Um hi...um, it's me Caspian...and I've been tagged!

Yeah, ya know Caspian...the fancy Kuntry Arab? I'm very sorry I've been away for so long. It's just that I've been doing a lot of rolling in the mud and Kuntry Girl says I can't come in and use the computer when I'm filthy. And darn it all if I don't go roll and get dirty all over again as soon as she cleans me up. So it's really my fault...I guess I can't blame her. I mean, who wants muddy hoofprints all through their house?

Anyway, I snuck in here to do a quick post 'cause I heard a rumor that I was tagged by Kacy over all All Horse Stuff. She totally called me out on my absentness. ;)

So here goes...here are the rules

Answer the following questions with single word (um...I modified that...I'm have too much to say to restrict myself to one word...feel free to do the same. New rule) answers, then pass this along to 5 other bloggers.

Make sure to link back to the person who tagged you( Kacy), and be sure you let those you tagged know about it.

Your Cell Phone? My what?
Your Hair? Glorious
Your Mother? Wa Easter Spirit
Your Father? Wa Rouge Elite
Your Favorite Food? My hangin' ball
Your Dream Last Night? My hangin' ball
Your Favorite Drink? Water
Your Dream/Goal? To get to the other side of my fence where there's better grass
Where Are You ? In Kuntry Girl's computer room
Your Hobby? Mischief
Your Fear? My Shadow!
Where Do You See Yourself In Six Years? Hopefully toting around a mini Kuntry Girl
Where Were You Last Night? In my barn
Something That You Aren't? Boring
Muffins? Yes please!
Wish List Item? A truck and a chariot so Kuntry Girl can take me places
Where Did You Grow Up? A few places...Kuntry Girl's place is my favorite by far!
Last Thing You Did? Tried on my new saddle and gave Kuntry Girl a goodnight kiss
What Are You Wearing? My birthday suit!...and a little mud
Your TV? (Equine version- YOUR ENTERTAINMENT?) My hangin' ball
Your Pets? You mean my bird friends? Love 'em!
Friends? Just two-legged ones right now...working on getting me a four-legged friend!
Your Life? Content
Your Mood? Feisty
Missing Someone? Nope
Vehicle? Please see above wish list item
Something You Aren't Wearing? My blanket...shook that thing a few weeks ago
Your Favorite Store? Wherever Kuntry Girl gets my hangin' balls
Your Favorite Color? RED
When Was The Last Time You Laughed? Well...if horses laugh then probably the last time I was showin' off
Last Time You Cried? I. DON'T.CRY I'm a grown gelding.
Your Best Friend? Kuntry Girl
One Place You Go To Over And Over Again? My barn
Facebook? No
Twitter? No - I can barely keep up my blog!!
Favorite Place To Eat? The other side of the fence

Phew! Made it down the list without Kuntry Girl catching me! I better get galloping on outta here!

But first...I tag:

Patches
Pony Girl
Paint Girl
Trail Boss Hoss
Amanda (Mud Maps)

Talk you y'all soon! Promise! Nicker, nicker, air paw!

Trails SCHMAILS.

Hey guys! Boy, am I TIRED today. Yesterday was a tough one. But I guess it was pretty fun too. Kinda.

My Kuntry Girl and I got to go on a trail ride with some friends of ours. This was my second time on a trail ride with her and I have to say, I think I did better on the first one. But that was a whole year ago and this trail was different.

The first trail ride we ever went on was really fun and even though there were a couple of scary things like mud and posts sticking up next to the trail, that was nothin' compared to yesterday's trail!!

Here we are last year...don't I look like I'm being such a good boy? I'm even standing in WATER! That's right! Horse swallowing WATER!

Looking back at this picture, I can't BELIEVE how brave I was last year! And I didn't even know Kuntry Girl all that well then. I think I had only known her for about a month when we went on this ride! I can't believe I trusted her enough to go in that scary water for her. But I guess she was right...nothing bad happened, other than me getting my pretty feet a little muddy.

Here I am getting all ready for our ride yesterday. Since Kuntry Girl's English saddle doesn't fit me that well and she's not good enough at bareback yet (trust me) to go for a whole trail ride, her friend was nice enough to loan us this saddle. Don't I look pretty cute as a cowboy? :)

Well, I guess it's a good thing that I'm cute 'cause Kuntry Girl was not too happy with my antics on the trail, that's for sure.

I kinda think I have a good defense though. See, this was a brand new area for everyone so the girls didn't really know which trails to hit. They were gonna start out just riding along the power lines...I liked this plan, 'cause it was nice and open. Well, that only lasted so long until we came to a gate and couldn't go any further. The girls soon spotted a trail off to the side though and decided to give it a try. Well, I was not too happy with this. This trail was SCARY!!! First, we had to climb this hill that had roots and stumps and scary leaves all over. Plus, it was really dark and there were scary branches hanging over the trial. The trail was really weird too...it would go up, then dip down, then back up...and in different directions. I didn't know WHAT I was supposed to be doing or WHERE I was supposed to put my feet. I was really starting to get nervous. And sometimes, it felt like the ground was giving out from underneath me. I was not a happy horse. Thankfully, the girls put a halt to this business very quickly. But then we still had to get back out the way we came in. Oh man, I've never been so happy to see daylight and a clear path. Phew. I was so excited that I pretty much ran over the horse in front of me to get to it. I know, I know...rude, huh? I just couldn't help it though. I was FREAKED OUT. And when I'm freaked out, I'm not graceful. I'll totally admit that, ok? I'm not ashamed.

After a while of walking back up the power lines I finally calmed down a bit. The girls decided to head back a different direction and give a different trail head a try. Thankfully, this one was much better, although right at the beginning there was a log that I felt the need to (clumsily) jump over rather than lightly step over. Ugh. I tell ya...these girls had it in for me. But after that, it was pretty much ok. A few low hanging branches, some weird things in the brush, but nothing to terrible. Until we came across....the puddles. Oh, the horse-manity of it all! Why me?!

Even though I've been fine with water in the past, today was NOT the day to spring puddles on me. I tried my best to steer clear of them and in the process managed to ram Kuntry Girl's knee into a tree and then almost get her impaled on a low hanging branch. Thankfully, her shirt took the brunt of that encounter, although I did hear some curse words come out of her mouth, so I'm thinking that she might have gotten a little scratched up too. Sorry Kuntry Girl...it wasn't intentional. Despite you trying your best to remind me, I just forgot you were there!

Needless to say, after this fiasco Kuntry Girl was not too happy. But we continued to trudge along...until we came to an area that looked like there used to be a puddle there. There wasn't any water per se, but I could tell there used to be. And I just didn't like the look of that mud. Horse eating mud, it was. I'm sure of it.

Seeing her frustration with my behavior, Kuntry Girl's friend offered to hop on me. Well, I sure was in for it then. She's really good at showing horses who's boss and she finally got me through that mud. Although I still think I did my best to show her my displeasure.

As a result of this switch Kuntry Girl got to ride her friend's "Mercedes sedan" horse with the cruise control...I was a little jealous and tried my best to keep Kuntry Girl in my sights whenever they were close to us.But I was also a bit distracted by the little spitfire on my back taking the opportunity to teach me a thing or two about how to act on a trail. At one point that little buger even dismounted to give me a little lesson on going through the puddles.

Man, oh, man. What a day. I was SO happy to get back to my pasture, I tell ya.

But now that I've had a day to think about it, I guess it was pretty fun. I have a feeling I might be a little more comfortable next time, since I didn't, ya know...die out there yesterday.

I overheard Kuntry Girl telling her friends that she's gonna try to get some trails cut through our woods over the winter so we can work on all this together. I happen to know that there's a creek back there and I'll bet she's gonna make me go through it. Uh oh. Well, who knows...maybe it could be fun. Maybe.

Glad I amuse you Kuntry Girl...

So, Kuntry Girl and I were having a nice visit the other evening when all of a sudden she started taking tons and TONS of pictures of me. I mean everything I would do, there she was with that camera pointed at me! If I was munching hay, there she was on the ground next to me making noises to get my attention.

If I poked my head in the tack room, there she was again with that camera!Apparently she was trying to get some good shots for this week's Sunday Stills challenge. What-ever. I actually do like getting my picture taken usually...especially when I feel like showing off. But this day I just wanted my dinner!!

Even when she was nice and gave me an apple, she had ulterior motives and then spent the next five minutes laughing at me and making fun of my "apple-flavored" lipstick. Do I look amused at this?

Here she got a picture of me with what is sometimes my worst enemy...my own shadow! I swear, sometimes this thing just freaks me out!! Take a look at this next picture and you will probably understand why.
I mean, is that a goofy lookin' shadow or what?!

Next, she started taking a bunch of pictures of my tail...I don't really know what the big deal about my tail is, but she spent about a half hour taking pictures of it while I munched on my dinner. Doesn't she have anything better to do?! I felt like sayin', "Hey Kuntry Girl...don't you have some poop to pick up or somethin'? Buzz off!" I really like to eat my dinner in peace but that NEVER happens with her around. She's always messin' with me in some way or another.

Oh, well...I think she was happy with her tail pics...she was saying something about how the light was shining through it...yada, yada, yada. I was only half listening to her. After all, I am a dude. I can only listen to her yakking for so long before I have to tune her out.

She was all excited about this picture. She was waiting and waiting for me to swoosh my tail and when I finally did that was all it took to get her outta there. If I would have known that's what she was looking for, I would've done it right away so I could eat in peace! Well, maybe she did say something about it, now that I think back on it...maybe I should have been paying more attention to her yakking!
She just couldn't figure out which one she liked better though...color or black and white? I think she wants to put it in a collage or something. I say we put it to a vote...what do you guys think? :)

A ham, a ham, a ham I AM!!

Well, you may have read on my Kuntry Girl's website that we were in a show last weekend! That's right! I am a show horse! I had a really fun time at this show, although there were some scary moments. As the show went on though, I started to realize that it was fun being around other horses and horsey people. Especially when they were telling my mom how pretty I am. I just love people attention.

Pretty much the whole show was fun, but the BEST part was at the very end. Kuntry Girl took me into this "Bribe Your Horse" class. Participating in this class combined two of my most favorite things in the world...treats and being the center of attention.

I guess I'll let you know first what I was supposed to do in this class and then I will show you what I decided to do (they're two very different things).

The object of this class was for me to follow Kuntry Girl through a little obstacle course. It started with two orange cones. As soon as we reached the orange cones, she was supposed to let me loose and get me to follow her through the rest of the course, which would involve passing through two barrels, bending around a pole, passing back through the barrels and then crossing the finish line (the orange cones). The tricky part is that I was supposed to follow Kuntry Girl without her touching me. If she touched me we would get disqualified.

Now, would you like me to show you what actually happened?

Here we are ready to get started. I look pretty calm, right? Well, it's just a front. I just wanted Kuntry Girl to think I was so I could be sure she would take me in this class. In my head I knew that this was my opportunity to kick up my heels.

Unfortunately for Kuntry Girl, it didn't take me long to figure out that I had an audience...

My show-off gene started to kick in right about now...

And SCREECH! I took a hard right and left Kuntry Girl in the dust! (Like always)

She got me back on track, but only for a quick second...

And then I was off again! This time with a hard left! I gotta keep her guessing you know!

I decided to scope out the people at the rail, mostly to give 'em all a chance to get up close and personal with me.This lady didn't have any treats though, so I was off again!

Shoot! She lured me in again!

I am a sucker for a peppermint treat!

Darn it. Yep, she's got me good now. Looks like my fun's over. Look how much I crack her up though! I know she thought this was waaayyy more fun than that silly obstacle course!

Yep, fun's definitely over. I think I put on a pretty good show for everyone though!

Since my Kuntry Girl loves me so much, she still gave me treats, even though I did get us DQ'd. I can't wait 'till next year's show! Maybe she'll forget all about it and I can trick her into entering us again!

I'm starting to get it...

Hello everyone! I'm signing in to tell you that Kuntry Girl and I have really had a breakthrough! Remember last post where I told you that I've been a little bit of a buger? Well, I kinda decided to get over myself. I know, I know...I talked a big game last time. That's because I was pretty convinced that I should be the boss of this herd. Secretly though, way deep down, I kinda wanted Kuntry Girl to take charge. I feel a lot better when I know exactly what I'm supposed to do and when someone is firm with me. I'm still learning, so I need a lot of patience, but also someone who will stand their ground.

Kuntry Girl has been working really hard on this and in the last couple of weeks, the dynamic of our relationship has started to shift a little. She seems to be feeling a little more confident in herself, which makes me feel a lot more comfortable. She's been trying to be really clear about what she wants me to do, which makes it a lot easier for me to figure it out. She hasn't been putting up with any of my funny business either. For example, if we're lunging and I decide that I've had enough and try to turn in, she's gotten really quick about swooshing me back out. I'm starting to learn that it's a lot easier to keep going and listen to what she's telling me to do than to deal with her throwing that line out at me.

I'm really proud of my progress. I can now walk, trot, and canter pretty confidently in both directions. We've also been long lining, which is really fun. I like to see Kuntry Girl walking behind me (she stays to the side so I can see her). A couple of days ago, we even worked on trotting on the long lines, with direction changes and everything! We also worked on walking past the sprinkler in my pasture. I really didn't like this, but after a few attempts, I walked past it like a good boy.

If we keep up our routine, I think that we'll be starting saddle work in the next week or so. I'm really excited about this. I really like to take Kuntry Girl for rides. She hasn't ridden me a whole lot, just a couple of times when she first got me. See, I do have some saddle training; I had been under saddle about 7 or so times when she got me. However, she felt that it was important to really get a good foundation with our ground work before doing too much in the saddle.

There's a horse show coming up in a few weeks that she wants to take me to, so we gotta keep up this work so we can be prepared! It's a very relaxed show I think; it's being put on as a fundraiser for a local horse rescue organization, so I don't think there will be a lot of pressure. However, I think Kuntry Girl really wants to make sure I will mind my manners. I was in this show last year and behaved really well, so I don't think she has much to worry about.

One other thing that I'm proud of myself for is getting used to water. Just a couple of weeks ago, I thought that skinny thing with water coming out of it was going to eat me alive!!! Finally, one day my trainer though showed me that it's not all that bad and Kuntry Girl has been working on it with me since then. I even kinda like it on my face, especially when it's hot out! I kinda act like I don't like it, but I will put my muzzle in the water and then lick my lips. I like how it feels nice and cool.

Well, I think that's it for now! Just had to give you guys an update and tell you that I've decided against a mutiny. But, as always, Kuntry Girl better stay on her toes!!

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

...that's what my Kuntry Girl wants from me...

Well, here I am signing in to let you all know that I've been a bit of a pill lately. Kuntry Girl says I need to come clean.

See, it's like this. My Kuntry Girl, well, she's re-he-he-he-heally uncoordinated sometimes. And frankly, I just don't have the patience for it. I've got better things to be doing than to be running around her in a circle while she tries to figure out which hand she's swooshing me with and which hand she's keeping my head steady with. Never mind what she's doing with her feet. Ugh...it's embarassing sometimes. So I've been getting a little annoyed and since I'm really smart I take full advantage of the opportunity whenever she lets her guard down or gets distracted...even if it's just for a milisecond. See, I'm working on showing her that I'm the boss and this is the perfect opportunity for me to do so. Unfortunately, she doesn't "get it" yet. And she's starting to get quicker about correcting me. Uh, oh. I can feel the winds of change blowing. And I think it has something to do with Kuntry Girl's ace up her sleeve. A little ace we like to call "Trainer Jamie". She says that I've "got Kuntry Girl's number" and that she better act quickly to remind me that she's the boss. I really like Trainer Jamie and I do pretty much anything she asks me without giving her much fuss. But keep in mind, she's a lot more confident than Kuntry Girl and a whole heck of a lot more coordinated. The only trouble is, I think she's starting to rub off on Kuntry Girl.

Well, I'll tell you this. I'm not going down without a fight. If you don't hear from me for awhile, it's because I'm staging a revolt. But I'll try to keep ya posted.

Till next time,

Yesterday I got in trouble...

...but today I redeemed myself.

Yesterday, when country girl was workin' with me I wasn't really feeling like behaving. Well, actually I started out behaving pretty well...I walked and trotted in both directions without any problems. But then she started making this kissing noise at me. I think I remember that when someone does that I'm supposed to go into a canter. But I don't think I've ever done that on a lunge line. I didn't really know what I was supposed to do so I started to act up a little.

Also, I really just wanted to go eat. Even though Kuntry Girl had given me a snack earlier, I really think that I should get fed every time she comes out to see me. Anyway, even though I was giving her trouble with cantering, she insisted that I walk and trot again in each direction. Aw, man...I was ready to be done...and I thought I had made that clear to her. I guess she was just trying to show me that I need to listen to her.

Anyway, our session finally came to an end and I was just ready to get outta there! As soon as Kuntry Girl reached for the buckle on my halter I took off like a bottle rocket, back towards my shed. Now, Kuntry Girl could have put up a barrier so that I couldn't get out of the arena, but she says she wants me to learn to work politely even with the temptation of it being open. So needless to say, I was on a fast track outta there. There was only one problem...I still had my halter on and now this rope thing was chasing me!!! This thing was really scary, so I started running as fast as I possibly could to get away from it. But it wouldn't go away! I got a few good laps in, behind my shed, back to the arena and I still couldn't lose it! Well, now I was really starting to freak. Thankfully, my Kuntry Girl knows what calms me down and she quickly fetched a bucket of oats. I pranced back and forth a little bit more, but finally settled down enough to let her take off the lunge line and halter.

Then, she just stood there with me while I ate. I was shaking and breathing really hard. I'm really glad she didn't yell at me or anything because I already felt bad enough. She let me calm down for a little while and then showed me the lunge line. She calmly dragged it around my feet and put it on my butt and stuff and that didn't bother me at all. I mean, I really don't mind that thing...as long as it's not chasing me.

Needless to say, Kuntry Girl was a little disappointed with this situation. However, she didn't lose faith in me and today we worked on this again. This time, she was more focused on the "release from lunging" than the workout itself. She sent me in both directions, but only for a few minutes each. Then, she very calmly walked up to me and reached for my halter. She left one hand on my face, but the other was holding the clip for the lunge line open, just in case. She talked to me really quietly and calmly. Then she released the lunge line, but left my halter on. She wasn't sure what to expect, but I stood there quietly. For doing that, I got LOTS of praise. She rubbed my neck really good and told me what a good boy I am.

I really like to make Kuntry Girl happy, so this made me feel really good. Then, she slowly took my halter off. Again, I just stood there calmly and again I got lots and lots of love. I put my head down low and just enjoyed all this attention. I was really trying my hardest to be as calm as possible. I must have been really focused on being good, because Kuntry Girl noticed that I was licking my lips, which she thinks means that I'm making some sort of connection with our training. I'm glad that I can give her that sign, since I can't actually talk to her.

After all this, we calmly walked together back to my shed where I got a really good brushin' and then I even got some baby carrots...my favorite!

After yesterday, I think we were both really happy with how today went.

We'll see what I feel like acting like next time though! She better stay on her toes!

Ya can't win 'em all,