Cloudy Skies Equestrian

01/15/2024

Grabbing some turnout while it was warm and snowy. Anticipating some 🥶 weather this week!

01/07/2024

Mr. Mocha in his new blanket

06/03/2023

05/16/2023

I don’t quite have the words for this yet, but Bruce was euthanized and laid to rest in his favorite field, by the best shade tree.
Bruce was never supposed to stay long, he was a flip found on Craigslist in Texas, but I fell in love with him the first time I sat on him. I haven’t loved a pony like this since Cloudy, and I don’t know that I ever will. Bruce made my daughter the rider she is, probably a lot of the person she is. He was the first pony for so many kids, and the pony who is in our logo. He will forever be in my heart.
Hug your ponies tight.

05/08/2023

Guardians of the Pasture. Bruce, Susie, and Donkey are the cutest intruder alert system ever.

04/22/2023

Minnow and the old men 💕 Ben and Mocha looking like they’re aging in reverse

02/19/2023

Enjoying some warm weather

01/10/2023

I don’t share enough photos these days in general, but meet one of our three nearly identical barn cats (mother and two kittens rescued by lovely folks across the county from behind a dumpster, now happily patrolling the Cloudy Skies property)

12/25/2022

And to all a goodnight.

12/24/2022

Some 20* turnout time

11/18/2022

Winter boys

11/02/2022

In riding terms, the word “aids” refers to a system of communication between horse and rider.

Now, to get into and endless and unwinnable argument, try to explain WHAT aids are better to use than some other aids---That said, some aids are intrinsically gentler and less forceful than others.

If we are teaching downward transitions, and we walk calmly, sit up, take a bit more rein contact, say “whoa,” and release contact when the horse stops, and we repeat this sequence over days and weeks, gradually the horse will begin to associate our signals with his response, which is to stop. Conditioned response to non pain inducing aids.

Or, we can take a double twisted wire bit, like this pictured here, specifically designed to cause pain, and we can jerk on the reins to FORCE him to stop. He stops because it hurts too much to keep going.

And there are riders who understand this, and there still are riders who don’t, even in this age of highly available information.

Force, drugging, leverage devices like draw reins, sharp bits, endless lunging, withholding of water, all these adversarial methods should have gone away as education became more easily accessed. You almost have to work at being ignorant in the age of Google.

And despite that, all across the globe today horses will have stuff like this, and worse, stuck in their mouths, held by rough hands, by people who don’t know what they don’t know, and for many, who are proud of it.

10/16/2022

Through Ben’s ears…

10/12/2022

Fencing

09/19/2022

Another day, another pasture completed. Getting closer and closer to being a working farm again. Absolutely mind blowing that each field we fence is bigger than the entire farms they were on in south Florida.

09/14/2022

Little long ears likes ditch clearing so much I’m convinced he’s part goat.

08/27/2022

On the top of the world….

08/19/2022

Little Susie

08/08/2022

Happy ponies (who are going to require Jurassic Park style fencing with so much temptation around)

07/19/2022

Welcome home, baby girl! Thank you and for taking such good care of Minnow!

07/17/2022

07/17/2022

Might have to leave the to***co barn as is until Halloween…
Fencing is ordered! Coggins are renewed! Trailer is booked! Ponies move in next week!

06/07/2022

I am sharing some of the saddest news I’ve had to put across here in a long time. We lost our beautiful Toby last night to colic. I don’t have enough room to write about all of the lives he touched, or all of the work he put in making people better, more confident riders.
Toby was the kind of horse everyone wanted to have at their barn, understatedly handsome, a nice enough mover to take a piece of the hack locally, and a good jumper who could take a rider from trot poles to successfully showing up to 3’. He was the ultimate confidence builder, but still with a sense of humor and always trying to sneak a sly tap on your toes in when you’d brush the right spot. The guy people wanted to show in the jumpers, and the guy who a lot of my tiny kids requested for their first rides off the line. He was kind, he was good, he was handsome, and he was and is quite loved. He will be buried on-site. If you would like to donate on his behalf to any of the thoroughbred rescues, his JC name was Scar Baby and he should live on by helping others. Sorry for the rambling, still raw.

I’m going to request that any messages about Toby wait until tomorrow as we need time to grieve. Thank you.

05/08/2022

02/17/2022

Filthy fat grey ponies living their best lives
Bruce is definitely rubbing off on the formerly pristine and trim Susie

01/25/2022

Seriously the most effortlessly beautiful pony I’ve ever met. Love my Mocha Man.

01/25/2022

Ben pony taking a one second break from burying himself in the round bale

01/21/2022

Snowy Caspie ❄️😍
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