And the heat goes on...

Well so far Chickory is doing a good job of baby sitting Nitro; this morning I turned them out as usual at 7:30 AM and kept them separate from Gussie and mama Belle until almost 3 PM. Nitro did a little calling, but kept a close eye on Chicky, and spent most of the day grazing at  her heels to take advantage of her  fly-swatter tail. When I let Belle in with them, he went full tilt boogie to meet  her and had a good slurp of milk.

Then it was stuck like glue to mama!

Check out those long toes... he on the list after his mama; I trimmed Rio this morning while it was still cool out; it got up to 95F (35 C) today with a humidex of 100.5. Needless to say I didn't get much done for the rest of the day. In the late afternoon when I was filling horse water tubs Chickory, Gussie, and Rio all wanted to be sprayed down. Belle isn't a fan of spraying, unless I have a halter on her and make her stand.
I measured Rio today, he is officially the same height as Beamer and he's only 16 months old. He's hip high right now , the boy is growing.....

into a very handsome horse! We have decided to leave him a stallion for now, as we hope to send him to the trainers next year, I'd really like him to have a show career. His wounds have all  healed, but he does have some lumps, so no halter classes for him.

Weaning program

It's that  time again.... weaning time! I always adapt according to the circumstances of the year, and this  video shows and explains this year's set up.

There is very little calling going on, and none of it is from Belle- she knows what's going on and is just happy to get out and graze with her BFF. Nitro has always been possessive of Chickory, and she loves the babies, so it's all good.

New masks

The face flies and small biting flies have replaced mosquitoes now, so I finally broke down and bought a couple of fly masks for the boys. Beamer got the Absorbine Ultra Shield mask to replace the one that was a tad too small for him, and I tried a Cavalier on Rio.

(Rio isn't sweating; I had just hosed him off)

The Cavalier was a little too big for Rio

Although he looks like a big boy, he is only a yearling and his head is too small for this mask, you can see the velcro tab sticking out. So I tried it on Gussie, and put Beamer's old mask on Rio which fit much better. 

Gussie welcomed the new mask....

but thinks I should get Mrs. Mom to add a shoo fly fringe to the bottom of it.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew has to use tails for shoo fly protection.
Edited to add: 
Felt sorry  for Belle and Chickory  today, so went and got masks for them too:

Belle got one like Beamers- it's the biggest one I can find. And Chickory got a pretty coloured one:

Odds 'n' ends

Well the auction is over and life is back to normal here- at least, as normal as it gets! For those who don't know we host the occasional auction here, and I do the clerking while Ted is the ring man and relief auctioneer. This was a consignment auction with some pretty neat stuff- but we didn't buy much. I got a  proper pencil sharpener for my art pencils, and Ted got a few things for his shop, but Janice got  some really neat stuff for her gift shop and greenhouse. I'll let her tell you most of it but one really cool thing she got was a claw leg bathtub in awesome shape which she plans on re-selling.  Speaking of Janice....

Anyone recognize this lovely mare? This is Sparkle N Peppy, aka Jazz, the Beamer daughter that Janice owns.I took the photo when I was there last week for my riding vacation. She's looking great, and if my scanner was  working I'd post a photo of Beamer's daddy, because that's who she looks like.
  The fire on the mountain isn't doing much, I think they have a ground crew containing it because I haven't seen any air support for it.
  I did some harvesting in my garden today, the green beans and peas. My tomatoes are coming on gangbusters and I'm battling voles again for my root crops. I have cherries to can, peaches to dry- and I might buy some apricots to dry too.
  And- a lot of horse feet to trim! So don't be surprised if I don't post much this week- but I  sure will be looking for something for Sunday Stills- the subject is "anything bizarre" so I'm hoping I get a good one.

Sunday Stills

Sunday stills this week is all about summer- and these are the things of summer for me. There is always gardening, both flowers.....

and my jungle of a vegetable garden:

Summer harvest... berries:

and hay:

Because, really, summer is all about preparing for winter, don't you know.

But my main delight in summer is riding my horses.

Especially when I get to go with friends.

Bizzy, and a Nitro fix

We have been busy here this last week getting ready for the consignment auction that we are hosting. It starts in the morning, and Ted and I are both working  it- he's ring man and relief auctioneer, and I'm clerking. It'll be a long hot day. We have some pretty cool stuff consigned; if we buy anything I'll post photos.
Never too busy to nab a couple of Nitro photos at turn out time though!

He's 4 months old now, and after the auction I'll have more time to spend on working with him. I need to work on foot handling and standing tied- or at least he'll think he's tied, I like to have a little slip in the rope. I might get a Blocker tie for colt training. I still haven't got a good measure on his legs, have to do that soon.

He sure has lightened up, his colour is a lot like mama- but mama wasn't that colour at his age. Here is Belle now:

Sooty buckskin or smokey brown? Only a DNA test will tell. 

This photo is Coyote Belle at a few days old; she stayed this silvery black colour until she was about 5 months old then shed out nearly black. And here she is with her mama, Sundee:

None of Belle's babies have been born the same colour as she was. I wonder if she will ever throw a true black like Beamer? Ah the joys of the colour guessing game.
Off to bed now- tomorrow will be a long one!

Beamer excels as a beginner's horse

Yes, that's right, Beamer, my stallion, is my go-to horse to put beginners on. There's  many a child that has had their first ever ride on him- and some adults as well.
My cousin from the coast  and her husband and 6 year old son visited for a couple of days; I promised that if they came up I'd let Tyrone ride Beamer.
Beamer was as good as gold. I led him at first, and since he was being so good, I let mom take over the leading, while dad side-walked so I could snap a couple of photos.

Beamer was a star. His whole attitude was soft and gentle, and he was careful to step slowly and only give as much as he was asked for.

Happy child!

Tyrone's dad wanted to try too- he's always wanted to ride a horse, and this was his opportunity. So we headed to the round pen, and he got a quick run down on the basics of steering, forward, stop and reverse, and I turned him loose- he did great!

The stirrups were a notch too short for him to get a really good leg position, but over all he did really well. Beamer never once gave more than  he was asked for, and I had to make sure that dad realized that his body language was what Beamer was listening to. I thought it was a great first lesson, and I'm so proud of Beamer for giving this family a good experience- mom got on and rode too.

 Yes, that's a forest fire in the  background.

When I got on, I  loped him and showed them his spin, - Beamer's no dead-head!

Love my B-boy!

It was really great getting to visit with family- it's  been 45 years since I've seen my cousin, so it was great to re-connect and share stories. 

Wordless Wednesday

Cattitude

Scooz me, it's hot in here, and you're hogging the fan. Could you turn it this way ; cat expiring here ya know!

A little more to the right pleeze!

That's what I'm talking about!

More on my riding holiday

Janice tacking up Mattie

Thursday's ride was a lot cooler as there were thunder clouds and a few rain drops. My two dogs and Janice's Kali (who is a daughter of Tess and granddaughter of Reba) got to come with us. Janice calls this area the old airport, and you can see that it's nice and flat where we started out, but we quickly got into the treed trails.

Kali is pretty new at coming along on trail rides and she did really well- better than Tess, who crowded the horses when she was worried about the thunder and almost got stepped on a couple of times. We rode until we started getting mobbed by mosquitoes then headed back.
I didn't take many photos on this ride or on the Friday ride -but the Sunday Stills photo of Janice on Mattie is from Friday's ride out behind where Janice lives.
Gussie is barefoot, and I'm happy to say that she did really well, and didn't get bruised up at all. There were a few places where she had to step carefully, but her feet toughened up and we had no problems.
I brought along Beamer's Wade saddle for Janice to try on her horses, and it fit both of them really well; here's Mattie wearing it, and you can see it on Moxie in my post from a couple of days ago.

Pretty Morgan mare!

I plan on modifying the stirrups to put that twist in the leathers so they hang properly.
All in all it was a wonderful relaxing week, and talking it over with Janice, we'd like to invite our blogging  friends to come and ride with us. Either staying at Janice's and doing day rides like we did, or camping and riding more challenging places. Especially we extend the invite to our friends on the prairies, to come and ride any time it's convenient for them. If anyone from the US ever makes it up here on vacation- come see us, we'll be glad to show you the mountains from horseback!

Sunday Stills

The first challenge from Sarah is sports, so here is my hat tip to the Olympics. There are equine events; how about Endurance riding?

And in 3 Day Eventing, there's cross country....

Well, around here, we just call it horseback riding- that's a sport isn't it?
And one of the best summer sports is swimming (and apparently fetching sticks).

All I could come up with, since I was  on a horseback vacation for the week!

Home from my holiday

We're baaaaa-aack! It's always nice to be home, but I sure did enjoy getting to go out and ride every day this past week. We got to Janice's Tuesday evening in time to go for a ride out back of her place; how nice to have bush trails just out your back door! The next day, we saddled up and hauled down the road a ways. Since it was a hot day we didn't take the dogs with us- much to their disapproval! I really liked this area, it had some lovely open land and a couple of Buttes.

Janice on Moxie leading the way

We made a quick stop at a scenic spot for a photo-op; that's the ever-present Fisher Peak in the background.

After that we wended our way to a ridge that overlooked the valley in the opposite direction, where we stopped for a break; Moxie hadn't broke sweat, but Gussie was soaked.

She enjoyed a lunch of native grasses. Janice took some photos of a hawk that we disturbed, and I found this little caterpillar- funny little thing with black beady eyes, but I couldn't get them in the photo- guess he was shy!

It was sure a pretty rest stop. There was an old dilapidated picnic table there, so apparently someone else appreciated the view.

Check out that tail- big chunks missing, maybe from rubbing, maybe from a pint-sized tail chewer, but I've never seen it happen.

Janice is like me- not too fond of having her photo taken, but she did allow this one:

Funny girl, Janice!

After a nice break we  headed back to the trailer, where I got a nice photo of Moxie- this is the horse Janice had in her recent Fridays for Sale post.

C'mon folks- everyone always says they want a nice trustworthy horse they can just get on and go places with- here she is! Whatcha waiting for? By the way- hay is plentiful here too.
Anyway, back to the story. The next day I did a run to town while Janice kept her greenhouse open for business; here's a sample of some of the lovely flower baskets she has hanging on her house:

She also has a country gift store with some really neat stuff in it, like these door toppers which just perch on the frame above your door:

and this felted mouse, made by our friend Margaret Ironmonger (the wife of the  man who made Beamer's saddle)

Anyway, that evening, we went on another ride, and this time we took the dogs, as it was a lot cooler- and who could resist these pitiful faces?

But- enough for today- more tomorrow! For more on this ride, check out this post from Janice.