Watchmares

 Or, who needs watchdogs when you have mares? 

The mares have been really watchy lately. I try to see why, but they have better senses than I do. 

Velvet in particular is very aware of her surroundings. The watchiness is usually mornings and evenings (I can see their pasture from the house) so I was figuring wildlife of some sort. 

Then Ted figured it out when he spotted this:

Gussie is 15.2 hh, and she is closer than that bull moose, so you can figure just how huge he is!

There were 4 moose, browsing on the shrubs across the river. To their credit, the mares didn't get crazy, just ran to a spot where they could get a good look at them. 

Along with the moose, we got a spectacular sunset (view from the house)  and were able to watch as the moose (meese?) chowed their way along the riverbank, until it got too dark to see them. What a treat!

If I see them again, I will try for photos from my Nikon with the zoom lens, if my computer will cooperate in downloading that is. 

The sun comes up and the sun goes down

 We are getting into the monotonous part of winter . 

As I look at the winter weather other parts of the continent are getting though, I feel blessed that we aren't covered in 5 ft of snow drifts or dealing with a raging fire. 

The fire is in the sky in the morning sunrise

But not on the western side; this was taken only minutes before the eastern sky was aglow.

The evenings are just as pretty

Glowing on that baby belly!

And the skies in true form, rapidly change. 

This is our automatic waterer that is accessible from 4 different pens- I love it! Especially when I recall all the years I had to fight with frozen hoses and frozen stand pipes and frozen heated waterers! Even one year in Creston where I had to deal with 200 ft. of hose, through the bathroom window and hooked up to the bathtub tap. Gah! Never again!!!

Its quiet here on the farm. Not a lot of excitement

Tom, hoping I leave soon so that he can sidle into the barn for his cat food. 

7 more weeks until March and the onset of spring weather. We can do this. 

Making to best of it

 Two more days until solstice! Although I am looking forward to the longer days to come I am enjoying the low horizon sunsets at evening chore time. Evening being anywhere from 3:30 to 4 pm....  Anyway, cold or not it's always a boost to the spirit to see this kind of sunset:

Gussie decided to show off a bit but I had to dig in my pockets to find my phone so I only got the tail end of her silliness. 

Looks like she was quite chuffed with herself! Those lips though....

The mares are wintering well so far, they barely clean up the hay I put out and are still pawing out in the winter pasture.  

Next week it warms up a bit so I will do my annual equine Christmas photo shoot then. Meanwhile here is my tree all decorated finally, and some of my fave ornaments.  

The loon carved and painted by Connie and Gene (Far Side of Fifty)

Who, me? Steal the cat food? noooo...

A Yoda owl?

One must have horses...

and dogs

I have set up my Nativity set under the tree too. Now to get my Christmas shopping done... oops. 

Catching up

 I have been busy- that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

The weanlings are slowly progressing from wild eyed range colts to allowing as how I might maybe touch them. At first they were in full flight mode, however I am utilizing my small barn to contain them when I work them. It has a small divider I can stand behind if I need to get out of the way, and the set up is that they can go in a circle around it. I have hay stored in the extra stalls in there so it is effectively like a mini round pen. 

It has been a week today; I have been working with them twice a day. 

They took to the barn right away, which is good because I feed them in there. 

I started with flag work, just touching them with it and using it to direct traffic, so to speak. 

After a few days of that I progressed to tossing a rope around and over them. They actually weren't too bad about that and on the second session I was able to get the rope around the necks and get them started on giving to pressure. We are still a long way from being able to get a halter on them though. 

Getting the rope off was more difficult than getting it on though! But we got it done. 

There came a point when I wasn't making any progress so I changed things up. I am all about changing things when one method gets stale. 

Once they discovered that I was the purveryor of oats, Gemma did a complete turn around. She let me touch her more often, and started approaching me in a friendly manner.

She is still reserved and cautious but really is starting to allow me into her space. Shiner, on the other hand, has become more reactive. Can you say, double swirl? He was the first to let me rub his quarters and his back but not much past that so far. That's ok though- I am on a time schedule with Gemma as she leaves for her new home on the 13th, and Shiner can stay longer. He might actually be easier when Gemma leaves. 

I would have posted more photos and videos too, but my computer refuses to download the photos from my phone, so I have to email them to myself. The support for windows 10 is ending so that might have something to do with it. I will post more if I get things figured out! 

I leave you with a spectacular sunset

It's all good

 Yesterday's frosty morning persisted with a foggy day, in fact at evening chore time the sun looked like the moon!

However, it's hard to have winter blahs when you wake up to this:

And even if the temperature is -19C at morning chore time, it's still a good time when you are greeted with a little cat who waits at the gate for you- she  looks under the gate and looks for my feet....

and I call, Little Bandit! then she looks up and waits for me to rattle the gate chain before she moves away. 

Even little Smokey is getting less wild, he will wait in the feed area without moving a couple of feet away from me as I bustle about getting their kibble and fresh water. I guess the hand that feeds is not so scary after all! 

I visited the arena today, and was duly impressed with the set up. The people there are friendly, the arena and barn area are well set up and the whole atmosphere is low key and I instantly felt right at home there - and to top it off they have a coffee room with arena viewing! The arena has a round pen built into one end, and the remainder is plenty big enough. 

I signed their waiver and can't wait to get our truck on the road and get hauling!

TheresaA- I did ask a bit about their Andalusians. They almost got out of breeding their own but took on an old stallion they call Carlos that the previous owner was getting rid of all his horses due to his advanced age and was going to ship Carlos. He is a grey, I don't know any more about the bloodlines of their mares but will find out more as time goes on. They said he was "Mexican " trained... which apparently is not a good thing. 

Now I just have to be patient... 

Christmas 2022

 The wintry blast we have endured for the past week has abated somewhat. Instead of -37C we made it to -21 yesterday  and much warmer coming for the next week. 

The mares have gone from having hair sticking up to having snow blankets again.

I find it fascinating to see how nature takes care of it. When we lived in Creston we didn't have these drastic swings of temperature and weather conditions. Freezing rain in the forecast for today! 

We are all ready for Christmas. Nature did a little decorating for us on the kitchen window....

Who needs fake snow for the windows when you have the real thing!

A vertical shaft of sunlight decorating the sky at sunset

Tomorrow we head up to see Ted's dad and family, so today, I wish all my blog readers a truly blessed Christmas. I hope you all stay safe and warm, and are surrounded by loved ones. For those who have lost loved ones this year, may your hearts find peace. 

Sunday Silence

 

Firewater

 I was going to do a Wordless Wednesday with this post but I didn't want to alarm anyone.

We have a deep well here for our water supply and being in Alberta which has a plethora of natural gas, we actually have methane gas in our well. It builds up a bit and the tap hisses and spits when you turn it on. Normally  a glass of water has bubbles in it that dissipate as the gas evaporates but Ted being Ted, decided to flare it off.... just for fun. We have soft water here which is horrible for making coffee, so we buy spring water or Reverse Osmosis water for drinking. 

The cold snap is about over (for now). The mares had their snow blankets on the other day, 

and then today, it warmed up to -9 C and the snow blankets were gone. 

It is such a wonderment that they don't lose body heat in the winter when they are well fed.  As you can see, they have a plentiful supply of hay  and hay is what generates the heat for them,. Contrary to popular opinion feeding extra grain isn't what keeps them warm in the winter. That being said, there are situations when grain and/or targeted supplements are necessary to keep up the body score on a horse, but they add weight without providing that extra warmth. 

I had a little bit of help at chore time tonight.

Thumper decided it had warmed up enough to go out for more than 2 minutes and supervised the feeding this evening. 

 

And what a lovely evening it was! The sunsets/sunrises here never disappoint. 

Oh- by the way, li'l Bandit wants y'all to know....

She does indeed have  blue eyes.  She is getting less fearful all the time; I held my phone about 3 ft. away from her for that photo and can get my finger within about 4 inches. 

Sunset and those cats

 Once again we were treated to a magnificent sunset. This kind of colour only lasts for a few minutes so I had to hustle to capture it. 

No editing! It really was that intense colour. 

We are at the tail end of a spell of warm weather- but it's time for ole man winter to breathe his icy blast on us again. Next week we are expecting temps in the -30 (C) range. That's -22 + in Fahrenheit. 

Touques and long johns will be in use! I have a down work coat that I use for chores in that kind of weather. Ted's dad gave it to me and I am ever so grateful; it is a tough green canvas with lots of pockets and is mid thigh length. Perfect! 

Our cats are cuddle bugs. They like to visit Ted when he sits outside. Thumper is a lap cat- Foose not so much. Anything more than a few seconds and he wants outta there. 

Ted, of course, didn't let him go in the prerequisite 3 seconds.... 

Thumper says more cuddles please!

The feral cat that is the least skittish is Ringo. She  He will come and demand food if we are late feeding! (News flash, Ted got a good look and Ringo is definitely a he. No gender bending intended!)

Checking for mice from his vantage point

The kittens continue to live in the barn. I am keeping a watch on the little Siamese, she looks suspiciously fat. 

Critters

 There is always something interesting going on here with wildlife/ferals. 

The magpies and bluejays get excited when we put catfood out where they can steal it. I got some fun videos of them for all you folks who have never seen magpies. 

Feral cat update- there is one more half grown black cat. When I went to the "cat homeless shelter" to feed them, 4 cats scattered: Smokey and the Bandit, and Ringo the adult female Siamese and another black one that looks just like Mama Cat but smaller. It only went about 3 ft. away and stopped and hissed at me 😄

The deer continue to frequent our yard. Yesterday we had hunters come and ask permission to hunt, which we granted. They saw deer right away, about 150 yards out. 4 shots later they missed 😕. Humpfff. I could have made that shot! It didn't scare the deer away, judging from them being right outside our window twice today. 

The weather warmed up enough to take Beamer's blanket off. This is typical of Alberta- we get a lot of temperature swings even up to 20 degrees or more in the same day. 

The white in his eye is just the reflection of the snow

The evening light continues to delight, 

this time, featuring Velvet. She is such a grand old mare. She gets a hug from me every day. 

I am blessed.