What To Do on A Cold Windy Day

Saturday February 9 2013

If it's a bone-chilling cold howly-wind winter day like today, you bundle up well, and carry an old holey tarp out to the horse herd, who's spent half the day spooking from Horse Eating Wind Monsters, a day I wouldn't for any reward take my chances riding a horse in this wind.

I knew some of them wouldn't be bothered - Stormy, Jose, Mac, and Finneas, each of whom I've been mounted on, ridden up to a tarp hanging on the fence, picked it up, and passed it over their necks and butts to the other side, dragged it around off their sides, and tossed the tarp back on the fence. (Don't try this at home with just anybody!)

But what would the rest of them do, including baby Luna, who gets jumpy when I gently swing a small noise-less rope around her body…?

I thought for sure there would be a few rodeos… but the horses all came up to the flapping tarp to check it out like bees to honey, led by Luna!


Jose's reaction didn't surprise me - he cared less that the tarp was there, flapping in the gusts.


You can see that while the ex-cow horse Mac is afraid of cows, he's not afraid of a potentially scary Horse-Eating Monster Tarp, even when it blows up and wraps around his face.


I was surprised the rest of the herd was just as brave as Luna.


Luna wasn't scared at all. In fact, she pinned the tarp down right away and had her way with it!


Even when the wind whipped it up off the ground and it suddenly cuddled Luna with its crackly embrace,

she wasn't scared and she stood there till Smokey spooked and took off, taking the herd with her.

I followed the herd, then led the horses further into the pasture, dragging the flapping tarp behind me, with the horses again following the tarp with interest,

and Luna was the first to eagerly approach again.


She gave the tarp what for again, showing it who was boss,


and who not to mess with on a cold and windy day in Owyhee.

Year of the Tarp

Friday March 18 2011

Can your horse handle the sight of a tarp?

What if it's flapping in the wind?


Will he walk over one?


Will he drag one? Can he pick one up?


Will he wear one?


Can you drag one over his head?

Why shouldn't he be able to do all of this with a tarp?

I decided this is the year of the tarp, where all the horses here will get tarp broke.

With some of them it's easy because they aren't worried about tarps. (They are more worried about monsters and such, which can take the shape of tiny little birds, or big scary monsters that humans can't see.)


Finneas, and Dudley (who can be afraid of wee little birds), had no problem walking over or dragging around a tarp, or being wrapped by one like twin sausages.


Today Mac picked one off the rail, drug it, had it pulled over him from one side to the other. He was eyeballing it, but with only verbal reassurance from me it didn't bother him.

Steph's older horse Rhett wanted nothing to do with a tarp, so his lesson was only to come close enough to put his nose down and snort loudly and sniff it and stand by it. Some horses are so startled by it that I just drag it around with me, pick it up and wad it up, open it up and flap it up and down in the air, far away from them just so they get used to seeing me handle it.


Stormy's friend Tex is very leery of the tarp, but when his friend Stormy walked by him wearing it, he thought that perhaps it isn't that dangerous.

The ideas is to not force any of them to do anything that will scare them, but to allow them to conquer the tarp step by step, at their own pace, with little stress.