Aya Wrangle

I´m so jealous! Philip found his Tevis Horse. No, I´m not really jealous, I am very happy for him. I just wanna ride really bad and my doctor told me today that I have to slow down…like a lot..not fun.



Aya Wrangle

Philip drove down to Twentynine Palms to look at this special horse, Aya Wrangle. His grandfather won the Tevis twice and we really believe in this horse. Philip and Wrangle arrived here at the ranch around 1am last night. It was a long drive from the desert in Southern California to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

I wished I could of come with him to visit Aya Arabians and take a personal look at their horses.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=hp#!/pages/Aya-Arabians/187878377987081?sk=info

I´m told that they have many good horses over there. Philip saw some young ones that he really liked.

I bet that this new life Wrangle has up here is a lot different from living in the desert. He actually has grass under his feet and plenty of space to run around on a pasture. We didn´t put him in a huge pasture with tons of grass right away of course, one step at the time.

After being a horse for some hours Philip took him for a test ride on the trails in Eldorado National Forest. My horse Diamond who knows the trails and goes everywhere here came along. I let my friend Sam ride him, since I can´t. They had a lot of fun! Both horses have plenty of go and they were a good match on the trail. I would of given a lot to be able to go with them!

Diamond tagged along on their first ride as mental support in the new environment.

On their first ride they crossed water, walk over bridges and climbed rocks, all which probably were new things for Wrangle. He did really good! When he hesitated crossing creeks Diamond went first and showed the way. Philip is very happy with him. I am happy that he is so happy and I believe Wrangle will be very happy partnering up with him. One step closer to Tevis 2014 J

Just before their very first adventure on the trail

AND Aya Wrangle is really well mannered! I highly appreciate that since I´m in charge of the horses every day care.

Life at Traverse Creek Ranch

I see a pattern of what my days are going to be like now when it´s getting warmer every day. I´m getting up really early in the morning, which I definitely don´t mind, I feed the animals and work outside for 3-4 hours. After that it´s too warm for my pregnant body to do anything outside for some hours. I either run errands (thank you air condition!), work on my English, doing chores inside or simply taking a nap in the middle of the day. I kind of like being able to make my own schedule very much! In the late afternoon I go outside again to finish what I left undone in the morning.

Yesterday I decided to open the goat pen and let the goats roam free on the property. They know where they belong and always come here to get leftover vegetables from our meals. They are very social individuals J This morning I found all our goats in the yard. That wasn´t exactly where I wanted them to be.. They eat everything in their way! We got them so they could help us clear the property, not clear our garden. And of course we also got them because we love goats. They are funny animals! Very smart. I found the place in the fence where they climbed into our yard and fixed that.

I´ve been thinking a lot about motherhood and our family being bilingual today. My native language is Swedish and English is my secondary language. Philips native language is English and he speaks a number of other languages. I believe that knowledge about other languages and cultures are essential parts of a child’s education. Along with traveling and actually getting to know people from other cultures than our own definitely helps them to develop an open mind and the ability to think outside the box. My son Joel who is six years old (seven next month!) are a very quick learner and I´m sure it want be long until his English is much better than mine. He still spends a lot of time in Sweden and I´m not worried about him losing his native language. When he´s in California we speak Swedish when we´re alone and English when we´re with other people. I have been thinking about how I´m going to give our new baby two languages from the start. I think it will come naturally but I am definitely going to make it my priority right from the beginning. I am a Preschool Teacher and I have the theoretical knowledge of how to do it, I just never thought I would actually live in another country than Sweden and have personal use for that knowledge. Eventually I want to hire a Mexican Nanny a few hours a week, with the purpose of giving the children a third language as well.

Hope everyone out there have a great day, I do!

Love Maria

The horse on todays post is Lord Bowler. He´s one of our rescues. We currently have eight rescues. Three of them are riding horses, the other ones are happily retired (some of age and some because of permanent injuries.) Lord Bowler was at Traverse Creek for evaluation under saddle. Unfortunately injuries makes it impossible for him to do more than very light riding. He´s quite a character though! Always wanting attention, in your pocket horse. A few days ago we moved him to a richer pasture along with another older horse where they can be horses and have fun all day long.

Imagination rules the world!

It´s been hot today (84 degreese, sunny, no wind). I was running errands in the morning but spent most of the day inside. Around 5pm when it cooled down a little bit I decided to take Trigger for a long walk. I told our three dogs to guard the house while I was gone, closed the gate and walked away. Our yard is fenced for horses. A mile down the road Trigger stops, 30 seconds later Neeika (my dog) comes around the corner. She jumped the fence. She´s convinced that it´s her job to guard me and not the house. Well, well..we have two other dogs that guards the house so I guess it´s OK. I just can´t be mad at her. She´s done this before and found Trigger & me many miles down the trail. My only concern is that she doesn´t understand to stay away from cars on the way to the trail. When she´s with me my concern is that when we pass other guard dogs and they start barking she sometimes decides to fight them. Therefor I can´t have her loose outside our property. Today I didn´t have a leash with me, why should I? I decided to let her walk Trigger and attached her to his rope. In that way she had an important job and couldn´t fight other dogs. I wouldn´t do this with any horse and any dog, it could end with disaster but both Neeika and Trigger listens well to voice cues. We had a really good time!  

I´m a little bit jealous of Philip, he´s going to try a horse tomorrow. A Tevis horse! This horse´s grandfather won The Tevis twice and we believe in this horse, Aya Wrangle.

Scouting The Tevis Trail

We started to familiarize ourselves with the Tevis Cup trails. Today we focused on the last section before the finish line in Auburn. It´s probably going to be the hardest part. You´ve been awake for almost 24 hours and been riding over 80 miles AND it´s going to be dark. Our plan is that our horses are going to know the trail extremely well and be well aware of where the finish line is = rest + food.

It´s truly a beautiful part of the trail and I am glad we´re able to ride it in daytime while practicing. The wildlife and vegetation is rich. We did see a bear today, just underneath the trail. We met a lot of hikers and some riders. One man just bought a new horse and was conditioning him for Tevis this year. I am glad we have more time on our schedule. By the look of his horse he would of gained from having more time too.. But he seemed to be an experienced rider and I liked his horse (an Arab of course).

This morning when I went grocery shopping in town I passed a woman and her Shetland pony on the highway. The pony was probably around 30 years old and so proud and happy about his job pulling the little cart. Both the woman and the pony seemed to have such a good time. It makes me happy to see older horses that are well cared for and not forgotten. This horse obviously enjoyed himself at the most. Maybe this was the woman’s first horse that she got as a little girl? And now that she´s too big to ride the horse any more they find other fun things to do together? Or maybe it´s a rescue horse that found a new happiness and love in life? Either way it put a smile on my face :D