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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Today was a good day.

What a wonderful day.

A lady from the BLM in Virginia called and told me I was the highest bidder and did I want him. Duh! She asked me when I was going to pick him up and I told her they had a special going on in Burns, free shipping through August!

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I then called the BLM down in Burns and told the man who answered the phone I'd successfully bid on a horse from their corrals. He asked me where I was at to see if I qualified for the 400 mile radius free shipping offer. When I told him I was in Odessa he asked me if I was the one they bought another colt to in April and I told him I was. He remembered me and Wildairo and asked me how he was doing. I told him Wildairo was halter broke and leading like a champ, in fact he was so nice I wanted another one. I didn't mention the beer drinking incident. I said maybe Wildairo and #7915 know each other because they were from the same herd, he laughed and said maybe they were cousins. I was so grateful to them yet he thanked me for adopting #7915. He said it might be awhile before they bring my new horse up here because they will wait till they have a load. I'm going to mail his halter and lead rope down there so they can put it on before he leaves.

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He sounded like a very nice man. When I adopted Wildairo I couldn't walk and I think they may have been a bit concerned because one of the BLM guys, it might have been him, tried to talk me in to adopting a already gentled mare. I wanted a wild one though because I really wanted to gentle him myself and to know I did it. It's been a really incredible experience and I can't wait to try it again with our new boy. Because what I did before seemed to work so well I'm going to do the same thing again.

To gentle Wildairo I put him in a small pen and sat with him for hours by the gate. I brought him fresh alfalfa and grass I picked in the meadow. I used to play with his lead rope through the gate, giving it little pulls making a fuss of him the whole time. Oh, and the bamboo pole bit. I touched him all over with the bamboo pole and he just loved it. I wonder how it will work with another horse.

Today I went in Wildairo's corral with a grocery sack that had cut up apples and baby carrots in it. He does his head bobbing to beg for treats and we find it very endearing. He put his nose inside the plastic sack look for the treats. I even held the sack up above his head and let the wind fill it like a balloon, while feeding him his treats. He's OK with anything done slowly and in full view but I do notice he startles easier than a domestically raised horse still and will start to swing his back end around to defend himself. He's never done that with me but Brad's startled him a few times. He is a lot better than he was and I don't see this being an on going issue with him. He doesn't trust strangers though so I'm a bit worried how he'll react to the farrier. He needs his feet trimmed. I notice Foxsun trims his own feet. Fox and the girls have to walk about a mile over hard trails to get to where they like to graze, so his feet look good.

I can't believe I'm going to have three horses, wow! A Morgan and two Mustangs. My Morgan's pedigree goes back about 225 years, I knew all about his parents and bought him based on his parents wonderful attributes. All I know about these Mustangs parents is they met and fell in love the old fashioned way.

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