Wordless Wednesday

Chore time

My little pocket camera, the Nikon AW100 finally kicked the bucket. Now I have to pack my big camera and the only lens I have for it is the telephoto. Time to invest in some more equipment!

Here are scenes from this morning's chore routine.

Coulee waits patiently in the background while the other mares hog my attention. She is so black right now, and the only brown is that little bit on her muzzle. I'm really hoping for a black foal from her.

Can you tell whose muzzle this is?

Thea lays at the fenceline in a staredown with Rosalee (she is the only one that pays attention to Thea).

Foose thinks in winter he should be a house cat. It warmed up so both cats got kicked back to the barn; Foose especially because he decided that the bathroom floor or the bathtub were preferable to sharing a litterbox with Pearl. Bad kitty!

Thumper did well, he was still asleep in the barn when I checked on him. He got up lazily and made his way out, to be greeted by his buddy Thea.

Thumpy is such a tolerant cat. He is one heck of a mouser too, so he better earn his keep, I have hay stored in the barn- alfalfa mix bales for foaling time and I'd prefer that they don't become mouse condominiums!

Thea's birthday

Thea is 1 year old today.
From this....

to this 😄

She has a very strong working instinct, is quite playful and protective and listens quite well.... although sometimes I have to growl at her to break her concentration when she is stalking.
I have been trying to get a photo of her "snickers" but she us usually way too close to me when she "smiles".
She doesn't leave the yard, even though we have no fenced yard.
She loves most people unless they are trespassing in our yard. (In her opinion).
She can't hold her licker.... very handy with her wet kisses! She can find exposed skin if you have a tear in your jeans, drives Ted up the wall! (heeheehee)
Apparently deer aren't allowed in our yard. She puts the run on them, but comes back when I holler.
If you play ball with her, don't expect to get the ball back unless you can get Tess to steal it from her.
She shares a birthday with Elvis Presley. Also shares a birthday with Reba's first litter, who are 13 years old now.
And I love her to bits!

Beamer's view

Too cold to ride, so my horse activity is confined to doing the chorse- and of course I always pack my handy little Nikon AW100 with me. It has served me well and is now held together with scotch tape, as the cover falls off now- but it still works!

Here is Beamer's world.

He has a great view of the sunset on the Skimmerhorns. He is snug as a bug in his house out of the wind- but the mares have to tough it out.

They have a roof but no shelter from the wind; fortunately they are in a bit of a  bowl so the wind doesn't hit as hard there as it does up where our house is. Next year will be different, we were in a hurry to get a million projects done here just to get set up before winter, so this year I will get the horses set up better.

The above photo also shows my racist horses (haha) the blacks are together and the blondes are together, they do this every day. Loretta has taken a shine to Rosalee, and Belle tolerates Coulee.

Speaking of Coulee, her baby bump is quite noticeable now (big grin!) Only 4 months to go!

I check her daily for baby kicks, partly because it's fun and also to get her used to having her belly handled. I haven't forgotten how crabby she was when I first got her and rubbed her belly and she tried to kick me. She is much better now; I also touch her on her udder to get her used to when baby tries to nurse. She is due any time around the beginning of May- first foal so no history but her last day bred was May 31. There will be a foaling contest in April!

Loretta

I had sent away a DNA kit on Loretta, for 5 panel and colour. For those who don't know, the 5 panel test covers 5 genetic diseases known to be possible in certain bloodlines of quarter horses, as well as paints and some other breeds.
She is negative on all the 5 panel, great news but what I expected. I also had her colour tested for the silver gene as well as red/black. She does carry the silver gene- again, what I expected, and she carries one copy of red and one black. Since she is a buckskin (now definitely a sliver buckskin!) she carries at least Aa (heterozygous) for agouti and the cream gene. Agouti is the gene that limits black to the points such as ears, legs and mane and tail. Bays are the usual example, and buckskin is bay with one cream dilution. so- she can pretty well have any colour of foal under the rainbow depending on who she is bred to.
Because of her age, I am thinking I will breed her to a silver bay that I know of- here is a photo of him:

Not my photo, I think it's a cell phone photo. Most people would consider this to be a palomino, but he is tested silver bay.

There is a good possibility that she could throw a homozygous silver foal. IF we can get her in foal! After that, she will become Beamer's pasture mate; I'm not sure at what age mares stop coming into heat- I'm sure it's different with each mare- so if I can get a nice filly from her, she could be a candidate to breed to Beamer. If it's a colt it will be sold, and silvers do bring a good price.

Loretta is looking very healthy- here is a video I took this evening.

Christmas kisses

Because you can't get enough of a good thing... I was trying to get Beamer to play but all he wanted to do was come up and blow kisses. This is for all his fans out there!

A Beamer Puzzle

This one is for Wendy... you know who you are ...

Peaceful....

We had a lovely quiet Christmas day, just me and Ted  for our first Christmas in our new-to-us home. I went for an afternoon ride on Beamer first time he has been ridden since one short ride last summer.

Just walked into his pen, put his bridle on and climbed on bareback, and went and explored the back end of this property. Sure is pretty back there in the snow.

Thea came along for company. She does fairly well, just ranges out a bit ahead, then circles in behind and does a fly-by bite at Beamer's tail (bad dog!) so we worked on that and she quit doing it, she just gets excited.

We came across fresh deer tracks- and fresh human tracks which I thought was a bit creepy, as most people walk along the dyke which has a view of the river, but this guy was wandering through the trees. Hopefully just enjoying the beauty!

Scenery always looks better when viewed through those l'il black ears!
After that it was ham, mashed 'taters and brussels sprouts, and we watched the Magnificent Seven.
Perfect day!

Ted bought me coloured artist pencils for Christmas. I'm retiring at the end of this week 😤 Yippee!
That will give me the leisure time to get my art supplies all set up and get down to some serious drawing. I have tried (and failed) painting over the years but always come back to just drawing, that's what I like to do the best, so working with coloured pencils seems logical to me. It's going to be a bit of a learning curve! I also got a set of art pens so I can do that again.
Here is a photo of a photo of an ink drawing I did waaaaay back in '87. I haven't done ink drawings for over 20 years so it will be fun to try again.

Merry Christmas to all!

I had a little fun with the horses on Christmas Eve morning- I made them work for their breakfast as I wanted a nice action photo for my annual Christmas Card.
Here are the out takes- enjoy and have a wonderful Christmas!

Rosalee

Beamer

Coulee

Loretta

Belle

Thea was not impressed that she wasn't allowed to join in the fun!

And a big ole Christmas smooch from Beamer! 

The girls

Every once in a while the mares get the wind up and do a little performing for me.

Rosalee and Belle are the instigators.

Loretta joins in....

This time, Coulee just stood there and looked at me  as if to say, "Never mind those silly mares, where the heck is my hay?"

Loretta is wintering well, she is in pretty good shape. She's funny, if one of the mares infringes on her space at feeding time she lets out a little high pitched squeal and they back right off.

All the dilute coloured mares eat together, but Coulee isn't part of the "inner circle" just yet. These three eat together under the shelter or out in the open, but Coulee keeps to herself.
Coulee is about 4 1/2 months from foaling, so I am spending a bit more time with her, and need to start thinking about setting up a separate pen for her for foaling- probably start separating her at night when she is 2 months form foaling. If she foaled in the herd it might get a little dicey if she is protective of the foal. So her own pen come March. Not that far away- Winter Solstice tomorrow!

Oh Beamer.....

Mama Belle update

The mares were performing on this frosty morning. I had my good camera with me when I went down to feed so I was lucky enough to get some fun photos. Look how Belle's top line is improving. I do belly lifts with her - not every day, but often.

Her croup is filling out too, not so sunken between her hip and tailbone.

Plenty of 'tude means she's feeling good too, and asserts her place as second in command.

She did a lot of cavorting around, rearing and whirling in mid air.

Yes, that's my Big Butt Belle. Getting back to her old self. 😍 It has only taken 5 weeks to get this much improvement.

A Beamer singalong

Let There Be Peace on Earth and let it begin with me.

Let There Be Peace on Earth, the peace that was meant to be!

With God as our Father, brothers all are we.

Let me walk with my brother in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me. Let this be the moment now.

With ev'ry breath I take, let this be my solemn vow

To take each moment, and live each moment, in peace eternally.

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

💕 💕💕💕💕

Hey, hay!

Finally got all my hay here, thanks to my husband and a couple of his buddies- one with a hauling truck and one with a tractor big enough to lift these 1200 lb. bales. Had to go buy a couple more tarps! With snow in the forecast for the next week it's perfect timing to get this done. So now I have 20 of these big square bales. With 5 horses I go through one in 11 days, so this should last 220 days, so this will last until about the end of July, which is right about when next year's first cut is baled and ready.

Horse stuff but no riding

Oh miss Loretta.

I think she cut herself on some elderberry branches that I had piled up but hadn't moved out of the horse pen...  guess what, they are moved now.... I doctored her up with a tetanus shot (just in case; I don't know her vaccination history) and liberally applied Young Living's Animal Scents ointment.
After that I worked on Belle's rain rot- scraped off the scabs and applied Young Living's Melrose essential oil blend.

After feeding, I noticed that the neighbours were preparing to fall some danger trees that are next to Beamer's pen. Good plan! Because if they fell  they are close to Beamer's pen and could take out his fence.

I stuck around to see how Beamer reacted to all the commotion; he was pretty good considering how close to his pen it was. The mares couldn't have cared less, they were busy chowing down and were a little further away.

Thursday we are hauling in the winter's hay- 20 large square bales, hopefully before the snow hits; it sure has been nice here.

There's cold weather and snow in the forecast. I have just started my Christmas decorating- kind of hard getting into that when I still have reno work to do, but we are getting close.

New Trails

Yesterday the neighbour rancher dropped off a key to the gate where he has the grazing lease along the river, so today we saddled up and headed up there. Although we didn't go the whole way it was a pretty nice short ride. Next time I will go farther but today I cut it short as we had an event to go to in the evening.

Coulee and Rosalee are pretty good buddies on the trail. Coulee is braver and has more experience on the trails- Rosalee is just learning about trails this year.
They spotted a deer and just stood stock still and watched it, no spooking. Both mares are pretty sensible about picking their footing and although they are a little looky at new /strange things they don't get silly.

Just past the gate- lots of rosehips on that bush, I'll have to check it out next summer!

Tess came with us this time. Thea stayed home.

Coulee sure is looking pregnant! I have pretty much taken her off the market until after her foal is born. Then I'll decide if I should keep her. She is so steady on the trails that she might just be a keeper.

Rosalee walked out really slow on the way out but sped up on the way back- and she didn't want to stand still while I took Shayla and Coulee's photo. I had to work her a bit to get her to stand still long enough for a photo.

She was also happy to lead on the way back, but not on the way out. Once I ride her a bunch more on trails I think she will get a little braver.

Happy dance

Some antics from mama Belle the other day. I was getting her feed put out and I think she was overjoyed!

 Nice to see her so happy. She also got a pedicure, her feet were way out of balance after self trimming for the last 3 years.

I discovered that she has rain rot too, so I'll start treatment for that today. A mix of coconut oil and tea tree oil will do the trick. 

I'm just about done with the renovation, a few more days and then I'll do the reveal.