08.06.2025 – Crazy in Love
At this Oasis, Gandalf, our pack- and prospect saddle horse, learned how to groom an other horse (until that, he would just bite it, hold on to it and move his head up and down with the flesh between his teeth)
He is a Mustang, born and raised in captivity. He never learned healthy herd- and social behavior. Being with those two mature girls, and travelling with us, he had a lot of first times… but this first “kiss” with Gator, the lead mare, was a lifechanging one for him.
He fell in love like an insane teenager and wouldn’t leave Gator alone. Like glued to her butt… literally… going totally mad when being tied up to be saddled- or just to wait for his turn walking through the gate at a cattle guard.
His place from the beginning on, was behind the carriage, were we had a long rope going through a loop all the way to the front of the carriage, where I held it and had some limited control over his position and could react quickly when something was wrong… but that started to become a constant struggle of pushing him back because he started to push further and further forward, towards the mares. They started to react to his “pressure” from the back and travelling became stressful for all of us. I was fighting Gandalf to stay back, that was getting the mares nervous, Peer was struggeling to keep the Girls in line who were constantly stressed and getting mad over every fly and scared of every noise…
The good thing is: the roads were so much better now, we could trot a lot, that also helped to get everyone focused on their work and brighten up the mood… so we made about 20 miles in 4 hours. The landscape changes, we are absolutely thrilled by the beautiful nature that has been waiting right behind our house all this time!
The destination of the day: the first lake!
It takes us a while to find a good spot to stay, because its extremely windy and the horses don’t like that. Also we need enough grass to keep them fed and happy to increase the probability of a good night’s sleep. But we end up on a good spot, where spend and other three days… the Dogs need it most this time: Luna, Peers faithful companion on all his journeys and adventures for 11 Years, run the whole 20 miles ahead of the carriage. She was wagging her tail and hunting squirrels by the way all day long. While “Wish”, our fluffy youngster, was falling behind and not enjoying the workout so much.
On the next day, they both looked the same: lying on their sides, not even lifting their heads when Peer left for the lake to go fishing, or Rosie ran around them, chasing her ball and squeaking with joy.
I enjoyed just watching over the camp, writing in my diary and cooking meals… while days went by and peer brought back one bundle of fish after the other.
We had built a little pasture with a fence made of our rope and large broken branches. That was a great way, to rule out the risk of a horse getting tangled up in a rope while being picketed or on a highline… because of these kinds of incidents, we were constantly waking up at night, to check if all is good.
The Pasture worked well, apart from Allie, constantly getting out- which is really not typical for her! It took us a while to realize that it was Gandalf, who wanted to keep her away from “HIS” Gator.
At home, Gandalf was really good at grazing on the picket line, without getting tangled up in the long rope. But now, even hobbled, he would gallop into the rope, run back and forth, get himself tangled up and rip his legs open with the worst rope burns I had ever seen… all just because Gator dared to go two feet out of his rope’s reach… it started to get dangerous… for himself, for the hard working team, even for us… he was losing his mind… so he spent more than one night tied up short to a tree. It took more than one night too, for him to stop fighting it… to be honest, he never really stopped fighting it…
