Sunday Stills

Ah, the beauty of flowers! The best part of taking this lilac shot was drinking in their lovely scent.

Nemesia, from my flower basket.

Apple blossoms in my yard.

I'm not sure what fruit tree these blossoms were on, but they were so beautiful that as I was driving by I slammed on the brakes and jumped out to capture them for you.

Have a lovely Sunday!

Pupdate video

We moved the pups today to the dog kennel, into the box Ted built for them. In a few days they will be able to climb over the sides of it, but they will be contained within the "house" part for another week before they get to romp around. They are growing like bad weeds, as you can see in the video. They are 17 days old today. By the way, if anyone from Montana, Idaho or Washington State is interested in one, I can deliver as far as Kalispell, St. Maries, or Spokane.

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Babies and a prayer request and a couple of giveaways

A couple of things to post about today; first, Sydney over at Bitless Horse is having a giveaway- check it out here. It's for a neat little level that attaches to your saddle to help you in correcting your riding posture. And we all need help with that, right?

Also, The Rocking Seven Mile blog has a book giveaway- Susan is autographing her book, A Story of the West, to give a copy away on Saturday. Enter up!

Next, Velvet, who turned one year old on April 29, received a birthday card from the folks who own her mama, including photos of Gussie- she is the red roan, Bar Dawn Sabre, on my sidebar under Sale Barn. As you can see by these photos, she is doing really well. One of her owners has a health issue, and I ask you all to send up some prayers for his recovery, he has an ulcer in his esophagus which prevents him from eating solid food, and I'm sure he is pretty tired of Ensure and Boost. Pray hard, folks, because if he doesn't get better they may have to move to town, which would mean selling the farm and horses. Not good.

The pups all have their eyes open now,(and I have names for them all now!) the jury is still out on a couple of them that might have one blue eye. They are getting quite active, and will be transferred to the puppy pen this weekend.

Da Boyz- in front is Ace, we are waiting to see if the eye on his right side is blue. In behind him, from left to right, are Chad, John, Luke, and Corb.

Da Gurlz-from left to right, Ruby (I transferred the name to her), Emma, Jazmin, Abby (who used to be Ruby) and Billie. Abby might have one blue eye; they all look blue for the first week or so before they start to turn brown.

I've been trying to get some photos of Kai for his registration papers. He's so much fun to watch I usually miss the perfect shot, but I did get couple today.

Ummm, Kai, can't you pose with your mouth closed?

Yeah, I know, you'd rather run and play. Off with you then!

Wednesday Videos

The first one features Velvet, the second one shows Kai bossing Chickory around, then calling in mom for backup.

And it's 11 more days until I get li'l Whatsername!

Just springin' along

This pup is Corb, (boy 4) he was the first one to have his eyes all the way open and the first one to escape the little pen I have the pups in. They are much more active now; they started yesterday opening their eyes just a little. By tomorrow they should all be able to see some. A couple more days and I'll transfer them to the fancy doghouse Ted built. (And out of my mud room!) I'll get more pics of them when they all have their eyes wide open.

I put the mares out to pasture every morning, and today Beamer got to go out into the pen the mares use; which pleased him no end; all those lovely piles of mare poop to smell!

In this photo, guess what is on his nose?

And then, of course, he has to do the flehmen posture all the better to smell it you know!

He can see the mares from this pen, so he stays much quieter; he really hates to be alone. Hmmm I wonder if he'd like to have about 4 sheep for companions? Anybody ever kept sheep with horses have any advice?

Sunday Stills- B

I was happy to see that today's Challenge was the letter B; we abound in B's here! There's babies and Beamer and baby butts and boots 'n'bits and all kinds of B's so sit back and enjoy!

There's Beamers Big Branded Butt

Border Collies with their favorite Ball

My custom made Eddie Bigler Boots

Magnolia Blossoms ( Just for Morning Bray, who asked for them)

Some of the nasty Barbed wire I've had to clean up around here

Big daddy Beamer's Butt

and little Kai's Big Butt

Beamer's Bit

Blue and Black Branded Butts

and lots of Border Collie Baby Butts!

And we'll leave you with a Big ole Border Collie grin!

What's 'er name, Beamer, and Kai

I found out today that I get my pup on the 23rd. Yay!

What a face! She has pathetic down pat!

Don't miss out on the foaling contest over at Ranch Riding Blog!

Beamer has been rather hormonal lately, so today we had a good long schooling ride to get his mind off the ladies and back on work. My friend with the arena has open riding day on Mondays, and she has cattle to work now, so there will be a little Working Cowhorse practice going on over there. Yippee! Definitely time to get the B-Boy's mind back in gear! He got a little chargey in the lope at first, but a half hour of lateral exercises got him thinking and softening so that we could lope without a lot of testosterone energy. He is so fun to ride!

Kai is getting some body mass now, and after watching daddy and mommy has attempted mounting the fillies; it's kinda funny!

His legs are so long he really has to do some serious stretching to get a mouthful of grass.

Just for fun, I scanned a photo of Belle and her dam, Sundee, to compare with Belle and Kai.

Apple don't fall far from the tree!

Where oh where?

Tess gave me quite a scare yesterday: I had let her and Reba out into the yard while I went into the house for a while. When I came out, I called the dogs- Reba came, but no Tess. I called and called, searched the yard- no Tess. She always comes when she is called, and never goes out of the yard. I started to get panicky, and had Ted keep looking for her while I jumped in the truck to try to find her, searching ditches and all the side roads- even asked the police to keep an eye out for her, as this area is known to have had a few dog thefts. Ted finally found her- she had gone under his shop and gotten stuck; couldn't get out and was just freaked out. He had to dig her out. She was plenty upset, and spent an extra lot of time with her pups that night. I'm so glad we found her; I had visions of trying to bottle feed 10 pups- yikes!

Speaking of pups, they are all healthy and growing like bad weeds. Their eyes aren't open yet, but should be, any day now.

Kai is really filling out; I'm going to spend some time tomorrow taking pictures as I need some good shots for his registration papers.

Good morning from the crew

Good Morning!

Huddle-uppys

Hey!Remember me?

Abby

The couple who were here yesterday and picked out girl3, which I had called Ruby, decided to name her Abby- good choice, one I had thought of but didn't know which pup to give it to.

I'm going to have fun with this week's Sunday Stills photo challenge; it's the letter B- things that start with B. Hmmm babies? got lots of those here!

Bad dog people and good dog people

There was an incident on the road in front of our place today. Carol's daughter came to pick out her puppy, and just after she turned into our driveway, there was a person in a big pickup truck, who was running his pit bulls, one on a leash out the drivers window, and one running free; these dogs were running flat out, and guess what? Smart fella ran over his own dog, the one on the leash. I'm not going to say any more about it, except that the dog is dead.

On a better note, we had a good visit with "J" and she decided on girl#3, whom I call Ruby. This'll be a great home for this pup! Carol's dog Jess is a half sister to Tess, and they just love her, so I hope this pup will be just as lovable for them (Not much doubt!)

How's this for a family portrait:

Ruby has the cutest white-tipped ears.

Sorry about the blurry photo; do you have any idea how hard it is to get photos of squirmy wiggly pups? We're hoping she'll have one blue eye.

May what already? 3rd?

A stormy day, today. Howling winds, driving rain and a little bit of hail. But that didn't stop Janice from coming over ( the drive is over an hour and a half!) to pick out her pup and bring me some plants for my containers. Including my pruned-by-the-deer- roses!

It took her a while, trying to decide between girl5 and girl2, but in the end she chose girl5. Knew she would! I'm leaving the naming up to Janice.

Just too flippin' cute! Another one should be picked tomorrow, and then I'll phone the rest of the folks on my puppy list.

We're done with breeding Coyote Belle, will check her again in about 3 weeks, hope she took. Little Kai is doing fairly well with leading now, I should be able to get him and mama out to pasture tomorrow, weather permitting.

He scuffed his little face on something- the first of many, I'm sure!

Things are so lush and green here now, the grass is a foot tall in places. The magnolia trees are blooming, and I can't wait to get my garden in. Another week or so, till all danger of frost has passed.

Sunday Silence

When Things go Right

You know you are successful as a breeder when people want what you produce.

Things are just a happenin' around here. Two pups were picked out by their new owner today; boy 1 and boy 2 are going to the same farm, our hay supplier. They will learn to be ranch dogs and help with the cattle a little.

Midnight Coyote, or Kai, as I call him, has been sold; he will be staying in the area and I'll get to watch him grow up. I'll probably wean in late August. His new owner will be able to spend lots of time with him here this spring and summer; between the two of us he'll be getting lots of handling. She said, depending on how he is as he matures, he may remain a stallion. Wouldn't that be nice! Also, he finally "dropped" when he pees! Guess watching daddy this morning educated him (heeheeehee!)

Coyote in action

Coyote is doing well, he's an athletic little rascal. When he's ripping around in the pasture he's really light on his feet, and like his daddy, he likes to strut his stuff.

He had a short session in the halter, to prepare him to be led out to the pasture with mama.

We decided to breed Coyote Belle on her foal heat, so today will be the first attempt. I'm putting in my order for another one just like Midnight Coyote!

Update: Beamer successfully covered Coyote Belle this morning. Since foal heats are short, we will try one more breeding tonight and one tomorrow. She has short heats, so will probably be out after that. (And I did put my order in for a carbon copy, only a girl!)