SHE'S HOME!

I almost can't believe it, but yesterday the next step in making this whole dream a reality came true - Immy came home to live with Pangea!! This had been the plan all along, but I had been scheming and planning and dreaming for so long that it almost didn't seem like it would ever happen. I spent some time on Wednesday evening cleaning out the back of the trailer, reorganizing the tack room, and in general prepping for the blessed event, and on Thursday morning schlepped my trailer over to the other farm. I luckily scored an afternoon off of work in order to be able to get her home and settled during daylight hours, and prepped the trailer for loading. I had absolutely no idea what she would do - would she be a horrible nightmare or brilliant? I was assured that there had thus far been no problems with her loading, but you never know.

And.... she was fantastic. She stopped and snorted a few times at the ramp, which she probably has never been on before, but with a few clucks from behind, she walked right on. We closed the partition and the back door without any fuss on her part, and hooked her to the tie. She didn't move at all. Literally, not one step!

I even had to stop by the neighbor's house to throw food at her horses, and she didn't make a peep in the trailer or move even once.

Once at the farm, she continued to stand quietly even after I had lowered the ramp - long enough for me to snap a picture or two of that 257!

That tail... yikes. Tailmasta has some SERIOUS work to do. It's not good.



She was a little bargy when I first unloaded her and led her around, but that was the worst of it. I released her into the wild (or well, her new paddock) with P after a brief meeting over the fence, and as expected, all went pretty well. I normally wouldn't just toss two strangers in together like this, but both horses are extremely social and well-adjusted, and both have histories of being put out with horses they don't know and not caring at all. Immy trotted around for about 3 seconds, found the haypile, and settled in to eating. P ran her off once or twice, just to let her know who the boss was, and that was that. I got to spend a good long while watching them mill around eating while I picked their paddock clean, and mixed up grains for a few days. Imogen, for the past year, has been eating a mix of sweet feed and oats... and that just ain't gonna fly anymore. I already ditched the sweet, and am mixing oats in with her new future foodstuffs - hay pellets and a fat supplement. No hard grains here! While the fat supplement obviously has a purpose, the hay pellets are mostly just a carrier for her supplements, which will be a vitamin/mineral supplement balanced for her specific grass blend, Cosequin, a quality pre/probiotic, raspberry leaf, rosehips, and chia seed. We'll have to build up to all these new things, obviously, but she had her first taste of some of this new regime last night mixed in with her old portion of oats. She did NOT approve, and made grossed out faces for a few minutes before finally giving up and leaving the meal entirely. Thankfully, this morning she decided that she would give them another try, and cleaned her bowl. I honestly can't blame her for turning up her nose at first... she's probably never tasted a single supplement in her life!

By the end of the day yesterday, P and Immy were hanging out pretty happily together. By today, they were best friends, sharing from the same flake of hay and snuggling up together. Nothing warms my heart like seeing my two angels munching together in the twilight. Bliss... absolute bliss.

I had just enough daylight today to give Immy a quick grooming and put her loose in the roundpen for a short free lunge session. I actually had her tied while grooming, and she didn't fuss or move at all! I don't technically know if she hard ties or not, so it's all a bit of an experiment to see if she is going to set back at some point or not. She'll hard tie soon enough either way!

I was beyond impressed with her behavior. New roundpen, new facility, new friends completely out of sight, and she walked right over to that roundpen and got right to work without any muss or fuss. She took everything in stride, and didn't so much as call back to P for reassurance. (P, on the other hand, called a number of times for her!) I am just floored. This mare is a mad genius!

Tomorrow, we'll have a first - lunging on the line OUTSIDE of the roundpen, in the real arena. She's ready, but it's a big step!


And as a final note, now that the two mares are both mine and home together, I am thinking I should combine the two blogs to make one.... what do you think? It seems silly to have two separate ones now!