with it. Yeah, I was the one who ran into the house. Eventually it had to break down and it did about two years after Grandpa Cliff gave it to us. So every once in a while from when it broke down to now I have messed with it trying to figure out the problem with it but it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I finally found that problem. I completely took apart the carburetor and cleaned and checked all the pieces. I found that the main needle and needle seat (where the gas enters the carburetor) was all eroded and clogged. So I got all the best parts I could find off of other moto4’s around the ranch and put them on the one I was working on. I also cleaned out the whole air system. So after it was all put back together I pulled the pull start twice (since the electric doesn’t work) it fired right up...with a bit of smoke. But oh my gosh after about a week of working on it right after school and it starts up for the fist time in about three years I was pretty exited. So now I have my own four-wheeler that cost me nothing but time to get it. It’s pretty funny though because it feels like your riding a bucket of bolts that has a huge crack in the bottom and could fall apart at any time. Also the shifter lever broke off so until I get it welded I’m shifting with locking pliers. It also swerves from side to side on its own when you’re driving it. But all the lights work J!! For the most part though it’s a working four-wheeler that we just recently used for spraying thistles…and yeah…I’m still trying to figure out the problem with my dirt bike. I took it to three different bike shops and none of them could help me much. It’s extremely frustrating thinking that you’ve fixed the problem and putting it back together and it still doesn’t work right.

Starr Comes!

~*~ Tuesday the 17th of March Electric Starr was due to arrive at 2:30pm! I was pretty excited but still had doubts that maybe something would happen and the owner would have to postpone the trip down here. Well at about 2:00pm Cheryl and her friend called and asked for directions to our ranch, which meant that they were about 15 minutes away. I gobbled up my lunch and paced around the house waiting for the time to pass by. Pretty soon they called again and asked what house we were at! Mom and I ran outside and told them to come to the end of the driveway.
Then there he was. Well, the gooseneck trailer and four-door pickup truck at least. You couldn’t see him from the outside very good. Dad decided to go with us down to the pastures and see if he could “teach that horse a lesson or two.” Riiiiight. Anyway down at the pastures we unloaded Starr. He was alert and all, you know, wanting to know where he was, where his friends were, and when he could get away from that awfully, disgusting, weird smell. Which were the cows. Something he had never seen before and would take some getting used to. We decided it would be best to put him in the corrals to wait for the cows to come up to him and so he could get settled down and us not have to worry about him going through a barbwire fence ‘till we showed him the boundaries. At about 4:00pm Mom and I came down. Mom did ground work with Starr; she wouldn’t ride him today with all this new stuff going on. And I rode Miracle, who did an okay performance. Watching Mom work with Starr was pretty cool and I got to ride him later on. All I can say is that he is really a dream horse, but not what I would want for an everyday horse right now, because you always have to be pulling on the reins!
Surprisingly the next few days Miracle didn’t hang around the corral with Electric Starr. Instead he stayed with the cows or by himself! That definitely shows that Miracle is 33.3% horse, 33.3% cow, and 33.3% human! Since then Starr has settled in nicely even though he has ALL this energy and thinks that everything is SO interesting; the total opposite of Miracle. Well, I hope that was a nice enough report of Electric Starr Coming to his new home. ~*~

~Faith

Wonderfully Wasted Yesterday...

Yesterday Mom, Grant, and I took a 4-hour trip up to Kansas City to take home “Electric Starr” (my mom’s new horse.) All the way up there I read “Twilight” because I had run out of books to read and mom thought I would like the “Twilight Saga," which by the way, I loved. When we arrived I was bubbling over with excitement! I would finally have a riding partner! Grant and mom didn't seem even half as excited as I was. We arrived and went around back to the barn to find Cheryl - the owner – and a friend that helps her out. Starr was as beautiful as ever, even though he hadn't had a bath all winter, but the slight dish of his face and his color – a dapple gray, my favorite on a horse – and just the way he carried himself, like he knew he was stunning, was breathtaking. When he moves he carries his tail the way Arabian horses are supposed to and you can actually see him use his “springs” in his feet as if he were in slow motion. The time came to load him up and at first he was a little spooked of the trailer but that didn't last long. After a couple of minutes he put a foot up onto the trailer, the clang of his hoof hitting the boards startled him and he immediately retreated. An hour later we were still trying to get him to go in when it looked like he was actually going to; he put both front feet inside the trailer so he was half way in, but again the clanging scared him so he jerked up his head and what do ya think?! Starr hit his head on top of the trailer and got scared. After that he wouldn't even go near the trailer. So regretfully we had to put him back in his stall and take the 4-hour trip back home... without a horse. I was... well I guess you could say I was peeved. I was pretty sure we could of gotten Starr in the trailer if his owner wasn't so careful with him. The hardest discipline she would give him was a light tap on the rump. Don’t get me wrong! Starr is not in the least bit spoiled and may be an excited horse but still respects you! He has been excellently trained and is very smart. The reasons that I think he wouldn't go into the trailer was because he wasn't being pushed enough, he had been in a trailer only twice in his seven years, and for most horses a trailer is a pretty scary thing. With his owner there, mom didn't want to be firm with him, because the owner is the type that would freak out if you ever slapped a horse hard or anything. So, ya that is the story of my wonderfully wasted yesterday. Happy, happy, happy...

~Faith

Started great, ended great and in between, well...

Today (like any other day) I went down to our pastures to ride Miracle eager for a good ride. Well, at first that's what i got but… an hour and a half later into the ride Miracle got ornery. Oh boy. I was cantering him toward home when he switched leads to a fast canter. At first I thought he was just excited to go home but when I tried slowing him down he kept his neck stiff and set. So I tried turning him to the right then the left, but he was determined to get home fast! Little did he know that that was just another way to spend an hour longer in the saddle. When he finally came to a stop in front of a fence I turned him in a gazillion circles then made him canter away from home. We did a lot more work out in the fields, and when he was nice and sweaty I started cantering him toward home to see if he was going to take off with me again. He did. This time when I worked him he was breathing exceedingly hard and just literally dripping with sweat. Providentially he is a quick learner and the third time I cantered him toward home he was a perfect angel, ears forward and all, doing a slow canter all the way!


~Faith

Miracle "plays" in the mud!

Almost two weeks ago I was riding out in our super muddy pastures when Miracle decided he wanted to go back home faster then I wanted him to. I gave him the OK to turn, while cantering, and then he realized this was his chance! He whipped around so fast that by the time he fell on my leg and skidded on the ground I was still thinking about disciplining him for turning around too fast! Once Miracle was lying on the ground and my leg he didn’t want to get up! He just lifted up his head and looked at me as if to say, “What’d ya do that for?” So I had to slap him on the rump to get him to move. When I did that he sorta tried to get up and put his legs in the air like he was going to roll over the other way on top of me! So I kind of pushed on him and then that gave some distance between my leg and his side, then I pulled my leg out and jumped up on my feet holding the reins as he jumped up. I walked him around a bit and checked his legs to make sure nothing was wrong, after that I got back on him and started riding again, only this time I didn’t tell him to turn while cantering! Hopefully Miracle learned that if he turns too fast he’ll slip and fall but I doubt it!









backing up

















Which way should we go?











Miracle and I