Paddies, nightmare hacks, the beach and bye bye Paj......

This picture was taken on our lovely quiet hack early on Saturday morning.  Mez has been such a good girl out hacking recently....however it no where near resembled today's hack!!!!  Today the term 'pleasure ride' couldn't be further from the truth...nightmare hack describes it to a T!!
I set off with Mez who began to spook at things we pass every time we go out and it eventually dawned on me that she was in season!!!  By the time I got to Dolphinholme bottoms I wanted to get off and cry!!!  Oh and if I knew what was about to come I would have turned round and run for home!!!!
After a bit of a trot and some piaffe she settled down a bit to just spooky mode which is fine....all was ok until we got back onto the road back upto the Fleece.  We were just approaching the 'wiggly bit' of road (very narrow with big hedges on each side and blind bends too) when a tractor and trailer piled high with big bales of straw came towards us.....anyway he stopped and she squeezed past and was a good girl!  Next was the car and trailer with a roof in the back followed by a trot up the hill out of the wiggly bit onto the better road.....As I got onto the straight (in trot) she began to get strong so we had a little chat about flexion and staying soft and did a little leg yield to get my nice Mez back.  Good job as when I looked behind us there was this MASSIVE wagon with a double trailer filled with freshly chopped trees!!!  That on it's own would have been fine but it had a long line of traffic behind it including a tractor and trailer, motorbike, three white vans and a council lorry!!!  I asked her to halt and bless her, you should have seen her face when the massive wagon came past....at about van three she had a bit of a dance so I let her walk on whilst everything else came past.......just as we were recovering from this another HGV came up behind us.  I trotted to the junction and he followed only to be met by a tractor and sheep trailer on the back!  I turned to come back up the hill.....my house was in sight...to discover the man who owns the fields across from us was training his sheepdog to round up the sheep next to the road!  He was hiding in the hedge blowing his whistle.....just as another HGV feed wagon tried to race past....he did slow down when I asked him to though.  With home a few yards away I was starting to breathe again only to have a pheasant fly out of the hedge next to our gate and send her into orbit again!!!  I got off as soon as I could!  I think we were both in a state of shock!!!!!!!!!!!  Blimey.....usually we have nice quiet hacks!  I was mentally and physically drained by the time we got home!  She can definitely have the rest of the week off!!!!!!!

This week I have hacked Tilly but on Tuesday I took her to the school up the road.  She has begun to get her tongue over the bit now so I put the cheek pieces up so she couldn't manage to.  She got VERY cross and had a few paddies!  She tried to tell me that she couldn't canter and kept becoming disunited then tried to get her head in the air and then decided to get strong and go fast...it went on and on...the hack home was not good as she was really cross by then and even the builder up the road asked me what was wrong with my horse!!!

On Wednesday we took her to the beach for another canter and she did behave herself.  She was very strong on the way home but I did not want to let her go just yet so I held onto her and by the time I cantered back to Peter my arms no longer had any strength left in them!!!  She was then in a paddy as she had been at the school, the bridle was not the same one and I had not altered the cheek pieces on it so I decided that it was either caused by the fact that she was in pain somewhere and the more I did the more it hurt her or that she was just being ginger!  So I schooled her for ten minutes and she calmed down but she was still a little argumentative as you can see in the video above.  My legs were jelly when I got off!!!!
I wanted to ride her today but after my experience with Mez I just couldn't do it but we are hopefully going to my friend Helen's tomorrow to use the school and have a small jump........shall I wear my air jacket?????

Millie and Tilly went for a hack on Saturday together and Tilly enjoyed having a friend but I think Millie was in a state of shock as Alex has not hacked her that far for a while!!!  Anyway it was a lovely day and she seems fine now but Barry my farrier is due this week so I'll have to see how she goes.  I was very wary of turning her out on the grass this week as it has been frozen but I gave them all hay to eat before turning out and she seems to be fine.  Keep everything crossed!

The babies are well and came in on Wednesday to be wormed and hosed off!  We planned to bring them into the barn again on Sunday but they had wandered off into their other field when we went to get them!  They are quite happy in their cosy field shelters each night with their big nets of haylage and their comfy beds!  Kirkby is hardly kicking at all now we are using the rape straw.

Hay is becoming increasingly difficult to find.  The local farmer has none left and we have just had the last four big bales from another farmer.  If anyone knows where I can get some big bales from please please can they let me know.  We are using about one a week at the moment.  I do not want to put Tilly back onto haylage!!!!

Supplements 4 Horses is currently on page two of google.  I have been working hard on promoting the webiste and making it search engine friendly so it looks like it is starting to pay off.  I am just learning about marketing so things will be changing a bit on the website etc.

On a VERY sad note.....the Pajero has revved it's last rev!!  It conked out on the way to work on Thursday morning and unfortunately can not be fixed.....well it can but it will cost more than the car is worth!!  I am very sad and Peter says 'It's just lump of metal and it doesn't have feelings' but he doesn't know it like I do...:(((

We attended a Wyre Parish Council meeting about the planning development at Wyreside Hall On Thursday.  It seems that most people are for the renervating of the old building but the traffic is the biggest issue.  We wait to see if it can be resolved or we may be looking for other routes to hack round.

So that's about all for this week.......let's see what the jumping brings tomorrow and whether I inflate or not!!!