Pacific Arabian: Fishing, Breaking horses, and Fires!

I thought weekends were for resting... Not ours, it was busy & exhausting, but fun! Friday we saddled up Zeta and took Jarrett's boys for rides, they love the horses!

The 2 yr olds checking each other out!

Friday night we went to the lake and did some fly fishing for Bluegill. While they were not horribly active it was a lot of fun and we fished until it was too dark to see.

Jarrett's first fish of the day, even holding it out that far dosn't help!

This was not the biggest of the day, but closer to it, even so those small guys are a heck of a lot of fun! This was only my second time fly fishing and Jarrett taught me the right way to do it, so I was having a blast!

A view of the lake through the smoke, most of the time visibility was only about 1/2 mile. A fire could be close and you would never know it. They have closed the Yolla Bolly wilderness because they cannot even find all of the fires out there due to the smoke. Saturday we got up and checked the fire maps and one showed the Lime fire had crested the ridge and started decending the mountain above Jarrett's cousins house, so we loaded up the chain saw and headed his way to see what was really going on. Up there the smoke was worse, you couldn't see much at all so we drove up to the top of the ridge and found no close fire. We are still not sure what the map was talking about, so we spent the rest of the day cleaning out his barn to prepare it for hay.

Sunday we had Shasta come out and ride Bailey because she is going to ride her in the Barrels at the Ruth Rodeo in August. Shasta has ridden a lot, but never on this green of a horse! We talked her through it and they both did great!

Jarrett started just lunging Bailey while Shasta sat quiet on her back, (Bailey has only been led with a rider on her back up to this point), after a few minutes Shasta started using the reins along as a supplement to what Jarrett was asking Bailey to do from the ground. Then Jarrett only held the line for saftey and Shasta had complete control. Bailey never tensed up or offered any thought of a buck.

Reining is still sticky but coming along quickly.

Monday Shasta was trotting and loping her around the yard so they even took a ride to the top of the mountain and back, only about a 5 mile ride, but apparently Bailey was perfect, no spooks and she even led for part of the trip.