Solo

It's been a while since I've ridden a two year old- last one was Chickory, at least a couple of years ago. Since I'm a little rusty, I've been cautious with Rio. I took him over to a local arena a few days ago, and did a schooling ride, then the trail ride with Shayla last weekend, then Monday I decided to saddle him up and ride him around here.

It was kind of like saddling up an old broke horse.

Stepped aboard without a warm up, and headed out.

No muss, no fuss.

As you can see from the video, Rio seems to enjoy getting out. He was so well behaved. No silliness. Cars going by? No problem. The other horses calling? No issues.
Good boy, Rio!
Some of you may remember that I offered him for sale via my blog as a weanling, $500 off the mare. Well- now, I wouldn't take $5000 for him. My husband loves him, in fact he has always been smitten with this colt, and I can really see them becoming a team once I get Rio more experienced.

We have another trail ride planned for the weekend, as long as the weather isn't too bad. If I can get 3 or 4 good rides in him every week, I think we'll be ready for the clinic in January.

Wordless Wednesday

What to do on a windy day

Alberta got hit with a snowstorm on the day I was to haul Belle, so I'm waiting a little longer before I take her over there.
The same storm that blew snow into Alberta was a windstorm here, yesterday I woke up to branches all over the lawn, 45 gallon steel drums rolled around the yard, slam-dunked flower pots, but the only thing that got destroyed was the rickety old shelter that used to be in Beamer's pen. The only reason it wasn't still in his pen is that I had to make his pen smaller using my round pen panels when the place changed ownership and the former landlord took all his corral panels away. Good thing, or Beamer would have been in it!

It was too windy to ride yesterday, too bad because it was nice and sunny, so I had to content myself with some wind-blown mane photos. 

The horses all enjoyed getting out of their shelter, I had them penned up for about 24 hours during the worst of the wind.

And the race is on! This is what keeps Reba so healthy at 12 years old, she loves to run with the horses.

Josie might be little, but she has speed!

Striking a high trot....

Rio trying to antagonize Gussie, who just ignored him; apparently it was time to graze, shenanigans were all done!

Poor boy!

 Oh well, can't beat 'em might as well join 'em!

Sunday Stills

Fall foliage.... perfect challenge for what I've been doing this week, lots of time outdoors even though we've been fogged in for nearly a week now.

This is the rosebush that I planted on Stella Belle's grave, it is a white hansa rose.

The yellow maple leaves needed a little contrast, according to Reba!

A couple of maple leaves caught up in the Italian Plum tree that still hasn't changed color yet.

Purple and yellow maple leaves- not too many red ones here.

A scene from Saturday's trail ride.

Tess's birthday and a real Rio trail ride

My good dog Tess turned 7 years old today, so I did a little photo shoot in the fall leaves. She has this habit of looking at me with what I call the "up periscope" look, her nose up- really she's not in the least bit snooty!!!

She is the bestest dog....

She got to come with me today...

for Rio's first real trail ride, 2 hours through the woods near the airport.

My first Rio ear-cam shot!

Tess is so good, she just follows behind, doesn't go diving off the trail and running through the bush so she's a good one to take on a colt's first outing.

Shayla and her friend's dog Shilo came along too, her horse Allie is a 3 year old, and did a good job of being a nice steady horse for Rio to follow.

The fall colors were lovely even if it wasn't a sunny day, so I'll post those photos in tomorrow's Sunday Stills challenge, which is "Fall Colors". We did take posed photos of each other though, with the beautiful yellows as a backdrop.

I was very impressed with Rio, he did very well, looked sideways at a couple of things, but no issues. We went in the lead near the end of the ride, and he stopped when there was a log across the trail even though he had been across a few already following Allie this was the first one that he had to cross on his own, but he did go. 

A couple of good young horses! What a good day it was- good horses, good company and good dogs!

Almost gone....

Coyote Belle passed the 5 panel test for genetic disease, as I knew she would, so she will be en route to her new home this weekend.

There's that 12 o'clock dog again....

We will head up to Janice's on Sunday and over to Alberta on Monday. I'm trying to get everything coordinated to get Gussie hauled at the same time, but so far things aren't meshing.

 and again....

Dang I'm going to miss these mares. 

Photo op

A friend of mine was looking for a certain type of horse photo to do a painting, so of course, I was happy to oblige!
Gussie made the best model, with her flying, flaming mane.

And of course, one photo leads to another....

and another.... this one is a little fuzzy but I had to include it because she is so good at flippin' lip at me!

Rio had to get in on the act too-

and mama Belle had something to say too.

And really, did you think I was going to leave Beamer out????

Not a chance!

Riding Rio

Things worked out good today, Shayla came over in the afternoon to finish trimming Josie and trim Belle so I hijacked her and we went for a ride on the boys instead. She rode Beamer and I got my first ride on Rio.
Finding a log to stand on when I mounted was a really good idea, he is one big boy! He stood quietly for me, and we moved right out on our trail ride; no longeing first, just get on and go, even though he hasn't been ridden for two months.
Good boy, Rio!
I felt right at home on him, nice and relaxed, he kind of reminded me of his grandma, my good mare Sundee. The dogs came along  and we had a really enjoyable Sunday ride.

There were a few cars and pedestrians, but nothing bothered him.
We worked on getting Beamer to ride side by side without doing any stud talk, he was pretty good, and I think if we can do this often it won't be such a big deal and he will relax.

I found a nice level spot to ride and check out his softness- definitely have some work to do on getting him to bend in the ribs.

I has a happy!

I foresee lots of fun with this horse, and I think he will make a good horse for my husband.

Saturday's ride

I got to help sort the calves for weaning yesterday, this was a small bunch and with Beamer's help it only took a few minutes. The cows and calves are very easy to handle, a nice bunch of Herefords.

The bull took his chance to sneak a snack

The calves settled in and are providing us with moosic for the next week; they are doing fenceline weaning this year, so the calves can see their mamas but not nurse. Much less stress that way, it's the method I used most for weaning foals.

Since that only took a few minutes, I headed down the road on Beamer and found some local wildlife....

Well, not technically life! This sculpture adorns the driveway of my neighbour who is a sculptor. 

But we did find something- a Red Headed Woodpecker, who was busy searching for food and didn't mind us standing quietly watching him. Beamer was a good boy and stood nicely while I took photos.

So today- my plan is to ride Rio; it will be the first ride on him for me and I'm really looking forward to it! I'm going to have to find a mounting block though, he is so tall. 

There's that tongue- after he drinks he does this for a while, it's very cute.

Answers

My last post generated several questions, so I thought I'd cover them all in a post.
First of all, I will continue to blog- that is for sure! I love interacting with all of you, and even if I don't leave comments on the blogs I follow, I do try to read them. The blog community is a wonderful, supportive and caring group, love you guys!

Aurora was surprised that I'm letting Gussie go; it was a tough decision to let both mares go, but I have Rio to ride now, and Gussie will do much better if she is given a job to do. She doesn't do well with a lot of time off as she tends to get herd bound, but whenever she is ridden regularly she is awesome. Also, I would like to see her crossed out on a different stallion, so the choices for her in Saskatchewan are better than me keeping her. The fellow that will be checking her out might be a perfect fit for her, we'll see.

Malory asked, how long have I been doing this? I assume she meant breeding horses. 18 years. Selectively breeding just a few horses, with temperament, conformation and athletic ability uppermost in my breeding program.

Several of you have encouraged me to keep Josie, and I agree that she is a little charmer. I may just keep her, as I really do prefer riding mares, so we will see what happens over the next couple of years. Also, I have made a deal with Belle's purchaser that if she is in foal and produces a filly that I get to keep the filly.

And finally, Stella Belle. Yes, I have received the test results, all of which were negative for neurological diseases. No West Nile, EV1, or EPM. Not Rabies or Tetanus. I had the opportunity to speak with an experienced horse vet a couple of days ago, and the first thing he said when I described what happened was trauma. Apparently when there is trauma to the head, there is a bone at the base of the skull/neck that breaks during head trauma such as falling over backwards etc. and all the things that happened to Stella were what he described. The suddenness and violence of the incident and the rapid deterioration all were there. My first instinct when this happened was that Stella got her head through the panels to visit with Nitro, and jerked back and hurt her neck , then panicked and ran out of the shelter, where she started running into things and crashing around. I didn't see her put her neck through the panels as I had my back turned while I fed Beamer his hay, but turned around when I heard the clatter of Stella running over the poop scooping shovel that was leaning against the wall as she fled from the shelter.

So basically, Stella had a broken neck.

And me having to make the call to euthanize her was better than having her suffer until she died, because there is no recovery from this kind of trauma. I cried when I realized that, because until then, I wasn't sure. What if...

The expense of having the neuro tests also gave me some peace, because I know for sure that my little herd is healthy.

And now that I have made these changes, it's time to get on with life. New goals include getting Rio legged up so that I can ride him in a Jim Anderson clinic in January. My goal for Rio is to enter Cowboy Up challenge competitions, and if I can, get someone to show him in English classes that will showcase his lovely movement. (Shayla!)
As for Beamer, I will stand him to other people's mares and he will get lots of riding too.

But I'm going to miss my girls.

Changes

As fall advances, and the visual world changes, there are other changes going on here. The first is happy news for me, not so happy for Shayla. She decided to return Rio to me, not because she didn't want him but logistically she couldn't keep 3 horses, and this will keep him in her life even if she doesn't actually own him any more. So he gets to stay, and I'm pretty happy with that.

The second change was not an easy decision for me.

It's something that I have had to work up to.

I have decided to sell my mares, and get out of raising foals.

The heartbreak of losing 3 foals this year was the deciding factor. I can't keep the mares and not raise foals because I know how good those foals are, so to remove the temptation, they are being rehomed. Coyote Belle, once I get the 5 panel test done on her, will be going to Fleetwood Farms where she will be reunited with Chickory, and be bred to Jazz Poco Goldun Blue, with a likelihood of raising some lovely grulla babies as she is homozygous for black.

Gussie will be travelling to Saskatchewan to my friend Carol's place (All These Pretty Horses blog) where she will be either sold to a ranch type home, or go into Carols broodmare band to be bred to Blue Shadow Jets, her big blue/bay roan stallion and raise some big ranch colts.

Beamer will miss his girls but I will stand him to the public, and I sure hope I can get some mares booked to him because he is an exceptional sire of beautiful, correct and good minded foals.

I may or may not sell Josie, time will tell. I haven't decided for sure yet.