100!

I have read a couple of posts lately where the author has said it was their 100th post. Which made me go to check how many posts we have and lo and behold our post count was at 99!

To commemorate this event I thought I would go through all the posts we have posted over the course of the blog with some commentary.

Enjoy a walk down the last few years of our lives!

The whole reason we started the blog - Gracie arrives!
19 September 2008

In the next month, we manage to get a halter on Gracie. She learns to be led and be handled a little (with help from the lunge whip).

Beckham turns 18!
18 October 2008

December 2008 - Gracie has her first visit from the dentist and we make progress with her training.

January 2009 - Gracie escapes and goes missing on new years day (for the first and not the only time). She manages to get herself a corneal ulcer and spends a couple of weeks in a stable. Once recovered she also gets a saddle put on her back for the first time!  Becks gets over his floating issues (finally) and Gracie has her first altercation with the float.

Locked away in the stable.

One of Gracie's New Years day injuries (after a few weeks)

Linda gets on Beckham and sorts him out

Pretty boy.

April 2008 - Gracie learns to lunge both ways.She also tries a variety of new tricks -  tries to bully people at feed time, she develops a fear of clicking electric fences and rushes past them and she starts an infuriating bad habit of throwing her head way up in the air when we slip her halter off. This took a lot of patience and reinforcement on our behalf to get her out of the haltering thing! (looking back, this is all just her trying to test everyone!)

May 2008 - Gracie has a person on her back for the first time. Just a few minutes of wandering around the small yard bareback with a halter. Other agisters hassle me to break her in properly to help with her attitude and I post a rant about how I don't think breaking in a (probably) 2 year old that is as physically immature as Gracie is the right thing to do. Gracie's rug size is 5'3". Becks gets a pair of Easyboot Edges for Lisa's birthday

POLE! Lookout!

I have an audience for her first backing.

July 2008 - Lisa falls off Gracie. Twice. Gracie's udder swellings turn up and they have stuck around to this day. She has a vet visit to have her teeth done again and to look at the lumps. The vet shrugs his shoulders and tells us they are just fatty tissue and not to worry about it. Gracie comes out on rides on the 1000 acreage behind the agistment property with us (being led from the ground or being ponied from Becks of course!!).

We don't post for a long time. Nothing in between August 2009 and Feb 2010.

March 2010 - HOWEVER so much changes. Lisa moves to 5 acres and we bring the horses home. We continue to break Gracie in and Beckham is taken on lots of trail and road rides by himself. Gracie is ponied off Becks (or led) on trail and road rides too. Life is good. For a short while.

Looking back, I can remember kissing Beckham every night and asking him to stay with me, don't leave me. I think I knew that he was winding down, that it was coming to the end. He looked pretty crappy (to me) and started to be a poor keeper again. I am so glad that I got to keep him at home with me those last few months, and that I was there when he died. I did not blog about it, I was too sad at the time. I should go finish his 'in memory' page. He died of colic, about 3 hours after I last rode him. There was no other warning than a little sweat in a strange area the day before on his rump. That was the only thing out of the ordinary.

April 2010 - Gracie continues to go well under saddle. She is by herself since Beckham died and she is starting to have an attitude adjustment towards actually wanting to be with people on terms other than her own.

May 2010 - Gracie changes from a tom thumb bit to an oval double link eggbutt snaffle and she gets a new rug - a 5'6". She also gets a babysitter, Savanna!

Again we don't blog for a long time. Gracie can now walk, trot and canter under saddle. Lisa is organising her wedding, Gracie is ridden a little bit out on the trails and Lisa has not much time to ride at all. But once the wedding is over and we return from the honeymoon, the search is on for a new horse for Lisa. A search that leads us to Allie.

First ride together!

First day at home.

Out on the trail before we got Allie.

The blog name is changed from 'Becks and Gracie' to 'Gracie and Allie'. I know. Super original.


December 2010 - Lisa and Allie get to know each other. Gracie continues to get better under saddle, goals are set, but it rains and rains and rains so not much can be done about that. Allie starts rearing under saddle, but is otherwise fun to ride. 2011 looks to be a good year from December 2010!

January 2011 - The girls escape from the paddock due to fireworks on New Years. You will note that this is Gracie's second time! We find them the next day safe and mosly sound but we will never ever leave them on NYE ever ever again. Never. Goals are partially completed and Savanna comes back to babysit the girls as they do.not.settle. after the whole traumatic NYE thing. No riding happens due to injuries and heat and rain and shit. 2011 looks like a crap year from here.

Fence down. Where ARE they?

This is what they do most of January.

This is what I do most of January.

Ewwie.

Ah, that's better. 1 month later...

February 2011 - The girls start back under saddle, have a trail ride with a friend and we borrow a float to do some float training with them. I fall off Allie for the first time (bareback) which prompts me to finally buy a saddle for her. (also, blogger is a bitch when posts get too long and there are too many photos. Sorry!)

Preeeeeety...

March 2011 - We move house! Goodbye crappy tiny caravan-like 'house'. Hello pretty fencing, stables, tack room, entertainment area, bathtub and most of all happy husband!

Ah, real fencing



Savanna thinks stables are BORING!

 April 2011 - Not much happens other than settling into the new place. We school them a little bit, just playing around. They also get their teeth done. Life is good again.

<3 this one. So cute.

Equine tooth smoke, don't breathe this!

May 2011 - We borrow a float for three days and take the girls out and about!

June 2011 - Allie's breeder sends me some foal photos. Allie and I have our first dressage lesson! We don't ride much other than that as the day is short and the rain won't go away! Chakra has her first vet visit that leads to her cancer diagnosis.

NO NO NO!

Ok, fine.

<3

July 2011 - It is cold. It is wet. It is winter and it sucks. I slice my finger tip nearly clean off and earn myself a couple of weeks out of the saddle (if I ever want my finger to look normal again). Absolutely nothing else happens.

August 2011 - Chakra is diagnosed with cancer and is given two months to live. I get very depressed about it and looking back, I think that sadness leached into the rest of my life, mostly at work. We get even more rain. How can this be?! We do manage to borrow a float again and it finally clicks to me how to reverse the bloody thing around a corner. We take the girls to a hoof trimming clinic and then on a suburban ride with friends of ours the following day. It all went off without a hitch.

We desperately need one of our own. Seriously.

Pooped after a four hour ride.

September 2011 - Spring is here! Days get longer. Rugs get lighter. The rain, however, continues. Lisa goes away with her husband for their wedding anniversary and Nat holds the fort. The ponies look pretty. We learn that Allie can jump! She also turns 5. We look forward to summer riding.

Birthday cuddles from Dad.



And from Aunty Nat!



October 2011 - Two words - Daylight savings. Can I just say, how do we survive the winter without it? We get more schooling done, we start riding out on the 'Chain-O-Ponds' loop (i.e. we ride around the block). My friend takes Allie and I for a trail ride and Allie develops a problem with getting on the float. Chakra is still enjoying life, but a bigger lump appears on her belly. The vet prescribes palliative care drugs to keep her comfy. Gracie has Natalie off with a violent rear/plunge move AND apparently this is the month for lumps on animals and vet bills because Gracie is diagnosed with sarciods and we begin treating them.

Sipping water from the bottle. Yes, really.

Sarcoids. Ugly things...

November 2011 - Chakra is put to sleep. Gracie's sarcoids start to scab up and drop off. We borrow a float again and take the girls to the local indoor and to Badgery's Creek (our old agistment) again. I have a lesson from Linda (upcoming posts!). We have 100 posts now with 24 followers. Life is looking up again after the stress and grief of Chakra's cancer. I miss her like crazy and am sad about the whole thing but there is a part of me that is relived and is ready to move on from being haunted by it.

Wow. This post took me hours. I hope you enjoyed getting up to speed!