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Well, partially things aren't so well with my own (human) family so that has been taking up some non-ranch time, but I'm happy to report that Badger had a very good (and occasionally exciting! Argh!) month of May for himself.
I came back to California at the beginning of May, and oddly Bakersfield was still kind of cool and breezy, and had some rain. Normally around this time of year I've already unpacked the tanktops and shorts and am still wilting, so returning to windy, drizzly Bako really weirded me out. Apparently Badger decided this was pretty strange too, because one lovely morning just a couple days after I came home (May 8 to be exact) I got a phone call at ~9AM from the ranch owner.
...Somehow Badger had broken out of his steel pipe-frame stall overnight and was gleefully running around the ranch, and had fixated himself on Zena, a plump black TWH? mare at one end of a row of stalls. Badger truly loves being a ladies' man, I guess. He'd given her a couple love bites and nipped Rowdy, her neighbor, on the nose too. Badger had decided Zena was HIS girlfriend and he did not take kindly to being caught and put back in his hastily-repaired stall. In fact, he was still pretty wound up, calling for her and prancing back and forth. Tracy was pretty concerned since he hadn't touched his hay or water since they put him away and so I shot out the door, flooring it all the way to the ranch. I think the trip normally takes me 20-30 minutes...that morning I don't think it took quite 15. Eep.
As expected, when I got there he was still pacing back and forth, shouting and making all kinds of snorty noises in the general direction of Zena and the other horses. Ah, another learning experience...I get to distract him by chasing him around his pen some and then putting his halter on and grooming him to calm him down. Worked like a charm, though...after a while he stopped being twitchy and settled down to enjoy the brushing. After leading him in a few circles and "back up" steps, he started glancing at the feed bucket (where the senior feed and cookies go) so I led him to it. Tentative snuffles, and then some mouthfuls, and inwardly I was cheering as outwardly I very calmly tugged his head back and removed the halter. He went right back to eating every last bit of the tasty bucket, then immediately went for the hay. Here's a photo of him and the busted stall wall:
Later Tracy told me that they'd figured out how the escape had happened...apparently he was scratching his head on the bars, and had stuck his head through the bars and LIFTED the panel, which pulled the pin right out of the hinge. They'd only figured this out because one of the guys there saw him attempt to do it a second time...so after that, he'd gotten a bit of a rep for Houdini-esque tendencies. Darn smart horses!
The 18th was Badger's first day we put a saddle on him. Humorously, he looked incredibly bored with the whole thing. But as Tracy put it, better to be safe and move slowly than push too much on him all at once. :) So for that week and the next, I'd just tack him up, walk him all over the ranch, and then take everything off and put it away.
He really cracked me up the first time I took the saddle OFF, though. He just turned his head to look back at me while I was removing the saddle as if to say, hey wait a minute...you forgot to get ON me.
In the middle of all that, the 22nd was the big summer fundraiser for Bit-O-Heaven! Lots of people showed up, and I donated some My Little Ponies to the raffle prize pile. Noticed there were a lot of kids who showed up, so that was really nice...I think they liked having things they could win for themselves too. Cutest thing was I overheard one little boy say "I wanna win this for my sister" as he put some tickets in for one of the MLP gift baskets.
Badger was less than thrilled with the whole ordeal, especially because the live band's idiot bus driver decided to honk his freakin' bus horn really loudly RIGHT NEXT TO the horses' stalls while driving the equipment and the band in. Badger unfortunately is at the end of that row so of course he gets the biggest blast of it! (I was ready to give a big blast of something to that driver right then, argh) Thankfully Badger does tend to keep his head and all he did was wheel and spin in place, but after that he was pacing his stall a bit trying to keep a watchful eye out at all the goings-on.
Of course, he did have a change of heart as all the little kids started showing up to purchase $1 bags of baby carrots to feed the horses. Being on the end stall closest to the arena has its perks too.
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, mostly because I was out of town with my fiance in a hospital in Santa Barbara. I was finally able to go back to visit Badger on the 28th, and by the time I'd gotten there the wind was starting to pick up again. (What IS it with this wacky weather, Bakersfield?) Figuring it wasn't SO windy, I thought I'd let him get out and stretch his legs since I wasn't sure if he'd gotten much turnout time while I was gone. I think between the breeze and being cooped up, rolling around felt *extra* good that day:
The downside of feeling so perky was another surprise and a new experience for me...not one I'd like to experience again, thanks! I don't know whether I forgot to latch the turnout gate or if I'd just done it wrong, but while I was cleaning his stalls I heard Badger whinny really excitedly and I saw him running, galloping at full stretch...and did a doubletake. From far away I couldn't be sure...but was he on the inside of that fence or not?!
Yep, he'd gotten out of the turnout, and so after closing the main gate Tracy and I got on the golf cart to chase him down. Excited from all the action, he was taking the opportunity to meet 'n' greet all the horses he normally just saw in passing (which thankfully meant he had no inclination to attempt to leave the ranch). Of course, now that he was out, he didn't want to give up this opportunity...as well-behaved as he normally is, this time he didn't want to stand still for the halter and ran off...though only as far as the next group of stalls.
Shortly, he trapped himself between two rows of stalls and we were able to box him in, get him haltered and put away. He was fine (aside from having cemented his reputation as a ranch Houdini and a rascal on top of that), but being that I had worn new boots I was trying to break in (figuring it was just going to be a short cleanup visit before Saturday) I ended up with two HUGE blisters, one for each heel. ARRGH.
Still, I was determined to go the following day (Saturday 29) to try him out on a bit and bridle, and get someone on him. So, shoving bandaged feet into broken-in, NON-blistering boots, off I went!
I was going to wait for one of the other gals to get on first, but I said to heck with it and we got out a bareback pad for him. This was my first experience getting on a horse with a bareback pad instead of a saddle, and Badger being so tall (and my blistered heels not wanting me to bend in boots) made it an embarrassingly awkward experience on top of that. After a couple of aborted attempts in which I didn't quite jump high enough to make it over his back (feeling like a sack of flour slung across his back), I made one more final heave-ho jump and I was on!
Badger mostly just stood there for all of this, though when he realized my voice was coming from on top of him instead of being in front or beside him, he had to turn his head to look back at me. Yes Badger, it's still me, just in a different location. I was thrilled just to walk him in a few circles and then hop off. Felt like a monumental milestone! (Outwardly I'm sure it just looked like an ol' brown horse plodding along.)
June is looking like it's finally going to solidly warm up, though at this rate it will probably transition overnight from cool to blazing hot again. Gah. Hopefully more updates to come soon. :)
