Black Duck brought 6 beautiful little ducklings home today – five black and whites and a grey and white. Almost immediately, however, the muppet managed to mix her ducklings up with Patchy’s ducklings, lost track of the plot and sat on the fence for a bit to ponder, then disappeared.

Patchy was having none of it, however – she’s not up for babysitting her sister’s brood so she took her eleven ducklings and went off, ejecting the six interlopers with strong beak work.

I stepped in before the lost ducklings were stood on by a horse or picked up by the local sparrowhawk, and put the ducklings into a cat carrier for the time being, while I went to find their mother.

Having checked Black Duck was indeed where I suspected – back on her nest, presumably hoping ducklings would turn up again – I took the ducklings round and gently decanted them just by the nest entrance. Their squeaks did the trick and by the time I was taking the last couple of ducklings out of the carrier, Black Duck was ready to beak me sharply as I put them down!

There’s gratitude for you!

I’ve left them to reorganise themselves and try again when they’re ready.

I risked life and limb by sticking my head under the side of the barn today and can confirm Black Duck has ducklings! I saw four running around before she covered them up, but I suspect she’s waiting on a few more hatching before she brings them home. She looks very composed and confident, however, so I’m leaving her to it.

Patchy and Mother Duck are looking after their broods carefully, assisted by Hannibal – he’s attached himself mostly to the little ducklings and is leaving Mother Duck’s flock to get on by themselves more. We should be getting within a day or two of goslings, however; I have my fingers firmly crossed for a good live hatch this year – and I’m really curious to see how Hannibal will juggle three (who knows, four?) broods of little ones to guard! He’s so careful when he nudges an errant duckling along after the flock, it’s very sweet!

Abe is demolishing his feeds with the full dose of herbs in now – though tonight something happened (I have dark suspicions of Poppy leaning over the fence to menace him!) and he joined me by the rabbits with the clip of his lead rope still on the head collar but no sign of the rope, a scratch over one eye, a cut under his jaw and his knee (the one he skinned last week) bleeding again. Nothing’s serious so once I caught him I plastered sudocrem on all his wounds to keep the flies off and put him back out again.

I now have two little rabbits recaptured and back in a hutch securely – I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the other one for 2 days so I fear something ate him. Or her. Boojum comes by most nights and a cat is more than capable of catching a rabbit, alas.

I received a copy of the annual census form from the Suffolk Horse Society the other day and it asked George’s height, so I contrapted a measuring pole using a hoking staff and my measuring tape. None of the horses were thrilled about standing next to it while I balanced a spirit level across their withers, but I managed to measure Abe and George with it. I didn’t believe the results, however – Abe came in at 14.3 and a half, and George at 16.3. Poppy and Dancer were having nothing to do with the whole thing.

I borrowed a proper measuring stick the following day and managed to get each of them to stand still on level ground for me. George was perfectly willing to do so provided the carrots kept coming, and Dancer thought she didn’t mind much either, so I did them. 16.3 and 14.0 and a half, respectively. I managed to get Abe over his feed bucket, and he came in at 14.3 and a half again. Eventually, with much coaxing, Poppy consented to stand still long enough and she measured at 14.3.

I’ve done them all several times, double-checked the stick against my ordinary B&Q measuring tape, and I have to conclude the figures are correct. They’re all smaller than I thought – Abe by a couple of inches, Dancer by 4 inches and George by a whopping 5 inches! Poppy is actually an inch taller than her passport claims, which is probably just because her height was guessed as a foal when she was passported.

Everyone who knows George is flabbergasted. We have a sort of joint hypothesis, however, which is that Abe and Poppy have withers, while Dancer and George don’t, so both of them look bigger in the body but are pipped (so to speak) by the higher withers of the older horses. George is also so massive that he looks bigger.

I’m not going to complain. 16.3 is still a very big horse and it’s actually within the breed standard (which 18 hands isn’t) so… he is what he is and I love them all.

Patchy Girl has brought her babies home! I nearly fell over them in the barn when I went to feed the ferrets. I’ve moved them into a pen on the lawn next to Mother Duck’s for now, but once Black Duck comes home and all the ducklings are safely in the yard, I’ll block up the gap under the fence at the front and let them all roam freely.

Abe has had his full dose of herbs for the first time this morning – and ate them! Hopefully, that means no more oats in my ears.

I can’t see the side of my head but apparently Abe can read the instructions there. A whole oat fits snugly into a human ear, pointy end first.

This came about because Abe’s herbal medication has arrived to treat his sarcoid problem. It’s fairly pungent with the smell of turmeric, though there’s other stuff in there – garlic, possibly, and I think I detected green tea – and he’s supposed to have 5 little scoops twice daily, in his meals.

Not happening. At least yet.

I put the 5 scoops into his breakfast and he took one sniff, accused me of attempting to poison him and went on hunger strike. He turned his bucket upside down and then stood in the contents to express his opinion. On the other hand, we did get some very good work done together on leg-yielding in hand – possibly having missed breakfast his motivation for carrot chunks was higher? I used one hand to lead him forward and the palm of the other to press against his ribs (mimicking the feel of my leg, I hope!) and after a few attempts, he got the idea and crossed his inside hind under his body as he stepped forward. Before long he’d mastered that and decided he was ready for higher things, so he went straight to half-pass… bent the wrong way, of course, but still, a good attempt. George came out and had a super leading session, managing the whole length of the yard at a brisk straight-line walk without any ears-back, let alone herding me up!

I tried sneaking the medication into his dinner – just one scoop. He can get used to that and then work up, I thought. He refused to eat it. I hand-fed him each bit, and once I’d added another scoop of beet and another scoop of oats, he did accept hand-feeding… but then he was full up and couldn’t manage another oat, even, honestly.

This morning I went straight to hand-feeding and he ate a good amount – but then he was full and disinterested again. Still, they all had their hooves trimmed this morning and he did an excellent leg-yield in-hand several times as well as striding confidently across both the pallet and a length of upside-down Lino I have on the ground for them. George also walks straight across the Lino – Poppy hesitated, nerved herself up and stepped gingerly across it because I asked (she’s such a brave horse!) and Dancer thinks if she steps on it something horrible will leap up and eat her.

After Abe had been trimmed I took George round and tied him up next to Abe, so he could watch and listen while Odette and I chatted and the mares had their hooves done – all good for George! He was quite well-behaved, apart from allowing Abe to get him involved in a play-fight over the goose water bath that ended with George picking up the bath and tipping the contents over Abe’s front legs!

This evening I cut the chaff out of Abe’s dinner, so he just got oats and speedi beet – and two scoops of medicine. He gave it a few disapproving pokes and snorts, then decided to eat it anyway. He ate a mouthful, then his nose itched and he needed to rub it on me (I was sitting on the mounting block holding his lead rope). He had another mouthful and the other side of his nose needed to be rubbed on me. Then an ear itched. Then the other ear. He nearly knocked me off the block with those! Then the end of his nose needed to scritch my sleeve, wetly. I was brushing sugar beet pulp off my sleeve when he managed to insert the oat directly into my left ear.

This was a distraction, I have to say! I couldn’t get hold of it in my fingers to pull it back out so I just had to live with it for the duration.

After a few more itchy ears and wet kisses and so forth, Abe decided he’d had enough to eat and would throw the bucket away. I just grabbed it before he swung it through the air in his teeth, so then at intervals – when he thought I might be off-guard – he tried again. In the meantime, I started hand-feeding him again, and although about half of each mouthful was dribbled back into the bucket, wiped on my face, hands or clothing, he did get to the end of the bucket – eventually. I think someone’s been whispering stories about desert princes hand-feeding their precious Arab horses in their tents or something… he’s certainly enjoying having my attention fixed on him like this!

I managed to extract the oat after the horses were back out by borrowing a small syringe from the ferrets’ medicine collection, filling my ear with water and then turning my head so the water drained out, taking the oat with it. I hope Abe doesn’t make a habit of putting oats in my ears, it’s very uncomfortable!

In other news – Patchy Girl has ducklings! She’s still sitting on the nest, but when I stole a quick glance under her wriggly tin roof this afternoon, she had yellow fluff tucked against her chest instead of white duck-down. I’m looking forward to seeing her bring them home in a few days. Black Duck may have ducklings, I can’t see into her nest to find out. I tried, but my field of view was filled by a very beady-looking duck face clearly indicating an opinion along the lines of ‘and the horse you rode in on!’.

The saga of the little black rabbits continues. Shortly after number two bunny escaped, number three followed suit and I’ve been chasing little black bunnies all over the place ever since. I managed to nab one this afternoon and it’s now safely back in the hutch. The other two are still at liberty so there’s a chapter or two more to come yet…

Holly’s litter of ferret kits now have their eyes wide open and are very active, chunky darlings!

Are being the bane of my life!

I left Nightshade and her kits out in the run overnight, thinking they’d be fine behind the fine mesh (it’s half-inch square weldmesh, too small for even mice to squeeze through) and glanced out of the lounge window at bedtime to see a little black rabbit hop nonchalently across the lawn. Outside the run.

I got Mum to bed and then set about catching the wee demon. At 5 weeks, they’re still small enough to go straight through the bars on the puppy-pen type grazing runs, but eventually I managed to corner the little horror in a pile of rubbish waiting for the next tip run (whenever that is!) and restored it to the run.

That was half past midnight.

This morning there were two little black bunnies hopping happily around the garden!!

I moved Nightshade’s run, making very sure there were no dips for even small bunnies to squirm through under the sides, and then had a go at trying to catch them. I failed. Miserably.

I fed all the other critters and came back for another go. I failed miserably – even more miserably, since by then they were getting wise to the game of hide and seek and had found several more ways to evade a slow, clumsy human.

I culled Daffodil and fed the ferrets, then came back for another go. Nope.

I tried a batch of small cake-bars for Mum and had another go.

Tried again after lunch.

Another attempt around evening feeding.

I’ve moved Sage up into Nightshade’s old hutch so there’s an empty ground-floor hutch, so I’ve left some kibble in a dish in there, with the door open, in the hope someone might leap in during the evening or night. Not yet, anyway! I shall keep checking…

I have just managed to capture one of them; it had nipped down the small space behind the steps down from the house door and I clapped a hand over each end, then moved the blocks slowly and managed to nab him (or her!) in the middle. The other delinquent is still at liberty…

Hopefully I can catch the little monkey before it gets too big to squeeze through the runs and I use them as traps….

In other news, both Black Duck and Patchy Girl have popped in this evening, their nests look fine (I took a torch for a sneaky peek in their absence!) and they should be getting close now. Lavender Girl has decided she’s going broody but at least she’s somewhere handy – behind the door into the workshop. Luckily I have access from the big dairy shed via the internal door! At some point when she’s not looking I’ll slip in and count eggs.

One of the hybrid hens was dead in the coop this morning, so the ferrets are getting chicken tomorrow. I don’t know what she died of – nobody’s coughing, sneezing, wheezing, limping or otherwise off-colour.

Which is my excuse for another gap in blogging!

The ferret kits are growing up and even more adorable!

Look how tiny Yarrow is compared to her cousins! And Paris is a real heart-tugger with that one cheeky little eye peeking at the world!

Abe had a week off work, so to speak, as the Herd went out and galloped wildly around the field one evening, during which he tripped over his own hooves, all his legs suddenly folded up under him and he slithered several lengths over the ground on his belly – he got straight back up and went back to playing, but the following day he had a slightly warm knee with a bit of a scrape on it, so I’ve been waiting until that was completely healed. This morning I saddled him back up again and he promptly starting playing the absolute fool around the mounting block! We had ‘I’m dying of thirst, I need to be over at the water bucket’. We had ‘oops, had you just put your foot in the stirrup when I accidentally stepped backwards?’. He did quite a lot of suddenly swivelling to face me, putting his nose up and kissing me! He also took every opportunity (and there lots of opportunities!) to do ‘ooh, chicken!’ and get distracted – but eventually he got bored and put himself into the proper position so I hopped into the saddle.

I’ve taken advantage of the pause in his education to put stirrups on the bareback pad – it may hurt my ego slightly to admit it but I’m somewhat out of practice and my ‘independent seat’ needs some work! – and certainly it helped a lot with my balance, his balance and our partnership. He was more confident walking around the yard, with turns in both directions (quite tight ones!), some backing and several halts, and we did half a dozen circuits before I hopped off again and gave him handfuls of carrot batons as a reward. It was a great deal more fluent and polished a performance than his previous rides and I’m delighted with him!

Still on the subject of Abe, the lab results from his tumour came back; it was a sarcoid and the vet didn’t quite manage to achieve a clear margin around the cancerous tissue when he removed the growth. He’s talking of applying Liverpool cream to the site once the incision has completely healed – but doing that will require another heavy bout of sedation, it’ll cause a great deal of swelling and considerable pain for Abe, so I’ve been investigating other options. I’ve also noticed that the original small warty growth on his sheath (other side from the op site!) has started growing again after just sitting innocuously for the past couple of years, so that’s probably a sarcoid that’s been stirred up by the op – something sarcoids are notorious for! I’ve been recommended by numerous people to approach Tracy Keegan, who’s been successfully treating sarcoids with a herbal mix for decades, and I made contact with her over the weekend. As a result, I’m eliminating linseed oil from the horses’ diets, there’s a box of herbs in the post for Abe and I’ve spent quite a bit of time studying the ingredients in various feeds.

The upshot of all this was that I had an interesting discussion with my local Harbro on whether I wanted whole oats for the horses (they thought whole oats were chicken feed and I really wanted bruised barley – which I don’t since I’ve never fed barley in the past without the horse’s hooves getting hot) but I returned in triumph with a sack of whole oats to replace the linseed-rich fibre-plus nuggets (which, coincidentally, ran out on Friday anyway) and the horses are now enjoying half a pound of oats (George gets double, of course) in their feed morning and evening. The speedi beet is 100% sugar beet with no additives and can stay, but I need to replace the hi-fi lite with something else as that’s also dressed with linseed oil – I’m leaning towards pure 100% dried grass, which should have the same effect of making them chew their dinners properly (the function of chaff) and shouldn’t adversely affect their health. I’ll get to that shortly – changes in diet need to happen slowly around horses!

The three eggs in the incubator hatched 3 nice healthy chicks, one dark with stripes and two blonde, who are in the lounge in a reinforced cage. Thrush, Blackbird and Partridge, the three in the office, are now in the small dairy in a run there, enjoying more space and the occasional visit from other chickens. The incubator is back on with another dozen quail eggs – laid by my own birds, this time, rather than bought in! I had a cull of the quail flock and the ferrets enjoyed fresh whole quail cockerels, so I now have 5 hens and one roo – until the eggs hatch.

Mother Duck and her ducklings are out on the lawn in a pen and thriving on the fresh air. Hannibal is still keeping company with them, splitting his time between them, Lucy (still sitting tight on her nest) and Blondie the drake, whom he and Lucy adopted last year as a substitute-gosling. I’m hoping that Patchy Girl and Black Duck will hatch their eggs this week and we’ll see little processions of ducklings being brought home – fingers crossed!

The run that Mother Duck has been using in the feed room has been upgraded with a couple of plastic feed sacks stapled on one end as weatherproofing and now holds Nightshade and her three black kits, all happily mowing the lawn.

Finally, I had a super session with George this afternoon – a nice thorough grooming all over at liberty in the yard, followed by him lifting all four hooves politely for me! He fairly glows in the sunshine when he’s clean – a very rewarding sight for the person getting filthy brushing him that way! He’s still fascinated by the sight of me sitting on Abe – I’m toying with pushing his handling forward, letting the leading practice take a back seat for a while and moving him up to preparation for backing. He’s happy standing by the block and having me touch his back, and of course he’s accustomed to having his sweet-itch pour-on applied via me climbing up the fence next to him. I’ll try him in the roller and see if we can get him long-reining; he was close before we came here but not quite ready to walk ahead of his handler freely… maybe he’s ready now. Only one way to find out, so watch this space!

I’m not complaining – we badly need the rain to get things growing! – but it has put a stop to Abe’s ridden education for a few days. We did some groundwork instead, using the pallet with the top layer of plywood. I brought Dancer out to introduce her to the pallet, too, and the difference between Abe’s 6 year old aplomb and Dancer’s 2 year old caution is quite striking!

Every time I look at my horses I feel awed by how beautiful each of them is.

The meeps are growing steadily – Holly’s four now (mostly) have names; Paris (the silver mitt, the darker one) and Hector (sandy) for the boys, and Cassandra for the albino girl. The cinnamon girl has a possible home lined up with a very well-respected breeder down near Glasgow, so I’ll hold off naming her until that’s certain and her future guardian can pick a name for her. Yarrow has her eyes just squinting open today and is standing up, rather than crawling! Big steps forward for little people. Yarrow’s substantially smaller than Holly’s lot, which is interesting – I wonder if that’s because she didn’t have other meeps to snuggle with and keep warm in the nest, or if she’s just going to be a small ferret? Neither Holly nor Ivy are large, they’re on the smaller side for jills (though not ‘micro’ ferrets, which are tiny!) and the hobs are medium-sized, so I wouldn’t have thought they’d throw big kits… but we’ll see when they’re all grown up!

I spent Wednesday morning meep-sitting, as I decided Yarrow’s big enough now for Ivy to come out of season. My vet is only doing small animal appointments at their other surgery, not the one near me, so getting her the jill-jab would mean driving half an hour, dropping her off (without Yarrow) and coming home to wait, while the carrier was ‘queued’ inside the surgery until the vet saw her, then I’d have to go back and pick her up in the afternoon, so I decided I’d save us all the hassle and time and just popped Ajax into a spare cage while Ivy was in with Fido. Yarrow came inside the house and spent the time alternately inside my teeshirt staying warm and cuddled, and in my thinsulate beanie on top of a hot water bottle on the table gnawing her way through a lump of chicken. She seemed perfectly happy, though she’s quite opinionated and not shy of expressing herself! The dogs were enchanted and wanted to cuddle her… which I didn’t allow.

I put Ivy back in her own cage about mid afternoon, when the loving couple were briefly not attached to each other (male ferrets are enthusiastic, to put it mildly) and she lost no time in dashing into her nest. No meep! Straight back out and give the human an accusing beady stare. I fetched Yarrow out of the house and the moment I opened the cage, where Ivy was still standing in the exact spot waiting, the deprived mother was up like a rocket, straight into the hat, grabbed her precious imp and had her briskly back in the nest. A second later she was out, inspected the hat carefully to make sure there were no more (I take it ferrets can’t count) and snaffled the lump of chicken, which she put in the nest as well. I shut the cage at that point, before she decided to search my pockets or something!

Hannibal is making a perfect cake of himself at the moment. Lucy is still attached limpet-like to her nest in the barn, while Hannibal is making doe-eyes at the ducklings in the feed room! Mother Duck is not impressed. To my amusement, the other ducks are in the barn keeping Lucy company.

I’m still shooting rats at odd moments with the air pistol; I have to wait until both the rats and the horses are out, respectively, as Poppy doesn’t approve of the noise. So far I’ve accounted for about a dozen rats… reluctantly, I have to admit I’m clearly providing them with an excellent diet, as they’re big, plump and glossy-coated specimens.

Boojum, the visiting cat, was outside the gate in broad daylight the other day – unfortunately, I stepped out of the house with the dogs on the lead, so we got one brief glare before Boojum disappeared again. I keep telling her she’s welcome to all the rats and mice she wants…

We’ve had the first two eggs from the young quail and the chicks in the office now have names – they’re called Blackbird, Thrush and Partridge, because that’s what they look like right now, rather than chickens! Hopefully they’ll look more like chickens when they grow up. The next batch of eggs are just pipping in the incubator at the moment – I candled them the other day and removed three infertile ones, and last night I could hear scratching and cheeping from three of the remainder. I’m not sure about the last one… it’ll get its chance, anyway.

It feels as if I haven’t managed to achieve much today.

On the one hand, I did manage to get out to the local feed merchants and pick up critter food. I went to the chemist’s and picked up a month’s meds for both Mum and I. I’ve sourced some complete raw mince for the ferret meeps to get stuck into (meaning 80% muscle meat, 10% organ meat and 10% bone so it mimics a whole animal carcass, but minced so they can’t choke on lumps) and it arrives on Thursday evening. I’ve groomed George (he is spectacular! Chestnuts absolutely blaze in a summer sun!) and surfaced the pallet in plywood so Abe’s hooves won’t risk slipping between the planks.

On the other hand, it feels as if I could have done so much more!

I have a fully charged battery ready for the strimmer but didn’t get any strimming done. The North Paddock is still thigh-deep in nettles and the garden ground at the front is sprouting docks (as is the field). I have a freshly-charged battery for the field fence but I haven’t managed to get it out to the field to replace the discharged one (it will happen before bedtime, though – I’m not leaving that minx Dancer with a suspect fence overnight!!) I haven’t managed to do any mucking out, I haven’t cleaned out the bunnies, I haven’t managed to shift any of the flags up from the bottom of the orchard….

Most importantly I haven’t had a moment to get Abe out for any kind of work.

This is because my mother did not, as has been her habit recently, sleep all morning and half the afternoon and has spent the day trailing after me everywhere I go instead, regardless of what I say. She stands outside the bathroom door and I’ve chased her out of my bedroom several times when I’ve taken one of the computers through to put on charge. It’s as well I never take my eye off George when I’m doing anything near him, because Mum trailed out (after being specifically told three times not to come out of the house) and wandered up to the fence behind my back to see what I was doing and if she could help (!!!). This triggered George’s stranger-danger alarms and luckily I saw the head go up, the ears pin back and the mouth starting to open and skedaddled headfirst through the fence before he bit me. (I need to find some reliable person who’ll come and help me desensitise him to other people… possibly starting at the far side of the yard and slowly working closer over months.)

I bit Mum’s head off fairly sharply instead and she went back into the house. Five minutes later she came out and fed the chickens. In the wrong place. For the third time today. I threw myself through the fence again, since George and I had just barely got him settled to enjoy a little more grooming.

Mum went back into the house with a fairly savage flea in her ear from me, but when I finished up with George and retreated, Mum had gone round to the rabbits behind my back and ‘helped’ by putting food into all the cages. In fact she’d filled the hoppers to the brim (they get about an eggcup per bunny per day and she’d put in about a pound per hopper) and lost all the rain-covers I’d carefully put on. I retrieved them all, emptied the hoppers and re-fixed the covers. I’d just picked up Sage to put him back in his cage for the night when Mum, who was still under the impression I was helping her, brought the water container over and nearly brained Sage by trying to shove the container into my arms on top of him.

I’ve had to rescue the dogs from her practically every time I turn around today – if she’s not dragging them away from their food bowls because she wants them on the settee she’s dragging them off the settee to ‘tidy’ their duvet. At one point I put their leads on to take them out and she tried to drag all three of us back into the lounge by Wicket’s collar. I had to yell very loudly almost down her ear before she stopped.

The trouble is, once she’s got an idea in her head (today, anyway – it’s not always the same… one of the aggravating things about Alzheimer’s in its unpredictability) she doesn’t listen. Literally, her ears are out of circuit, turned off. She doesn’t pay any attention to any noise unless it’s massive and close to her.

I don’t like having to bellow at her furiously to get any response – particularly not around the animals, none of whom like raised voices – but it’s the only way to get through even faintly. Sometimes shouting is enough but today I had to physically grab things off her several times because, even ‘let go of the dog!’ delivered at maximum volume a foot from her ear only got a blank look and a meaningless ‘oh yes’ without her taking her fingers off the dog’s collar.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she grabbed the thick cowhide walking collars, but she invariably goes for the thin braided kangaroo leather collar that holds the dogs’ ID tags and twists it around her fingers, nearly garrotting the poor dogs. I’ve had to take those collars off them.

I hate days like this. I’d much rather she slept all day or spent her time asking for jobs and happily refolding all her laundry (even if I have to go in and sort it properly later). The days like this when she’s like a clingy, destructive toddler are the worst. These are the days when I can’t take my eye off her for a moment without gods only know what happening. I’ve noticed before that they often follow days when she’s had some kind of illness – in this case I suspect yesterday was the trigger. She refused point-blank to take off any of her four thick winter jerseys until she nearly passed out from heat exhaustion. Only then was I able to convince her to take them off and lie down in her bedroom to rest where it was cool instead of insisting on falling asleep sitting on the chair she’s most likely to fall off (wouldn’t be the first time, either!) but within ten minutes of going to her room, she was up and had put a thick woolly pully on again. I’ve disappeared the thickest of her sweaters to a box in the workshop but I can’t take all her sweaters and I can’t stop her layering them on like it’s an Arctic winter.

Fingers crossed tomorrow she’s settled back down and goes back to sleeping all morning.

I had planned on doing a short ride to the gate and back today, but decided we’d start the session with some more work reinforcing exactly where he should stand by the mounting block. I don’t want him to think I only have time for riding now, and I do want to improve his standing-by-block technique! Accordingly, we did perhaps ten or fifteen minutes work together with him getting better and better at putting my outstretched hand exactly where I want it on his back!

After that I put his saddle on and we did another few repeats, just to make sure all was well. He did so brilliantly I was inclined to stop there and call it a day on such a high note – but he had other ideas! I was just about to step down and take his saddle off but he lined himself up right against me, pushing on my legs with his side, and gave me a speaking look along his shoulder. Short of waving a placard saying ‘I want you to ride me!’ it couldn’t have been more obvious!

I obediently got myself into the saddle and we did a little bit of work together. I wanted to do something that would get him lots of treats and help him learn more, so I asked for just one step forward, clicked the moment I felt his muscles start to move under me (the bareback pad makes things so much easier to feel!) and rewarded him. After that I gently picked up a light contact on the reins and asked for ‘back’ with a tiny leg squeeze and my voice, and he considered it, then stepped back. I clicked the moment he started to bunch himself up to move, again.

The timing is quite important – clicking right as he’s made the decision and his muscles are starting to respond is more effective as a marker of ‘that’s right, spot on!!’ than later when he’s actually in motion. If he’s actually in motion, he has to wonder, was it lifting my leg, my hoof leaving the ground, stepping forward…? This way it’s crystal clear to him that the connection between leg, voice and him responding is the important thing, and he can concentrate just on that.

I also made made a start on him being cool with me leaning down in the saddle – as if to tighten the girth or open a gate – by sliding my hand down each side while reinforcing ‘stand’ and praising him for staying still. It’s a useful skill for him to have…. and it’s not something I want to teach the first time I’m trying to open a gate or tighten up a girth from the saddle!

We did a dozen or so little one-step exercises both forwards and back, by which time there weren’t many treats left in the bag, and then I dismounted and lavished him with praise (and the rest of the treats!) before removing the tack and escorting him back to the barn. He actually wanted to carry on a bit longer, so I think I quit at the right moment! He’s made firm connections now between voice, rein and leg aids both forwards and backwards, so even if we only moved a couple of yards away from the mounting block, it was an extremely good, productive schooling session.

Tomorrow we’ll do some haulage work again. I think I’ll ask him to pull the tyre up the yard, unhitch and tow it around the corner for him, then hitch him up and ask him to pull it back down. Corners can wait until a little later, when he’s more familiar with the tyre being behind him and stalking him as it does!

I also want to work on him standing on a platform. I need to put a ply surface on a pallet for this – that’ll be tomorrow morning’s job.

The last two days have been All About Abe – much to George’s disgruntlement.

Friday afternoon was the date scheduled for Lynn to come round and help me back him, so Friday morning started with long reining practice:

He was great with the long-reins, so I undressed him and let him graze in the yard for a while. After an hour or two off, we did some in-hand work at the mounting block. He often has trouble understanding exactly where I want him to stand, so I tried a new training tactic – I put my hand on the exact spot on his back which I want right by me when it’s time to mount, then reinforced that feeling for him with loads of clicks and treats. When I moved my hand off again, I stopped clicking and treating, just let my hand rest on his wither. He thought about it a bit, juggled himself back and for a little and then worked out exactly where to stand so my hand slid to that exact spot on his back – and bingo, the treat dispenser was ON! He now has it nailed completely!

He had another couple of hours off after that, and then a final session in-hand with the saddle, making sure he could transfer the feel of my hand on his bare back to the same hand on top of the pad, which he could, and doing a few final flops over his back, hand-feeding him from that position so he had to turn his head right round to reach and could see where I was. He was completely chilled about all that, so away he went to graze on the lawn with the bunnies again.

Finally, at 3pm, Lynn arrived, I caught Abe up again and we did a last little test of the hang-over-his-back, which was fine, before I scrambled (ungracefully) into the saddle (in my defence, it’s been a long time, I’ve never sat on that saddle on a horse before, I didn’t want to leap on him and make him jump and there’s no stirrups!)

He put his head up a little and slanted his ears back, but only in a mildly ‘what the heck is she doing now?’ kind of way, and waited politely for treats. He got them, of course, and lots of pats and praise! He waited while I got myself rather better arranged in the saddle, then Lynn walked him a few steps. We stopped to give him more pats, praise and treats, and so progressed in little sections around the yard before I dismounted and that was that – I’d rather have 5 good minutes than an hour of mediocre from a young horse and he was brilliant!

Today started with another very short ride – but alone, this time. He was an absolute gem and after spending a minute fussing around the mounting block, he suddenly decided he had the perfect spot and turned into a lovely statue while I mounted (slightly less ungracefully, this time!) and arranged ourselves, then I asked him to walk on. He looked slightly mulish and didn’t move. I asked again. Eventually he decided he did know what it meant and wasn’t going to be offended about me squeezing his ribs with my legs, and we were off… slowly. He’s still learning how to balance himself under me so straight lines tend to meander and corners need to be taken wide and slow, but he answers voice and rein aids well and is starting to connect the dots between ‘walk on’ and ‘leg squeeze’, which is very good on only his second ride. We walked up to the gate, turned a few very eccentric nowhere-near-circles and then walked back to the feed room, where I got off and gave him tons of praise and treats! For some reason my phone turned itself off before we got moving forward, but at least the whole performance around the mounting block has been captured for posterity! Talk about fussy Arabs…

This afternoon I tried him with something completely different – the first steps towards becoming a driving horse! Normally this is the horse learning how to drag a tyre or a plank around, and I happened to have an old tyre knocking about, so I lashed it up with some baler twine (breaks easily, just in case!) and the wooden trace spreader I made for George’s great-great-grandmother when she was learning to pull a plank, then brought Abe in after his dinner and walked him up and down and round the yard while I hauled the tyre along after me by the attached traces. He was a little worried at first – ‘this thing is stalking us, have you noticed?’ – but decided after a while that it was probably ok if I was ok, and he’d just keep me between it and him anyway. I tied him up and put his harness on, then we went and did some more of the same, with me pulling the tyre along behind us while he walked. He was completely happy about straight lines by then, though rather leery of it catching up on corners, so I buckled the traces to his collar and coaxed him gently forward one step. He’s never had to push his chest against a weight like that and after one step he stopped, concerned. Tons of praise and encouragement later, he took another step…. and another…. and towed the tyre all the way up the yard. I took the traces off there, hauled the tyre down to the bottom again and we did it again, then I took his harness off, told him what a star he is and turned him out again.

We’ll have another little ride to the gate and back tomorrow, and then drag the tyre again the day after. If I can do one or the other each day, he should make rapid strides in both disciplines – but I will keep our sessions short and end on high notes, make sure he enjoys lavish praise and loads of treats all the way.

In other news, Hannibal is now wandering the yard alone, because Lucy is clamped to her eggs in the barn. Yarrow the ferret is now eating meat – as I discovered when I picked her up this morning and she licked me, then tried to eat my hand! I gave her a piece of chicken, which she engulfed happily, then Ivy discovered I’d meep-napped her baby and carried Yarrow firmly back to the nest! She and Holly are both taking their fresh meat to their nests and putting it by the kits, which is excellent.

Nightshade’s kits are right live-wires – if I open the nest box door too wide they race around and risk falling out, and one attacked me this morning, stamped on my fingers! They have their eyes wide open and are regular miniature bunnies now, at nearly 3 weeks old.

Chicks and ducklings are all fine.