My apologies....

I have had to turn on comment moderation as I am being hit with spam comments. I check my blog every day so your comments should get published the same day. Thanks for your understanding!

Blogger is at it again

Some of you have been telling me that they are getting Word Verification in the comments, that pesky "prove you're not a robot" thing. I do have WV turned off in my settings, so I don't know why some are getting that. I have tried one other thing, changing my settings from registered users to anyone can comment. Let me know if that helps!

That shrinking feeling

Still all quiet here, haven't ridden Kai in a week or more, just too dang wet and muddy. I would have to haul to the indoor. However, the next couple of days have sun in the forecast, so maybe I'll get going again. One thing about the wet, Kai and Josie are learning to walk through muddy spots and puddles.
The other thing that is happening is that the horses are now sharing their shelter area with weanling calves. The landlord weaned the other day, and the calves needed a place out of the rain, so I moved Nitro over to a temporary set up that I built using pipe and Beamer's shelter that Ted built- and the calves have the end of the stall area now. Apparently, Josie and Kai are quite fine with that, they hang out down there and even lay down close to the cross fence where the calves are. Josie in particular is quite taken with the little heifers.

Should never have to worry about coming across cattle once we get riding her! Her mama liked cows too. Guess all that cutting horse blood is coming through.

Beamer is enjoying having Nitro over the fence from him, they seem to get along well, and if I put Beamer out in the turn out pen Nitro calls for him. I wish I had a big enough paddock where I could turn Beamer out with a gelding, but these small pens don't cut it- no room for the boys to get away when Beamer decides to push them around as studs can do. And my pen areas are getting smaller all the time. I have no pasture, just the one small turn out pen that I rotate turn out in, and a 20 x 36 stall for Kai and Josie, a 40 x 40 pen for Beamer and the pen Nitro is in is about 40 x 50- it will eventually become part of Beamer's but for now Nitro lives there.

 This place keeps getting smaller and smaller for me as the landlords take over for their cattle- and I understand, cows are their income. They take priority. There is a plan in place to do some fencing off of the stall area so that there will be a 36 x 80 run for Josie and Kai off their stall, which will help. However, I will have to hot wire it where it has a common fence with Beamer's pen because of Josie- can't have Beamer getting interested in her.
This place which started out so good, with 5 acre pastures and the nice big dry lot off of the stalls just keeps shrinking and shrinking to the point where I think it's time to get out of here. Trouble is, there's nowhere to go in this valley. I've been looking for years and nothing has come up for rent. See where all those cows are in the background of the first photo above? That used to be one of two horse pastures I had use of. Now there will be cows here year round and that is where they will spend the winter. I hate having my horses confined to such small pens. Good thing I don't have very many horses any more!

A rant... sigh...

Good ole blogger is at it again. When I sign into my dashboard, it usually gives me a list of new posts to all the blogs I follow. Now, it gives me one new post, and a button to "view more"..... which of course does not work. Hey blogger, leave things alone! If you are going to change things at least make sure your changes work!!!!!  I'll try to individually visit each blog, and I hope I don't miss your posts.

A Rant

If you read my blog you may have noticed this little blurb on my sidebar:

COPYRIGHT
Please do not copy or download any photos or text from this blog without my permission!

 I just found out that one (that I know of!) of my photos is all over Facebook, with a silly caption on it. 

I dislike dishonesty and disrespect. Obviously, one of my blog readers did this, so I must say, I am rather disappointed. I know it isn't one of my regular readers because apparently it originated in England. 

So, I am adding Copyscape, to track thieves  and will start watermarking my photos. 

Can anyone recommend the easiest program to use for watermarks?

I love writing about and photographing my horses, and I understand the risk of plagiarism abounds on the internet- I guess I am the kind who believes in the basic goodness of people, so having to lock things up really bothers me. It's on a par with hackers.
I have also changed my settings so that search engines can't find my blog, I guess that will mean that people have to either already be followers or find it on someone else's blog list- but at this point, I'm ok with that.

Edited: Thanks to everyone's comments, I have found places on the web that have my photos, so I think I may have been wrong in assuming it was a blog reader who hijacked my photo. There sure is a lack of privacy on the web- and  whole lot of piracy!

Pesky varmints

The melting snow has exposed the secret life of voles/mice in my yard. Little rotters!

In all the time we've been here, they've never done this to my lawn. It must have been because the ground didn't freeze before we got snow over just before Christmas, so they could still dig their way under the snow.

Looks like they are right at home under my blueberry bushes and strawberries. Hope this doesn't kill the plants- and I hope the little varmints start showing their faces as the owls and hawks are passing over. Doesn't look as if the cats can keep up!

Header

Because so many of you were having trouble with my header photo going black, I used a different way of uploading, let me know if this works. The last header I uploaded directly from my photos file via the "choose file" prompt, using the option to place photo behind title and description. This one, I uploaded to Flickr and used HTML code to place it in the slot for blog description.
Hope it works better!

I'm about done with blogger

I am a lot dissatisfied with blogger, there are some issues that haven't been resolved no matter how many times I post a question on their help line.  I want to stop following some blogs that are inactive and every time I go to manage my reader list, it won't let me.

So I click there where I'm supposed to and this is what I get:

I've been getting this for over 6 months now! For one thing, I know nothing about Friend Connect and have never used it to my knowledge. I usually just add blogs to my Follow list using blogger's dashboard tools- but since they changed the interface, I can't even add blogs to follow! Very frustrating!
Is anyone else having this problem? I am seriously thinking of switching to WordPress but would like some feedback on that: can I import this blog or do I have to start a new one?
This photo of Beamer about sums it up:

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!

I'm back!

Finally got my  computer back, The geeks said it had the nastiest virus they've seen yet- worse than the Black Hole virus. They had to wipe everything and re install the basic program and my files- which means that I have to reset everything from my color preferences to my  favorites; I lost all those pages I'd bookmarked. At  least I didn't lose my photos! 

So to bring you up to date, Nitro had his first hoof trim a couple of days ago; I had a friend help hold him while I did his front feet

He wasn't  too bad, but I've never done a colt before so I'll have to check and redo him in a few days. I did Beamer too, and Gussie is next on the list because the first week of August I'm hauling up to visit Janice and go for some trail rides with her; I might take Chickory along and pony her. Her feet are good- no sign of soreness at all- yay!

We had a heat wave here enough to get the farmers cutting hay; but  the ground is still saturated and it's not drying well - at  least, for the farms on the flats, like my hay guy. And then last Friday we got a crackin' thunderstorm that  dumped 3 inches of rain in less than 5 hours..... on all the cut hay.... I may have to find another supplier. 

Tess knows how to stay cool!

Well, I still have a lot of tweaking to do to get my computer back where I want it. I need an affordable photo editing software as I no longer have Microsoft picture manager, which is what I had BC (before the crash), so any suggestions would be welcome.

Q&A, and locked out

First, I'm locked out of my computer by some virus that wants me to pay $100 to unlock,  HA! I wasn't born yesterday! Ted took the computer in to the local geeks and reported the scam to the police. They will try to get a photo of the scam to give to the police. Meanwhile, I'm without my computer for a few days, so... no photos!
I'll try to answer some of the questions from my last post.
CG wanted to know if I breed my foals for a specific task; I like to stick to the original purpose of the Quarter Horse breed, which was a versatile, do-anything kind of horse. That being said, over the years certain bloodlines have proven to excel at different athletic endeavors. Beamer carries the bloodlines of cutting horses, reiners, ranch horses and race horses. Coyote Belle has a very versatile pedigree, including reining, working cowhorse, roping, and lots of speed including an All American Futurity winner. So their colts can go about any direction you want.
Linda asked if I have a favorite among them for a working cowhorse prospect- not really, although I think Jazz and Nitro should really excel in that event. Did I mention Jazz has plenty of speed?  Rio with his size would make a terrific heading horse and should be able to go to the show ring in everything but western pleasure. He'd make a wonderful English horse too, with that floating trot and lovely head carriage.
For trail and ranch work- Kai, hands down. He has that easy going attitude and is so willing to please- but he's no deadhead. I'd love to see him work cattle. Maybe his new owners will get in to team sorting.
Nitro needs to be a barrel horse or a working cowhorse, but could easily be a calf  roping or steer wrestling horse too. Somewhere that he can utilize that great burst of speed he has.
Every one of them should make good trail riding horses.
What I haven't shown you is Gussie's foals, she has two blue roan babies from Beamer. I don't have either of them; Choctaw Peppy is in Saskatchewan, and Peppys Blue Velvet is in Alberta. Peppy is 4 this year, I sold him as a yearling  and he was resold as a 2 year old to a 14 year old girl and apparently they made a wonderful partnership; I'd love to hear from them. Velvet is 3 this year, and I'm waiting to hear how she is going, she was supposed to be started under saddle this year. They are both pretty good sized horses, and should be able to go any direction. I think Peppy is being ridden English as well as western.
I have 3 foals coming next year, and I am pretty excited to see if I get another blue roan from Gussie, and a dun from Chickory. We are pretty much guaranteed what Belle will throw!
And Sarah, sorry, you'll have to keep looking at Rio.... when I get my computer back. He's turning a really pretty golden brown, and I can't wait to show you!

Not so wily coyote

There is a young coyote hanging around here, we see him at all times of day, and we heard him right in our yard one night. Mostly he is hunting mice and other little critters that live in the pasture grass.

This was about 100 yards from the house. The calves gang up and chase him, but the mama cows ignore him.

This was taken around supper time, I was only about 50 yards from him. I got a little video :

He spotted me, and walked towards me, then went to his sweet spot and resumed hunting. 

Yesterday, I heard a big ruckus from the resident ravens, and when I investigated, I found a fledgling half eaten on the ground. At first I thought our cats got it, but it was too shredded and one leg was completely missing, and the cats had only been out for a few minutes, so I think the coyote got it. The pole shed is only a few yards from the house.This coyote is getting way to cozy here, he needs to move on or eat lead. I won't have him going after my cats- they are big strong cats, but they would be no match for him.

Crap from blogger

I just got the "your blog has disappeared" notice and followed the recommended steps to get it back- I'm pretty sure it's a scam from blogger because I refused to add a mobile phone number to my google account- the only way I could access my blog again was to agree to get a verification code texted or sent by voice mail to my phone. So now they are happy, they have my phone number. What a scam! Shame on you, Google.

We. are. not. amused.

If you think we are going to set hoof in that slop you're crazy!

Let me back in my foaling pen before I bite someone's head off!

Holey! and other stuff

 To enter the foaling contest, got to This Post and leave a comment!

With the nice weather we are having I've been out riding, got another ride on Gussie- just a short one around the yard after round penning, and worked Chickory in the round pen. Had to go back to some basic ground work with her instead of riding, she wouldn't cooperate when I asked her to stand next to the fence so I could climb on bareback, so we worked on moving the haunches and standing quietly next to the fence as a nice place to be after working.
The next day I rode Beamer, a lovely ride on a sunny day, birds everywhere, strolling down the country lanes with scenery like this:

Beamer was nice and relaxed, and I had my trusty dogs with me- it was a good day!
After riding, I hand grazed Beamer for a while. Our lawn is growing and he deserved a little treat. He was standing about 3 feet away from the hitching rail, when suddenly his left front leg sunk into the ground- past his knee. He stood up and moved over, looking puzzled, and continued to graze- no injuries. I put him back in his paddock and called Ted over to investigate this mysterious sink hole. Turns out, someone had sunk a 45 gallon steel barrel in to the ground with only a few inches of dirt over it, and the lid gave way. Huh? Why would anyone do that, this is only 20 feet away from our home, and it's not part of the septic system. Someone hiding toxic waste or something illegal? We are going to dig it out and take a sample of the contents to be checked out. The scariest part is that I had ridden Beamer over that same spot at the beginning of our ride. That would have been a wreck if he had gone through with me on him; so I'm thanking my Guardian Angel that there was no wreck and no injuries. Here is the hole:

It is at least 2 ft. deep, with the lid pushed down at an angle. I'm so glad Beamer didn't get hurt. And I'd like to stuff the person who did that into the barrel and shovel dirt on top of him!

And in other news.....

After working with my three horses, and taking stock of my situation, I've had to make a decision. With Ted wanting to keep Rio for himself, one of the horses has to go, and it's going to be Chickory. She is back for sale, I don't have a set price on her, so I'm open to offers. Here is her pedigree. She has a whole bunch of cowhorse breeding, and some speed on the bottom. She is still pretty green, and I'm hoping that whoever buys her will be able to work her on cattle, it's what she is bred to do. She's very stout, but not tall, 14.2. At 4 years old, she is likely not going to get any taller, maybe a half inch.
This photo was taken last summer, and in tomorrow's Sunday Stills post will be another photo of her I took earlier this week.

 She is a dun, with rabicano markings; roan in the flanks and white hairs at the top of her tail.
I hate to see her go, we've had such a long journey together, but I can't keep them all. It would be different if I had a younger person around who wanted to ride a lot- all Chickory really needs is someone to go on with her as the basics are in place, now she just needs experience.

PSA- privacy

Edited to add: this takes effect Thursday March 1st.
If you value your online privacy, check this out.
http://news.yahoo.com/how-to-remove-your-google-web-data-history.html

How to Delete Your Google Browsing History Before New Policy

With just a week to go before Google changes to its new privacy policy that allows it to gather, store and use personal information, users have a last chance to delete their Google Browsing History, along with any damning information therein.

Tech News Daily reports that once Google's new unified privacy policy takes effect all data already collected about you, including search queries, sites visited, age, gender and location will be gathered and assigned to your online identity represented by your Gmail and YouTube accounts. After the policy takes effect you are not allowed to opt out without abandoning Google altogether. But now before the policy takes effect, you have the option of deleting your Google Web History by modifying your settings so that Google is unable to associate data collected about you with your Gmail or YouTube accounts.

Tech News Daily reports that Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that advocates for online privacy, says: "Search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more."

EFF advises all Google users to delete their web history.

Meanwhile, Center for Digital Democracy has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking the Commission to sue Google to stop the policy change. Tech News Daily reports FTC can impose fines up to $16,000 per day for violation.

Daily Mail reports that deleting your browsing history before March 1 when Google's new privacy policy comes into effect will limit Google's ability to track and record your every move online. The process is simple. Follow the steps below:

1. Go to the google homepage and sign into your account.

2. Click the dropdown menu next to your name in the upper-right hand corner of your screen.

3. Click accounts settings

4. Find the "Services section"

5. Under "Services" there is a sub-section that reads "View, enable, disable web history." Click the link next to it that reads: "Go to Web History."

6. Click on "Remove all Web History"

When you click on "Remove all Web History," a message appears that says " Web History is Paused." What this means is that while Google will continue gathering and storing information about your web history it will make all data anonymous, that is, Google will not associate your Web History information with your online accounts and will therefore be unable to send you customized search results.

Google's ability to gather personalized information about you by assigning data to your Gmail and YouTube accounts will remain "Paused" till you click "Resume."