Happy Holidays!

Still Here

Yes, I know.  I am so far behind on posting, it’s not funny.

First off, we all survived Sandy relatively unscathed.  The storm hit land at the right place and time for our area and we ended up only experiencing some moderately heavy winds (~45-60 mph) and lots of rain.  There really wasn’t any flooding, but the ditches are still full and the yard is still super soggy.  Saturday is supposed to be the first chance at a dry day.

 

 

A new job.  A new schedule.  A lot of adjustment. 

Getting home later and getting dark earlier, I can’t work with The Boys as intensely as before, but we are still working on little things until the longer days are here again.

 

Haltering is no big deal for any of The Boys anymore.  Staking them out in various parts of the yard:  Old hat.  The only thing I have to be careful about here is making sure that Indiana always gets taken out in the middle – he does not like to be left by himself.  As long as he knows where either Harry or Dalai is, he’s fine.  Otherwise, he gets pretty anxious.  That will have to be something we’ll have to work on once the nice weather returns. The other guys don’t care if they are staked out by themselves for a bit until everyone else arrives.

Touching all over – including their heads – no problem while they are haltered… we’re working on that while they are loose in their field.  Indiana and Harry are pretty good about it – Dalai is still a little skittish in that department.  No problem checking their front feet… we’re working on the back feet now.

 

 

When I couldn’t rely on just grass for them to eat, I quickly learned that I needed to employ the same feeding method I had to use with The Ladies with their treats to keep the peace:  Everyone needs their own pile.  As long as no one has to share, everyone seems happy.  Even if someone decides that another pile looks better, that’s OK, because the one being pushed out still has an unattended pile they can claim. 

At first I had to keep the piles pretty spread out, but now The Boys have no problem eating right next to each other.  As long as they each have their own pile    They don’t really care about anyone else’s pile anymore.

We had a couple field trips planned since we went to the Erie County Forest, but the weather did not cooperate on either occasion, so we never got out.  With hunting season in full swing, I think that we will wait before we plan any more field trips.

 

Wordless Wednesday

Field Trip – Erie County Forest

So a couple weeks after our adventure in Batavia, we took a field trip to the Erie County Forest.  They have horse trails there… and where horse trails are, llamas are allowed to go 

What interested me most about this field trip was the fact that the forest contains streams, wooden bridges and covered wooden bridges – all things I want The Boys to not think twice about should they encounter them in the future.

To accomplish these goals, I enlisted the help of my sister and my friend Terry: one set of hands for each llama.  Unfortunately during the actual training times, we were all too busy to take pictures 

 

 

 

The trails in the forest were great and it was a very enjoyable afternoon.  The first obstacle we came to was the wooden bridge.  I have to admit that we spent a lot of time there…The only one to make it successfully over the bridge was Harry.  I guess I’m going to be able to bribe him to do anything    And just as before, once he went over the first time, there was no problem after that.

 

 

Indiana and Dalai just would not cross.  Both went onto the bridge, but once we hit the point where the bridge was actually going over the streambed (there wasn’t any water flowing underneath), they refused to go any further.  Between the three of us, no pushing, pulling, poking, prodding or bribery would get them to want to cross.  Indiana kept looking over the railing.  Maybe he’s afraid of heights?  I’m thinking that when I go back with him, the strategy to use is to distract him so he just looks straight ahead and not let him look down.  We’ll see how that goes…

 

 

 

Not far from the bridge was a stream that we could walk across.  The Boys did well here.  Indiana just plodded through, exactly like he was supposed to.  Harry and Dalai tried jumping over at first, but quickly learned that they needed to walk through the water, not over it.  I had wet soggy feet the rest of the afternoon to prove it 

 

 

We spent a couple hours exploring the trails and stopped for a little something to eat before heading back to the parking lot.  While we were eating, a hiker passed by us – The Boys behaved like perfect gentlemen 

 

 

On the way back, we decided to try the bridge one more time, but the results were the same.  I’m going to have to bite the bullet and come back with Indiana and Dalai one at a time and just work with them until they get it.

 

 

All in all, it was still an enjoyable afternoon and I do feel like we did accomplish something…  I can’t wait until the day when they will start carrying our stuff.  I have to save up for the saddles, so it may be a little while 

 

 

Ready to head home!

Washed Up

I would really like to think that my Boys really liked the rain we had today and found it very refreshing instead of thinking that they weren’t smart enough to stay inside where it was dry.