Field Frolicks

I got great news when I got to the barn on friday evening. My good friend L, who has been so great in helping me with Kika exitedly informed me that the fields were being opened a day early and that we could all let them loose on Saturday the 30th of April. Cue an impromptu visit to the Yard Owner's house (he lives on the property) as I didn't knwo what field Kika was being put into and/or with whom. Found out that she was going in a "new"(ly) made paddock with 4-5 other horses. The good news was that two of the horses were the yard owners own, so we arranged to put them out at 10am the following morning.
So I went home all excited and plotting and scheming ways to knock some spat off of Kika before she was due to go out the following morning.
I know from past experiences that she has an unhealthy indeferrent attitude to electric tape and she the mood takes her is quite capable of going through it as if it is not there and pulsing with high voltage! *rolleyes*
My POA (Plan Of Action) was to be at the barn shortly after 9am, put her in the walker for a few minutes while i checked out the field, lunge her (mostly cantering as that's where she does most of her messing), then loose lunge her in the small arena (again prone to messing in canter - i mean speed building buckaroo type stuff) and then take her out to the field where she'd hopefully have had enough running to not do too much when turned loose.
Thankfully all went to plan, bar the messing she was supposed to do while lungeing! Of course, yesetrday morning she couldn't be bothered teehee! But she still got a good 5 minutes uniterrupted cantering on each rein and some more loose cantering in the small arena. At 10am off we trecked up to "her" field, i figured i'd hold her grazing until the owners showed up with their two horses to let them loose together. After 25mins, i figured they weren'tcoming so walked back down to the yard to suss out the situation.
Turned out there had been a bit of a change of plan and her field companions had changed over night. There was now only going to be four of them on the field (good news = more grazing per horse, ;) ) and better news was that that one of them is the horse of another friend (Cl) who K was used to grazing with and seeing on a daily basis as she's one of the "late" barn going crowd - those of us who are alwyas there late in the evenings nattering, teehee! Other good news was that L's mare (the other fiery red head mare) is in the neighbouring field. *dance*
So to cut a long story short (admittedly my waffling never is short), Kika got out yesterday a day earlier than planned. Of course she had to prove all my fears and worrying wrong by behaving well and not busting through wire! Unfortunately she and a pony mare were out together about 30-45mins before Cl's gelding was added to the mix, in K's mind that was more than enough time to establish her as leader of the pack and as such the pony mare was her property! Poor ould E (Cl's horse) doesn't get a look in and is continously being chased away by K. Another gelding was due to join them today, but unfortunately injured himself in the box while travelling from his retirement field to our barn for the summer (his owner has other horses at our barn), so I am not sure when he'll be joining our group - but he'll then be able to be a buddy for E and another poor unfortunate that I have no doubt K will be hounding once she comes into season!

For the first few nights we all wanted to keep bringing them in and ration the grass intake to begin with in the hopes of minizing illnesses related to too much grass intake after not really having had any since October (2010) although Kika, O and E have all been hand grazed for a few weeks by us, and actually on the bit of land that has now been made their paddock - ironically, ;)
In light of this we decided to bring the beasties back in at about 3-3.30pm (was about 10.45-11ish) when they went out. Wouldn't you know at 3pm, Miss Kika was at the gate (two strands of wire across the entrance/exit gap) stomping her front foot like a petulant child demanding to be brought back in. Thankfully (in this case) unlike the time limited paddocks, this field doesn't have a metal gate which K used to thoroughly enjoy hammering/kicking/stamping when she'd decided it was time to go back to the stable last summer. The Pampered Princess is in for a rude awakening when she realises that from wednesday morning on, she is not coming back in until the end of october - hahaha!

Right now after all that waffle, i did get some pictures!
So if you read all the above, here (hopefully) is your reward! As always (recently) these were taken on my phone, so please excuse the quality/lack of zoom. Hopefully they're not too small!

Yippeeeee! (Link to see photo larger)

O (L's mare is on the left in the neighbouring field), D (in the middle) and Kika on the right having a blast!
(Click here for larger image)

Kika and "her" pony mare D (gorgeous hafflinger)
(Click here to see larger photo)

O (on the left), Kika (in the middle) and D (on the right)
(Click here to see larger photo)

(Click here for larger image)

Happily Grazing
(Click here for larger image)

The face that greeted me - the "I'm ready to go back in now" look! (E the exile in the background)
(Click here for larger image)

And lastly a headshot, just because! ;)
(I think this one's clear enough not to need a larger image - if anyone want's to see it bigger, I'm more than happy to link it in! Teehee )