The Highline Volume 13 – Issue 21

May 27, 2018 – Volume 13 – Issue 21

Greetings everyone!

Well, the yearling steers are now turned out on Shayne’s mountain enjoying the grass, trees and their freedom. They fared well through the weighing process this week, and really are quite a nice bunch of cattle.  We had one of the Charlolais cattle (There are two that came in with this group of steers) that developed an eye infection. He was brought into the chute to be treated and Roby started working on adhering the eye patch that will protect his eye from the sun- he was rubbing the steers face to try and dry it a bit, and before you know it the steer was literally melting his head into Roby’s lap. He was thoroughly enjoying his massage.

In two days we weighed 226 cattle with a lot of help from our guests. Each day they would help us drive in the cattle from Randy’s pasture, put them through the scale one at a time, and then move them out to Shayne’s pasture.  There is a lot going on in the weighing process.  Once we get them to the corrals, they are sorted off 5-10 at a time and moved into the scale house pen. Then guests would come in to sort them one by one onto the scale. The horse and rider’s movements have to be very subtle and precise in a space as small as this, so as not to get the steers “hot and bothered”. Our goal is to make it as least stressful as possible for them. In addition to working from horseback, there are tag numbers to be called out, two separate scale gates to be worked, and weights to be recorded. Plus, we are always watching for irritated eyes, lameness and anything else that might need some TLC.

We had about half new guests and half returning guests this week. Melissa had been here before and decided it was time again. We also had a few newcomer’s to the ranch: Deb from Washington and Steve, and Mom and daughter-in-law, Joellen and

Anna who were all from California. Everyone put their heart into whatever it was they chose to do on a particular day- whether it be cattle work, arena horsemanship, or relaxing on Horseshoe lake for a fun morning of kayaking and paddle boarding. The lake was a spectacular way to end the week!

We have a bittersweet day today- We will be saying happy trails to Nina as she heads back to NY, after a two month internship. We enjoyed having her here and she made a lot of progress in her riding. Trey, from Texas, joined us this week to start his internship. He is looking to improve his horsemanship while learning more about ranch life.

He always has a smile on his face so it seems that he is pretty happy to be at the ranch!

While many of us were driving and weighing cattle, there were guests and interns studying horsemanship in the arena with Shayne. Hear from Des below all about this…

Hey it’s Des, just throwing in my two cents from the arena end of things this week!  We sure seemed to get a LOT done with our guests, interns and with our horses!

 

Carolyn and Sharon started their second horsemanship week with us and made huge changes in their personal horses.  Sharon’s horse continued to let down and got happier with her each day even through the more complicated maneuvers.  Carolyn’s horse started getting so much softer and lighter on her feet.

 

We had a couple other regulars—Catherine who is on her first week and Kathy, who stopped by to visit her horse we have here in training—and then stayed when we convinced her to ride for a few days ☺.  Both women were challenged throughout the week but both made huge strides of improvement.  Kathy was fortunate to get to watch me work Romeo horseback, get his first set of shoes, watch my second ride on him and watch as Shayne coached me through some really creative ways to get him to overcome some bad bridling experiences from his past history.  Just seeing a bridle gets Romeo very unsettled—with Shayne coaching from the sidelines, I had him coming forward to put the bridle on his own head!  I’m excited to work with him more until he truly does much of the bridling on his own.

 

Roby has been riding a client horse named Star who was a former reiner.  She has already come a LONG ways in her balance and confidence in the human.  Star’s son, Thunder (a 4-year old) is also here in training.  Although Thunder has been ridden a little bit previously, he is certainly not gentle.  Roby has been working with him on the ground to get

him to hook on, not feel the need to get tight and buck when he feels the cinches coming tight and to turn loose with his feet on the ground.  Thunder has never been trimmed before so Roby needs to make sure he’s 100% safe for Nathan the first time he gets under him.

 

Our guests and interns did LOTS of cantering this week and even worked on some lead changes.  Shayne also had some neat exercises where he would pair up an intern with a guest and they would sync up to leg yield one way or another.

 

Later in the week, Shayne had everyone go back to slow work.  He had everyone get their horses in a soft feel, then count out one foot at a time, “left, right, reach” then do the same thing backing.  Then everyone had to work on riding a perfect line in “neutral” where the horse was in neither left or right flexion in his head or body but totally straight with every step—this is much harder than you think and takes quite a bit of awareness at the slow walk.  We had to do this while backing as well.  As you might imagine, the horses LOVED this slow work because we were riding every single step in balance (to the best of our ability!)

 

With our veterans in mind this weekend, we want to Thank all who have served our

country to help protect our freedom. If you are Active duty or a Military veteran, you’ll receive 10% off of your guest rate if you reserve a 2018 week!

We hope you have a safe and fun week ahead.

Janice & Des