Wordless Wednesday

 

Sunday Silence

 

Li'l Bear

 As promised, here are a couple of photos of Bear, Shayla's black colt. 

He is a very friendly little guy. Comes right up and loves to be petted and scratched. 

His mama is quite solicitous of him, but is starting to allow him to leave her side and explore. 

10 days old now. Those light colored eyes say smokey black to me, and they will darken over time. But I could be wrong, he could be straight black. Shayla does have a sale for him. With his Dash For Cash/Driftwood pedigree, he should make a great prospect for barrels, cowhorse or roping/ranch work. He sure has a nice disposition too. 

He didn't have the zoomies, so no real action shots this time. 

The river and Ruby

 I have been watching the river, waiting for it to go out. 

April 9th, Easter Sunday, still not really flowing. Thumper was being ever so helpful

April 14th and it's flowing

There is still a lot of ice flowing but I don't think it will create and ice jam and flood the lower pasture. At least, I hope not!

My favourite spring boquet

I took Ruby for a walk to check out the river from the far side of the pasture. Most of that ice is broken up now. 

Ruby enjoyed her walk! I am trying to get her mane to go all on one side, hence the braids. 

I have a lady bringing over a saddle today for me to try on her, a wider fitting saddle. I sure hope it fits but I have a feeling it will be too heavy for me. We shall see. 

The good news is I finally get my truck back tomorrow! Yay! So I can start hauling to the indoor arena and put some schooling/get-ta-know-ya rides on Ruby. I'm sooooo looking forward to that! 

All the little creatures

 We are so blessed with the wildlife on this farm. Well, other than the coyotes, who bring an element of discord in the otherwise peaceful lives of creatures here, but that's all part of nature's way. There were coyote tracks in the fresh snow we had the other day, right by our back door and heading down to the barns. 

But mostly, it's harmonious here. Humphrey the Porcupine continues his evening visits. 

I wish I could step outside to take his photo, but he waddles away when I try, so through the window it is. 

And I do mean waddle!

He's so cute. I sometimes just sit and watch him doing his little porcupine thing just for entertainment.

Then there's Bandit. Not Bandit the cat, - this bandit:

Trying to lift a crate to search for cat food

I could see that he had been in the barn so I set up the game cam. He knocked the lid off the bin where I had the cat food and helped himself. So I had to move the cat food and Beamer's grain to the other barn where I have a feed room that he can't get into. 

We had a group of white tail deer here yesterday, normally we just have a plethora of mule deer. I spotted a deer in the driveway and thought "that deer sure has long legs" and took a second look and lo and behold it was a Whitey - seven of them came through. They went around to the back lawn where Muleys were grazing and caught sight of Smokey and had to investigate. 

Then when we were coming down the driveway (after visiting my sister and her husband who just moved here!) Ted spotted this:

Not sure what species of grouse this is, but it sure is well camouflaged. 

However, it isn't just the wildlife that delights me- it's the foals! Fellow blogger Aurora over at Equine Expressions   has a new buckskin filly that you just gotta see- she's gorgeous! 

And Shayla sent me a couple of photos of her black  Easter morning colt, who is nicknamed Bear. I hope to go see him soon and do my own photo shoot. 

Great shot, Shayla!

Looks like he has those long legs all sorted out! I must say I really miss spring time foaling! I really hope that Velvet has a foal coming for me, I think she does but I'm not yet positive . It's due mid July so I should know for sure soon. It seems to me that she's getting larger.... but she is such a small mare and has a big ole belly from previous foals, so I will have to be patient. Yeah, right. 

Easter morning

 A happy and blessed Easter to you all! 

Like Linda said, out of the darkness and into the light - was just what happened at daybreak today!

369 days gestation was what it took for this huge colt to finish growing and head out into the light of this Easter Sunday morning. 

Not a lick of white on him, and he's the spittin' image of his daddy.

With those light coloured eyes, he just may be a smokey black. 

Daddy was 16 hh, and it looks like this colt will be around that size too. 

He was born at 8:30 this morning, and 4 hours later, Shayla has a pending sale on him! That was quick!

He has a working horse pedigree, and should make one heck of a using horse, bred for speed and cow. 

Congratulations Shayla!

Spring Fling and other things

 I changed up my feeding routine a bit, since my trail has no more ice or snow (yay) I had to stop using my sled for hauling hay to the mares. I opened up the upper pens which are closer to my hay pile and now I can use the wheelbarrow. 

One last time with the sled though, and I stuck Velvet in the barn for her grain....

Ruby was not impressed when Velvet went out of sight. 

Fortunately, she got over it and on successive days she didn't do that. She sure has a pattern with those sideways kicks though! No kicks were straight back, all were off to the side. Interesting. 

Kbryan was asking if we have a photo of the sire of the paint foal- by the way, his barn name is Zipper- and yes we do; here is his stallion poster. 

I did a photo shoot for Shayla and got some sweet photos of little Zipper. 

First haltering

Enjoying skritches

First time picking up his feet

Mama Daphne warning the other mares to mind their own bizness, 

The sooty buckskin mare behind them in that photo is the one that is over a year gestation as of April 5th!

Concho, release the hostage!

What does the pink moon bring?

 That is what this full moon is called. I took several photos of it in the last 2 days and it's interesting the differences in my 2 Nikon cameras. 

All photos were hand held. First, my D3200 with the 300 zoom. A little harder to keep it still! Shot at 1/100 , the only setting that seemed to work. 

This was the best of the bunch

That camera intensified the colour. My Nikon B500 was a little different, it tended to wash out the colour but it gave much clearer shots. It has a 40x zoom and it's my go to camera for moon shots. 

This was a quick snap as I headed back to the house, and is the truest colour. 

What else does the pink moon bring? Well, it is the full moon before Easter, and we are in Holy Week now, with Easter Sunday this weekend. It also heralds warmer weather, as we have nicer temps in the forecast. 

It also brings new life....

We welcome the first foal of the year, out of Shayla's mare Daphne and sired by the paint stallion Gold Bar Tristan. He appears to be a buckskin dun,  (dunskin) but may be a bay dun (Same colour but doesn't carry the cream dilute gene. )This colt is the first foal for Daphne and she did a great job! Thanks Shayla, for the photos! I hope to visit him in the next day or so. Her mare, Concho, is officially over 1 year gestation today and still holding her foal hostage. We are really looking forward to that foal, as it will be the first one from her black stallion Jets Givemathrashin.

The waiting game

 Mornings...

This barn is 93 years old

We are at the low point of land out here on the prairie, so we get low lying fog on these mornings, when the air is warmer than snow it covers. 

The mares have frosty hair; manes and tails and chin whiskers.

Beamer has less because he hangs out in his barn at night, even though it is open to the paddock. 

I took the shedding blade to them all a couple of days ago. Beamer and Ruby are shedding lots, but Velvet, who has shorter hair, is just barely shedding. Smart girl. 

The full moon should bring on the warmer weather, and I am so looking forward to the snow being gone! 

Ruby agrees. 

A non horse weekend

 March went out as it came in, like a lamb. Sunny and clear! 

I spent the weekend at a Kennel Club dog show in Red Deer; one of my sisters had her 2 Rough Collies entered. One in Obedience and one in Conformation. It was quite amazing to see all those dogs of so many breeds, some of which I didn't even know existed. Did you know there is a herding breed called Berger Picard?  Apparently they are quite rare. There were 3 of them in the show. There were dogs from the tiniest Pomeranian to the big ole Mastiffs and Newfoundlands. And yes Linda, we saw quite a few Irish Wolfhounds too!

My sister's dog, High Country Levi's Promise, who was in the Conformation class. At 11 months old, he still has a lot of juvenile behavior, but she did a good job of showing him; it was her first show too. 

Her other dog is Indy, can't remember her registered name. She was in the obedience class. 

Sit stay off leash

Indy is pregnant to Levi, pups due in a month! It was great getting some visiting time with my sister and her husband; first family we have seen since we left Creston in June last year. 

We have mild weather on the way, so hopefully the snow will vamoose and I can start planning my gardens.