Photo day

 I had a lovely time visiting Shayla and helping her get photos of her sale horses.  Mostly it was all about the paint colt. 

He is a bay dun, hence the black in his mane and tail from the bay and the dorsal stripe from the dun. And he is gonna be a big boy! 

First he got his feet trimmed and he did really well. Shayla's husband was very patient with him but really he didn't fuss much. 

This was his first time in the round pen, and we managed to get a few action shots. 

Overall, he was fairly calm though so the action shots were, as I said, only a few.  He has show horse breeding and it sure would be nice to see him go to a show home. We also put a fancy halter on him and took some conformation photos, but with Shayla's camera. 

The colt with him in this photo is Fire, who is Jayne's son, sired by her late running bred stallion. These are two really nice colts.

I didn't do any more with Gussie in the last few days; I had one day where I was just plain crabby, then the weather turned cold and blustery again. I think Gussie is ok with that! 

I have someone coming to look at Ruby this week. She is looking for younger broodmares, so I think Ruby would do well for her. We shall see if it's a match. 

Fun in the sun

 The morning sun, that is. It was a brisk -10 C this morning, but the morning light was so inviting I had to get one of my big girl cameras out for chore time. I had a bit of fun taking unusual horse photos; what I call bits and pieces photos. When I first went out, the sky was all pink and purple....

but by the time I was done feeding cats and horses, it went orange and gold. 

Velvet is  the most photogenic (apart from Beamer!) because the light captures her red and gold so beautifully. Ruby, alas, would barely lift her head from the hay pile, so  Velvet photos it is!

I am totally smitten with her mane! I have never had any other horse whose mane splits to both sides and hangs below her neck. And doesn't need a lot of brushing to keep it nice!

Mama Belle in the shadows looks completely different than in the bright light:

Well, I did manage one photo of Beamer, but sadly the focus isn't very good- but the expression is priceless!

Please don't tell me you want me to stop eating for photos!

The Drafty girls

   You'd almost think it's spring, with sunshine and blue skies during the day! But the mornings , well, we still have this going on:

It warmed up beautifully for my visit to Shayla. It was a vet day, one of the Percheron stallions got his teeth floated (it took 2 people to hold his head up for the vet!) and Boe got gelded. Boe was a good boy! The vets liked how easy he was to handle for his needles and general handling. I think they expected a 10 month old colt to be almost wild. 

After that we walked down to the mare herd, visited with Gussie and took photos to compare our telephoto lenses. Shayla did end up getting the Canon telephoto that goes to 200. 

We even managed a couple of action shots, there is one weanling in the herd, Donna, who was feeling quite sassy. 

Airborne! She was also playing bitey face with Shayla's palomino quarter horse mare, Dolly.

Dolly was having none of it! Then Donna took off and that's when I got the first photo of her.

Mostly the mares were just basking in the sun. Not the crispest photo, but they look so attentive and sweet. 

They all are, or should be, in foal to one of their 2 Percheron stallions, with the exception of Eva (from my last post on visiting there) who was bred to their black Quarter Horse stallion. 

This one is Lady, a rare bay purebred Percheron:

It is quite something to stand in the midst of all these gentle giants. Several of them must be at least 18 hh if not more. 

Still no foals to report, Concho is at 353 days and holding... Daphne is at 343 and since she is a maiden, you bet Shayla has many sleepless nights going on! 

I has a happy

 First of all, because it is officially spring!  Although this morning it wasn't very spring-y with temps of -18 C . There was a herd of mule deer does munching near my bales this morning and I paused for a while to watch them- they sure are graceful jumpers as they hopped over the fence to go down across the still frozen river. 

The day warmed up nicely though- all the way to plus 3 C- woohoo.... but it was nice enough to head out with the other thing that I am happy about- I finally got batteries for my Nikon with the telephoto lens! So of course it was time finally for some action shots of the mares. 

They were pretty lazy in the warm sun, so I led them to the far end of  their pasture, and turned them loose. Sure'nuff that woke them up and it was tails up and go time!

Power take off

Old pregnant mares can still give 'er!

Who you callin' old? 

One toe balance

Didya get all that?

Deep snow is hard work! Yes we do still have 2 ft. of snow.

Powering through!

Nothing like a good roll!

Love how uphill this mare runs

She's gonna be fun to ride!

The mares are wintering really well. I did the math and all 3 horses are getting about 30 pounds of hay a day; a 1300 lb. round bale lasts me 15 days; I fork feed, not free choice. They are fed twice a day and usually have just a few scraps left between feedings. Beamer gets a half a scoop of oats so I can give him his 2 oz. of camelina oil, and Velvet gets a pint of senior feed with a pint of oats. Hopefully we will start getting some meltdown so that they can slowly get back to grazing; I do continue to feed hay for the first month of grazing so they aren't eating too much spring grass. It's a little different here than the last 14 years where they lived on a dry lot and had minimal pasture- here, it's all pasture so it will be a learning curve on managing them. 

The saddle hunt is still on... 

Oh look, sun!

 Yesterday was a taste of the warmer weather coming; almost to the above freezing mark! Beautiful and sunny was good enough for a visit to Shayla while Ted visited his dad. 

It was mostly a visit about photography, as she has a new camera to figure out- Canon TR7. So off we went to see the horses!

Lots of straw bedding for the mares whose date is the closest to foaling. Jayne is in with Concho and Daphne, who are both beyond safe foaling date and will probably go another couple of weeks. 

Concho (MY Buckskin Concho)

Mama Belle is having trouble with an arthritic knee so she is in a different pen as she is now having a bit of trouble getting around while we wait for the knee to fuse. 

She is, as usual, hugely in foal, and we got to see her baby bouncing around! She is at least a month away from foaling; knowing her history, probably another 6 weeks. 

Then we headed to the big pasture where the Percheron mares are, along with Gussie and Shayla's palomino mare who are both in foal to her black stallion, although Gussie isn't due until later in July. 

 Enjoying the sunshine!

Gussie recognized my voice and came over to visit me and get her scratches. 

Dolly looks more like a sorrel than palomino at this time of year! She is due end of April.

Dolly (DF Sunfrosted Te)

I'm getting to know the draft mares by name now. This one is Kate:

She has the longest mane of them all! There is one mare I like the most, a 3 yr. old that looks like a blue roan but may go grey. Eva! She is so friendly and huge!

We have matching hair!😆

Afterwards we spent some time exploring photo editing; Lightroom. It was interesting! Can sure do a lot to clean up a photo. 

What programs do you, my photographer friends, use and what would you recommend? Ease of use, efficacy and budget are the needs. 

I love my telephoto lens, as I shoot mostly outdoors, but what lens do you think is best for, say, outdoor wedding portraits, horse photos both action and still, for Shayla's Canon TR7? She already has the 50 mm portrait lens and is exploring how to use it; the above photo was taken with it. 

Photo shoot day!

 I decided to open up the top two pens for the mares, mostly so that when I take Ruby out to saddle her up Velvet can come up and watch; she does get a bit hyped up when I take Ruby out. Ruby doesn't care, but Velvet does. There is a lot of drifted snow in the pens, and they had fun exploring. 

Of course, that made for a good chance to get in a photo shoot. 

Pawing to check for nummies

Hmmm is that a saggy baby belly?

Foreshortening with the zoom lens, but Velvet, you do look a little extra wide!

It's hard to tell she's a roan in the winter

Ruby is such a pretty mare in a strong way; not dainty but I think her looks speak to her personality. 

The strong silent type. She doesn't holler when she can't see the other horses, and she notices everything. 

She is in good shape, not fat and not thin. 

Beamer, of course, was keeping an eye on them!

It's warm enough to leave his blanket off until the next bout of stupid cold. 

Later on I brought Ruby out and saddled her up. I tried out the old saddle I restored. It almost fits; she has really wide shoulders, very similar in build to Sophie. 

I feel that the bars are a bit narrow and sit higher on her back than I like.

It's very close to fitting, I might get away with riding in it. But next time I saddle her I will try the saddle I used on Sophie and see how that fits. 

That'll do!

 I dressed Beamer up in his Christmas finery and after several tries, 

we have a winner! I chose this one because it is such a typical Beamer moment!

Here are some of the out takes:

Leave the darn hat on, Beamer!

It fits perfectly over his li'l ears!

The things she makes me do! Can I eat some of that greenery?

And Happy New Year too!