Germany's wild horses

I have been living my German life for about a year and half now since I returned from Canada. There have been some ups and quite some downs for me. 

However, since I moved further North in Germany than I ever intended, I'm also learning a lot about Germany. This summer I had my first real vacation in Germany and enjoyed it a lot. Also, I have a friend who lives in the old Eastern Germany and he invited me home to his place. There are so many nice places in Germany and I didn't even know!

So, I'm becoming kind of a tourist which also includes the closer vicinity of where I live. For this weekend I had planned to visit the population of wild horses about an hour drive from my house. Those ponies have been in this areas literally for centuries and were first mentioned in writing sometime in the 14th century.They adapted perfectly to the scarce food source of marshland, swamps, and sandy grounds for hundreds of years and are supposed to be truly native to the area. But as the story goes, with progressing land use, more and more grounds were turned into farmland and the 'Dülmener Wildpferd' was endangered to become extinct.

The herd

 

A Lord from the Croy dynasty decided to catch the remaining wild horses and let them roam on his land. This continues until today and the wild horses still 'belong' to the Lords of Croy.

The area the about 400 horses are kept on is about 3.5 square kilometers big and is half forest and half open grass lands. The herd is kept wild which also means there won't be a vet or farrier involved. This might seem harsh at times, but it keeps the gen pool healthy because just like in freedom only the strongest and fittest survive and are able to breed.

Once a year, they bring all horses into an arena and catch the yearling colts by hand and separate them from their bands to be sold. If the youngsters would be left with the group they would start trying to form their own bands and bloody fights between the stallions would be the result. So, they are auctioned off and can be bought as recreational ponies. In fact, last year I had the chance to work with one of those ponies newly broken in.

 

First, I wondered why even a lot of the obviously older horses had such short tails,but then I saw they had found good use for the fence which holds them captive.

 

Like always, Nuka was with me...a bit whinny because she had to stay on leash, was not allowed to play with the teacup sized dog, and also not allowed to hopp into the horses' waterhole. But she lived through it...

   

It's been a while!

Well, I have been a bit lazy regarding my blog, but one of the reasons is, there is really nothing new to tell you guys. I was looking at some pictures today, though, and thought why not post some.

The summer has been very hot and dry here in the South of Germany and I'm more than happy that it rained last weekend and the temperatures dropped at least ten degrees (°C).

Nuka is her crazy self and Fayal is doing great! He is building up muscles and we are working on his balance. I'm more than happy with his progress and I think we will be ready for next years competition season in Working Equitation.

Alrighty, here are some pictures of Nuka and Fayal:

This is Nuka rolling and playing on/with a pear. She loves them!

Fayal

Aragon

Aragon

Fayal - he put on some weight

Days like today...

...are kind of hilarious if you look at it from the right angle!

I bought a new (or better very old) car. It was very cheap (400 Euros/ 560 CAD) but for the age well kept. It is not only very old, it is also very small and I have friends who thought my Ford Focus was small. My new old car is about half the size!

Anyway, today I went to get new number plates so could pick up my car up in the evening. It's a bit more involved over here compared to Canada. I was not exactly in good spirits because I hate doing thing like that, but what needs to be done, needs to be done.

The first annoyance was already outside. There was this BMW SUV needing almost one a half parking spots and I had to squeeze out of my mum's also very small car. So my head was already thinking a lot of bad things about that person I didn't even know and I started swearing in English, just talking to myself. Great!
I went inside and pulled a number and after not even waiting too long I was happy to be helped. However, I was told that I wasn't from the city Heilbronn but from the area Heilbronn. "Ahh, ya, I know that." The lady told me I was in the wrong place, but I just had to go down the stairs and there they would help me. Okay, so there is a difference for registering your car when you're from the city or the area. Oh well...

One thing I did find out from that lady, though, and that was that I had the wrong insurance code and I had to call them before I went down the stairs. Sounds easy, BUT...

First of all, I was very proud of myself, because I actually have a cell I can call people with! That sounds maybe very normal to you, but my cell is just not very high on my list and it took me quite some weeks after I arrived in Germany until I managed to get myself a new contract (unlike a horse which I bought within the first week). It's a thing about priorities I guess.
So, I was able to call the insurance company and the guy said he would send it via email. Oh oh...

I hung up and noticed that my battery was almost dead, of course. That, however, was not the bad news. During the last week or so I noticed a lot of different messaged on my phone saying that I was running out of storage. First, the messages said I couldn't update and honestly why does a phone have to update all the time, so I just ignored them. Those symbols in the upper left corner of my cell became more and more. But I just didn't see why I should spent my precious time taking care of that.

Today I found out! I tried to download those emails with the insurance code, but my phone told me it couldn't because it didn't have enough storage space. Ahhhhhhhhhh...I started deleting pictures being well aware that my battery was about to die.
In the end I was able to call the insurance company again and another guy yelled the code over the speaker phone so I could note it in my phone (due to the lack of a pen). The rest was easy.

So I went home and waited for my dad to drive me to where I could pick up my new car. I started driving my little car and it wasn't quite right. The engine light came on twice on the way home, however,went back out when I shifted into a higher gear. Good enough! We made it home just to find out that my right rear tire was loosing air. Who cares...I was smiling.

I saddled my horse and thought "whatever, I go for a ride". I didn't get very far, because at the first opportunity I asked him to canter and he tried and started bucking like a bronc at a rodeo. Never had that before, on any horse! I stayed on for a little while, but it also became very clear that he had no intention of stopping. When I came off I landed alright without hurting myself badly, but the farmer just had applied fresh cow dung TODAY! We are not talking about the dry, straw-rich kind. Nope! It was the wet and slimy kind with the very rich smell, Nuka really likes.

City of Neudenau

I proceeded to catch my horse and walked him home, stinking to heaven. Finishing up in the barn, I went to have a bubble bath to get the cow dung off my body.

At that point, I was actually in good spirits and now I'm sitting here, still with a faint smell cow poop looking forward to what tomorrow has waiting for me. It has potential for something even better, since I have been invited (nice word, it's mandatory) by the official job agency to learn how to use their online job page. Funny enough I have been using it for months already, but maybe they have great tricks I don't know about.