I made  nice 30" britchen strap out of mohair. It was  total experiement! Haha, I really like it, but here are some flaws, but that should be ok since it will e a tester. I think I will swap out he strap on Daisy's pack saddle.  So she'll have  new girth and britchen! I'll have to make her a breastcollar to ballance her out haha.

right now I'm starting on a bridesmaid's dress, for me again haha. My friend Tara is getting married and I am a bridesmaid. yay!

Each of her bridesmaid's will have a different dress, I'm excited to see them all lined up.  With the help of Tara we picked out an ivory colored satin that will have a chartreuse green lace overlay. I LOVE the green, OMG it's the perfect color in my opinion..

I hope everyone had a nice holiday season, mine was filled with some chaotic sewing, but not as bad as years before. I chose a much simpler hand made gift to give....these little doods. 

how freaking adorbs are those!?!
I found it here if you would like to make your ownhttp://www.erinerickson.com/2011/11/circle-zip-earbud-pouch-tutorial/

they are meant for earbuds, but would be a great little coin purse, or a place to keep small things safe like flash drives or jewelry. 

mine still did not turn out all super nice like the ones on the link, even considering I did multiples!

Also one of the really fun things I made for christmas was giant pillow nunchucks. I had seen these on etsy years ago, the seller isn't making them anymore, so I had to make my own. 

Currently I am helping my friend plan her wedding, it's Feb 15th, so it's almost here! 
I am a bridesmaid, and I'm making my own dress, yes again, lol it's like a sickness haha!!!

I have decided on this pattern:

It looked like a nice simple dress, not too dressy or intricate and not too boring. I am going to do view C, yup i picked the most involved one!  The base of the dress will be an ivory color and the lace overlay is going to be a chartreuse green ( holy crap  Iove that color!).

here is a pic of view A as a bridesmaid dress that someone else sewed.
 click on the photos to be linked over to sewing pattern review for her whole write up!  I think they look pretty great!

been also reading alot of Ben Hart's stuff for donkey training. I saw him at the donkey symposium and really enjoyed it. So I've gotten some of this downloads and have been 'doing my homework' in a sense.  Kinda works out right now since my day job has been busy and it seems like it's always dark! I only seem to have time to squeeze in a grooming session here and there. I wish there were more time in a day but we all know we'd probably fill that up with work!

I'll be posting the photo's of my dress, I'm currently almost half way through the practice dress - my fabric hasn't even shipped from fabric.com yet, UGH.....so I may as well get good at this pattern haha!

It's been so long I'm not even sure where to start....
I bought myself the best birthday present......a previously owned serger!!!

I LOVE this thing, well after I figured out how to use it haha!

a nice craigslist score in my opinion.  So I actually thought it was broken for a bit...I mean literally, i got it all threaded, then I'd start sewing....the green (right hand needle) thread would come undone. I must have re-threaded the machine it least a dozen times thinking it was my newbie errors....

I then went through making sure each thread had the correct tension...I get to the 'green' thread, not much tension, crank the dial up to 9 (highest tension avail) and still no tension! That's when I though 'oh great, it's freaking broke and I can't 'take it back' because I bought it private party'.....

yup, i was having a bit of a meltdown, but only for a few moments.....until I found this video.....

Ever since I followed her instructions my machine has been working great!

I'm not really sure how I survived with out a serger before! 

I will get some photo's of projects I've been working on soon.

Wow,  I can't believe how busy I have been. I have not had an opportunity to actually sit at a computer and type up a post!

been working tons of overtime, which is good last year at this time we were extremely slow.

anyways, feeling a bit if tension. well frustration I'm sure with Rocky.   I don't blame him.  I've just ordered been harts book ebook on shaping.  Going to work on my plan. 

imo, and its not a professional one,  is that Rocky is way more sensitive to failures than daisy.   Daisy will brush things off quickly and try again.   Rocky on the other had gets very frustrated and shuts down.  I need to find a way to make things easier for him and keep him from getting too frustrated.

It makes me think of something my friend ann had always told me "you don't get the dog you want,  you get the dog you need'.

same with Rocky,  but he's both lol. but wow, he keeps me on my toes. I need to step back faster, if he doesn't get it within x amount of tries I need to go back to my shaping plan.

the behavior I'm referring to is him getting frustrated with learning stimulus control or cues. 

I have some ideas from hannah Dawson s clix college,  but I want to read bens book, then sit down and write a new plan before I proceed.

I don't want rocky to be frustrated with me.

Wish me luck!

I had the opportunity to attend a day at the donkey welfare symposium held at uc Davis California.  So much good stuff!  Planning on writing up a little report later, but here are some photos

Really sticking with it now. I'm teaching ONE thing and nothing else, until Rocky get its. Yesterday he was throwing a bit of a tantrum. Not a big one, but being a bit nippy and overall trying to not 'work'.  I stuck to my guns and eventually he shaped up.

Yesterday Daisy was totally in her own bubble and didn't really want to play. kept her session very short.

This morning, Rocky was right on track!  he instantly was like 'ok watch this!'  he didn't try any of the mini tantrum from the day before.  he quickly started stepping over as I tapped his shoulder, getting a good 5-6 quick steps (quick for a donkey anyhow!). Now that there is a cue and a behavior there is the tough part of making him realize now he can only get rewarded for said behavior when the cue is present. I hesitated for a moment, he started stepping over. no click.  I tapped his shoulder, he started stepping over CLICK! We will have to see how it goes. I think he appreciates that we are still doing the same thing on the same side. I think I always moved on too fast and switched sides too fast, before they really knew it. It's amazing how you constantly learn...I mean I didn't think I had it all figured out, but now it feels more clear than it did before. 

Daisy's session today was pretty awesome, tap tap tap and over she went....I was confident enough in her progress to switch sides - I did spend alot of work on this last year, so I'm sure she remembers, but like Rocky I think she was getting some mixed signals from me sometimes, so don't think it would be bad to do a refresher with her, plus I think she'll move through pretty quickly. 

I'll post more details of how I'm going about this in the forum. 

clarity,  sometimes that's all a donk needs. Sometimes it's what the human needs.  After our fun night Friday (yes I still need to post about it!)I really wanted to get Ricky on his way to understanding things that I ask,  and confirming that he does in fact know them.  I have had many times where I wonder if he is actually confused or if he is just being a donkey and saying 'I choose to ignore your request at this time, try back later'.

My natural reaction is to go back to groundwork, to see if I can get him to perform from on the ground.  thing is since I clicker train, and even though I have spent a huge amount of time on manners. I find that when I don't have a really crystal clear idea of what I expect, he feels confused and frustrated, and dang it he just wants that click so bad that he can be bit naughty.I realize this is my fault,  he needs so much more 'this is exactly what I want you to do' and less 'uh let's try this today'.  I need to be more structured and clear.  I still couldn't help but feel frustrated after the session,  I imagine Rocky felt the same way.  I couldn't quite get it figured out in my own head that evening, I researched and read articles. 

 luckily the next day I grabbed one of my books, one I had not spent too much time reading before,  to read on the way to work.  It's leslie pavlich's book on Colt starting.  It was a good hour drive to the job,  I really got through quite a bit,  although I did pass some things up that Rocky already knew like grooming.In her book I was reminded how I could teach the things I wanted with the target then do the 'show me what you know' part,  where the animal repeats what THEY think they have been clicked for.  In her book she is very abc, 123 oriented. She gives you formulas, she wants you to fade out the clicker as soon as possible.  This is something I know I have trouble with!  (and I'm not afraid to admit it, and dangit clicking is sooo fun) she only uses the clicker to teach unlearned behaviors. Then she fades it as quickly as possible.  So I got to read, then sleep on it.  

This morning I grabbed my treat bag and told myself that I am only working on shoulders over (to the right-Rocky has a tendency to drop his shoulder into me,  half a 'scratch me' thing and I think the other half is a bit bullyish when he is in a mood).  previously my goal was to be able to move his shoulders away.  Before I was clicking any movement off of my pressure. Because like all equines they have to learn to move away from pressure,  clicker trained or not. through my ass backwards approach be kept trying to work for less and getting frustrated,  and I'm sure my pressure wasn't always consistent or in the same spot, same amount etc.ok, back to this morning,  I knew what I wanted,  exactly, and I knew I was only going to spend 5 min max on it.   I showed him with the target what I wanted maybe 5 or 6 times,  actually the first two attempts he was all 'ahhhhh' and moved out from under my arm & the target ha ha.  Then I waited, for the show me what you know.  Maybe a few seconds went by,  it was very fast and he stepped one foot to the right (shoulder moving away from me), c/t.


I waited again,  he stepped again ct. waited again,  and he stepped away again.  And I wad not waiting long! usually he is slow and unsure,  but because of the way it was presented to him he got it! I did it a few more times (him,  not me, at this point I didn't need to target him), then I started adding the cue AS he was doing it.  I don't know why I forgot with him.  I tell people all the time not to say the cue before the animal knows the behavior. durrrrr.So that's where we are.  im excited again,  I feel like I have a plan,  and Rocky has shown me that he understands this process much better than what I was doing before!  So yay all around,  me for getting and clue and Rocky for saying 'I don't understand!' 

ugh why does mobile make it all one giant paragraph! I apologize for all the weird wording, I will try to fix it all LOL...

Took Rocky down the road last night. I really wanted to saddle him and ride part of the time But I realized that was probably skipping ahead a bit. So I just walked him, we worked on rein cues, he did pretty good, but he gets very distracted, especially at the beginning of the walk when we are leaving Daisy.

I found a rock that would be a perfect mounting block, so I decided to see if I could get him to step up along side of it. It was pretty fun, he actually was pretty responsive to what I was asking. He tends to be very sticky and not move but he actually felt light at times while working on the \’mounting\’ block.  It was pretty cool. I got some video because I had the helmet cam going, as usual.

Now I need to go watch Hannah\’s video on the Mounting Block! haha..I wasn\’t expecting to work on that.. I just saw it and went for it.

which is good!
SO BUSY this year, which is awesome. Last year for my work it was VERY VERY slow, like really scary slow.....
this year we have been extremely busy, it's hard to keep up!   I work for an extremely small family business...so most people who are in a similar situation or have been in the past know you kinda have to do everything - not alot of backup, just lots of hard work!

On the HGFA side of stuff I just finished  set of reins and I'm so close to being done with a fly mask, I can't wait to take some pics of both.

Working on an Aussie pad for Rocky. I had it mostly put together, but I just seam ripped it apart. The felt did not lay correctly and I felt it would make him sore after a long ride.  Been getting some sessions in with the donks, Rocky is working on rein cue. I have just moved onto standing on one side and asking for a flex on the opposite side, he's doing pretty well!  We have a 'date' this weekend, a little trail ride with our buddies Jazzy and Kim!  I hope they end up being  great trail pals because Kim is a blast!  I am going to work a bit on Rocky's weird loading habit (half in half out! haha), to see if we can speed that process up a bit. Hopefully I'll have the pad done and get to try it out. 

Let's see what else...I am attempting to build a yurt. It was originally going to be a very small test yurt, but I had used a calculator online and it ended up being WAY bigger. I used some 2x6 boards that were free and ripped them into thin pieces for the Khana.  I tried getting all the info on on the calculator (it was in metric too!) so that it ended up being about the size of a dog house for Bug to hang out in.  It's way bigger than that. It's almost 6' in diameter! haha Still a mini yurt, but not as mini as I wanted. 

The Khana was easy but time consuming.  I got to the tono (roof ring) and got stuck. I ended up making a 8 segment ring from a 2x4. Drilled some holes and tried to stick my 'roof' poles in...it didn't work. The tono kept twisting and the roof poles would come crashing down. I did some more research and found out that my holes in the tono and the roof poles need to be more snug, so they cannot shift side to side.  I also purchased some plans from Richard over at campingyurts.com, so hopefully those will help. When I get some time I'm going to attempt to build the tono ring again ( same segment style, but dual layer and now I have the appropriate tool for making the roof poles and the holes in the ring fit together nicely).  The last two weeks the old tono has been on the yurt, so I have a half assembled yurt in my house.  The really funny thing is that EVERYDAY the cats go and sleep in it! They love it!! 

My friend also had back surgery about a week ago and my BF and I have been cooking her food. She eats plant based like we do and we volunteered to cater for her. So I've been cooking up a storm....I have lots of recipes I should post and review...there are some AWESOME ones out there...