Sunday Stills

The signs of Fall.... we don't have a lot of leaves turning colour here yet, but there are other signs of Fall to be found.

The local fruit stands are full of pumpkins, squash, and gourds- including these odd looking "Turk's Turban":

Although there aren't a lot of geese on the move yet, I did manage to get a lucky shot when I was doing chores last night.

The full harvest moon was just setting this morning and I just managed to get a shot before it dipped below the mountain.

Beamer and Bushwacking

First a Beamer update. Took him to the vet yesterday, and he had a big chunk of chin removed; it wasn't likely to fuse and would either dry up and break off, or get necrotic, so we opted to remove the chunk that was hanging down. He was really good, they were impressed with his good manners (and good looks!But manners were more important). We sprayed it with Derma Gel and I'll clean it every day and apply some of my oils to speed up the healing. I'll spare you the wound photos.
Went on a group trail ride today; took Gussie, and we rode for around 3 hours. I must say, it was a great group of people and a variety of well behaved horses. 4 Morgans, a Suffolk/QH cross, a paint, a pretty bay grade horse, and Gussie.

Our trails wound through the forest, with frequent stops to put up ribbon markers; this is an area designated for horse trails.The fuzzy orange thing behind the stump is a red merle Aussie dog; and I brought Tess along. Both dogs were very good. We eventually made our way up to the top, overlooking the valley between Creston and the US border- great view!

The 4 Morgan horses; the youngest, bottom right, is 4 yrs old, and the one next to him is 20.

As you can see there is still plenty of smoke from the forest fires, and the bush we were riding in is pretty dry. There is still a full out fire ban in our province.
As we wound our way down, we could hear an elk bugling, but we didn't see any wildlife. The trails are good- a lot of us were riding barefoot horses and there were no bad areas. At trails end, we were treated to muffins, Timbits, bagels and cookies from Tim Hortons, thanks to the young lady who organized the ride. It was a great day, and I look forward to making this a regular outing.

Owwy

There is one problem with taking the horses out to pasture before daylight- you don't get a good look at them. I found an owwy on Beamer this afternoon after work- one of the reasons I didn't notice it  this morning when I put his halter on is that he always yawns just as I go to slip the noseband over. I did take some photos of him in the fog this morning, and downloaded them this afternoon before heading out to do chores. I was wondering what the heck as I looked through the photos of him going full tilt boogie:

Do you see it?

Warning- wound photo below.

Anyway, when I brought him in, this is what I found:

One tetanus shot later, and a vet appointment for tomorrow afternoon. We'll have to cut the big flap on the bottom off as it was much too late to try stitching.I cleaned it out as much as I could and put some Purification oil on it to hold until the vet can clean him up tomorrow. I fear this will alter his lovely profile a little.
Edited to add: After searching his pen for the culprit, the only thing I could find is a broken root with a sharp edge  right where he rolls. You know how they like to smoosh their face in the dust when they are rolling? Yeah.  I took my splitting maul to it and bust it into smithereens.

Foggy fotos

Every morning the cooler fall weather brings mist to this low lying valley. I think it's one of the things I enjoy most about these late September mornings, it helps to clear the smoke from the air, and it has that peaceful quality to it.

That is, until I turn the horses out. 

The brisk air and the dwindling pasture means they would rather stay in their nice large pens and eat hay.

Except Nitro, who is always willing to get out and stretch his legs....

Searching for that perfect spot.....

 To grab his first mouthful for the day.

Wordless Wednesday

Hangin' in there

Had a yucky couple of days, details not necessary but not feeling good. So I didn't get a lot done, but that didn't stop me from taking photos. I did get down to Idaho; the smoke was so thick you could see it laying on the fields and the mountains were pretty much obscured. Apparently there are large fires in Washington State and that is just south and west of us. Even the mountains in our valley are barely visible, we really need a good rain to clear the air and help the firefighters. This is not a good photo but it gives you an idea of the air quality coming home from Idaho.

It may be fall, but summer is still hangin' in here. The horses are just barely starting to grow their winter hair, and there are very few geese on the move yet.
Nitro is here for a few more days, he's growing like a weed. He got his 5 way shot and dewormed so he is all ready for his new life.

I spent some time hangin' out with the mares tonight, and there was a pretty sky, so I tried some silhouette shots.

I'm ok with summer hangin' in there, I still have a lot to get done before freeze up. Guess I'd better get my spuds out of the garden this week, but I'm really hoping for more ripening time for the tomatoes.
I was too late to buy peaches to can- sold out at the fruit stands. Ah well- it's apple season! Applesauce coming up!

Sunday Stills

This is an interesting challenge; we are to take photos that reflect the music in our life. To me, this can be interpreted in a lot of ways; actual music, or things that make my heart sing, or something that reminds me of a song. Here is something that reminds me of the song that goes "Yeah baby you got it":

and "Wild thing, you make my heart sing".

Then there is this beautiful fall season. Every fall, I start singing the Johnny Cash tune "At my door, the leaves are falling, a cold wild wind does blow...."

The first fallen leaves of fall

But the main source of music in my life is my husband. Every Sunday, I get to hear him sing in the church choir, and he does a great job of singing in the shower. Even sitting at the computer, he'll find Pavarotti on You Tube and select one of the hymns that they do at Mass and sing along. He's always playing cd's in his shop as he works, and he plays the harmonica too. In this photo from my archives, he was playing the harmonica and one of Tess's pups was listening attentively.

Schooling Rio, continued

Who said there's no school on Saturdays? The first day of fall and a perfect day to get back to working Rio. The bot flies are here and we had to contend with one of them buzzing him while I was trying to work, but over all it was a good session. As always, we reviewed everything first, and I did a little more in-hand longeing this time because I wanted him to longe with the saddle on at the end of the session. He also got to wear boots for the first time.

Look at that perfect natural head carriage!

I raised the level of difficulty one notch with the tarp by putting a pole on it for him to step over.

....no problem...

 Then he got to wear the tarp fly sheet and this time he didn't mind it sliding down his rump. I flapped the sides vigorously; no problem.

Pretty relaxed!

We moved on to saddling. This time, when I threw the saddle up on him, he had just dropped his head for a bite of grass, and got a little surprised, and side stepped- the saddle fell on the ground, but he didn't get too concerned about that. I picked it up, dusted the blanket off and put it on and off three or four times, then led him around uncinched.

Then I pass the cinch under and run the latigo through without doing it up, and pull on it and lead him a few steps before I do it up, just in case he gets worried, but- I needn't have worried! he was fine so I cinched up and led him out. 

Around and around we went both ways, then it was time to ask for a few trotting steps. If he was going to blow, this would be the time. All he did was grab his tail a little and scoot to the end of the lead rope:

Just a few steps and he got used to the new feel , we did it both ways, and he probably scooted 3-4 times. Once he relaxed, we called it a day. Good boy, Rio! 

I'm not ready to turn him loose with the saddle on- it will be some time before I do that. Doesn't he look great under saddle?Once he's all grown up, he's going to be pretty spectacular- what still photos don't show is what nice movement he has. I'm saving my dollars up to send him to the trainers- I really want him shown. 

Change that!

We get Nitro for another week- yay! Veronica, his new owner, wants to do a little more work on his new pen before hauling him, so we get him until the 30th.

foggy frolic

I'm allright with that! I gave him his first vaccination yesterday, he was as good as could be. Good boy, Nitro! He's also getting dewormer before he heads to his new home. 

I took a few new photos of Chickory yesterday for a potential buyer- she's looking pretty good!

I just might be down to 4 horses this winter- what a concept! That will give me plenty of time to concentrate on Rio's training. I didn't get anything done with him this week, just too dang busy after work, and today I have to go to Idaho so tomorrow it is. 

Yes Rio, you do have to go back to school.  I mentioned to Veronica last night that someday, she and I and Janice will all be mounted on full siblings- won't that be a picture! One we'll have to wait three years for though.

3 more sleeps....

Only 3 more days and Nitro goes to his new home, we are hauling him on Saturday. I'm really pleased that he will be boarded at my friend Janice's place until his owners buy their own acreage. He'll be with his big sister!

He is now in a pen by himself at night- see all those spots on him? That's from Rio nipping him, so they are only together during the day in pasture, and penned separately at night.

So I guess after this weekend, you will have to visit Janice at Own a Morgan & QH blog to see him!
Rio and Nitro only play for a few minutes in the morning before they get down to the serious business of grazing.

They get along fine in pasture, and I'm going to miss seeing them together.

But, I'll have plenty of things to keep me busy; training Rio, I have to trim his feet again too, and there's all the chores of fall to do; like winter wood, digging up the spuds before the voles eat them all, building a flower bed in front of my art studio so I have somewhere to put the dahlias next spring, and we won't even mention all the house chores- bleah! Plus I want to can peaches this weekend. Has anyone ever used the method where you process them in the oven?

Wordless Wednesday

Beamer has something to say

Remember me?

I'm tired of my sons getting all the spotlight lately....

It takes good genes to make babies that nice you know!

So don't forget the source!

Annoying stuff again

For those of you who used to follow Deanna on My Country Genes blog, you are most likely getting posts from "The Broom Tree" in your reading list. Deanna closed down her blog, but what happens is that the blog address remains available and anyone can take it over, and apparently take it over with it's followers intact. I tried to delete it from my list of blogs that I follow, but Google won't allow me to manage my list of blogs. That REALLY pisses me off.
Edited:
So I found a way to unsubscribe to these blogs- but they are still  showing up. I opened View inGoogle Reader, clicked the gear icon on the right, went to Reader Settings, then to Subscriptions, clicked the box next to the ones I wanted to unsubscribe to, and clicked on the unsubscribe button. It asks if you want to unsubscribe to these feeds. I sez yes. So I look, and it made them disappear from the list. But only in Google Reader's list! On my list of blogs I follow on my dashboard, they are still there. HOWEVER. I did this about an hour ago, and then when I  opened my blog again and had a  look- they were right back on the list. What the hay? So I unsubscribed again. I'll see what happens tomorrow. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhh!

Sunday Stills

This week, it's all about us.... well at least, our shadows! It was a good week for that here, mostly sunny until Friday, when smoke rolled in and made everything hazy.
So, you know that shadow photos of me invariably include horses;

Gussie was very helpful;

 making sure I got her in the photo too;

The birds on the fence were't sure what we were up to.

I thought I'd try a B&W, it seems to lend itself to shadow shots.

See ya next week!

They're big boys now

I figured that Nitro was over the separation anxiety of the first part of weaning, so today I moved him and Rio to the pasture next to the mares; it has better grass than the one they had been in.There are only 2 strands of hot wire between the boys and the mares, and while both groups approached the fence, neither attempted to push on it.

He spent the rest of the day hanging out close to Rio, head to tail to keep the remaining flies at bay.

Good boy, Nitro! You are growing up.
Rio- well, Rio got to put on his big boy britches today. This afternoon we did a few different things. Walked him over the tarp- and then, he got to wear it. Since walking over it isn't a challenge any more, we stepped it up a notch to putting it on his back, carrying it, and sliding it over his rump. Each time I did something different, I got the "Holy crap!" moment from him, followed by softness and trust. The tarp work actually went pretty easy.

He didn't mind it flapping around on his sides, or over his head- in fact, I think he thought it made a great fly sheet.

He did have a moment the first time it slid off his rump- he grabbed his tail and jumped- so of course we did that a number of times until it didn't bother him any more.
I wanted to free up his movement a little and get some nice forward work, so I slipped his halter off and sent him around the pen, working him over the poles.

At a trot, and then at a lope.

While this isn't a good photo; out of focus and not all of him in the frame, I included it because it really gives you a taste of the powerful horse he will be someday. He has such wonderful movement, it would be a shame not to send this boy to the show pen.
I know I said that I planned on doing more rope work with him today..... but- I'm allowed to change my mind! This is what we did instead:

Checking out the saddle.....

First time on his back- he didn't move a muscle while I heaved it up there- I think he figured it was a lot less scary than the tarp!
I moved him out a little with it uncinched and flapped the stirrups.... no problem, so.....

I did up the cinch, not too tight, just enough that the saddle wouldn't move if we got in a bind. Before I actually fastened the cinch, I mimicked the rope work that we did a couple of days ago, by passing the cinch under his belly, sliding the latigo through, and pulling on it enough to get him to step forward, in essence leading him from the cinch area. Since he had no problem with that, I went ahead and did it up. Then I lead him around, all along the perimeter of the pen, over the poles, both ways. No problem. So then, I asked him to move out around me  on his 12 ft. lead line, as if I were longeing him. No problem, going to the left. So, on to the right side. Then he had his holycraptheresamonsteronmybackanditsgoingtoeatme moment, complete with leap/twist/rear/buck; but it was over in about 3 seconds. I was a little concerned that he wouldn't have that moment- I would rather they did, because then, they get it- the saddle is there to stay and it can't get bucked off.  So once he figured that out, I longed him on that side, led him around a little more, and praised him mightily. Good boy, Rio! You're growing up, too.