At last! (Foaling contest time)

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting (Oops, remember my key word for the year- Patience!!!) for Velvet to show signs of  impending foaling. 

Other than needing a wide load sign, that is!

She finally started bagging up on the day of the full moon, Monday. I was a bit worried if she would come into milk, considering her age. But all is well! 

That's not much but at least the process has started. She is also getting the usual jiggly butt. So you know what that means, it's foaling contest time! Here are the stats:

Velvet was bred May 8th last year. So that means as of today she is at 325 days. The standard is 343 days, but as you know, mares have their own timetable. Belle would go nearly a year, her average was 352 days. And I have had foals as early as 320 days.  I have no history on Velvet's previous 9 foals, so any guess will do!

So- guess the date, time, the gender, and the colour. 

The colour possibilities are:

Sorrel

Black

Blue Roan

Red Roan

I will start a list at the top of the sidebar once the guesses start rolling in, so people don't pick exactly the same. 

And as promised, I have a really nice item to give to the winner!

A lovely steel mug (not a Yeti but similar) with our logo!

It doesn't matter where you live, this can be mailed anywhere, and those of you who are previous winners can definitely enter and try to win again.

Those people who send their comments via email can also enter, and I will put their guesses on the sidebar too.

I am hoping the weather smartens up because, yes, I will be camping out and keeping a close eye on Velvet. I hope she is the kind of mama that lets me handle the foal . 

I am, of course, hoping for a blue roan filly!

 

We are not Amused.

 

Time

 Look what my creative and talented husband made for me!

Those were rusty old hames that you couldn't tell had brass tops. He wire brushed everything to clean it up- that took days! The horseshoes are unused, a front shoe and a hind shoe, and we had the decal of Beamer made at a local shop. The clock mechanism is battery operated.  The leather straps are original to the hames, cleaned up and reconditioned. I love it!

I managed to get the foaling pen cleaned up, still a bit of ice here and there but it's melting fast. The bonus to living on a sandy based farm is that the water soaks in quickly and we don't get a lot of mud. The puddles go away within a day as the ground thaws. With today being the vernal equinox, I hope this next blast of cold and snow flurries that are predicted won't amount to much. The mares are out pawing every day and ignoring their hay - they snack on the hay in the morning and evening but spend the day out in the field. 

Velvet is huge, but not bagging up yet. As soon as she does I will start bring her in at night to the foaling pen, but foal watch will be when she shows other signs of being close to foaling. Sure hope we get decent weather in April!

Misty the Siamese female barn cat didn't catch when she was bred in November as was evidenced by her being in full raging heat last week and having all the tomcats vying for her favors. They pursued her for a week, then poof they were gone. So we expect a litter mid May. 

Hahaha looks like her head is on backwards, but she's just cleaning off the tomcat spit.

A ride on Big Red

 I had to take advantage of the sunshine yesterday to saddle up Gussie and go for a little putt. The day before I took her for a stroll in hand up the driveway to gauge her emotional state - she had been calling out for Ruby when she left so a stroll was how I wanted to see if she was calmed down enough to ride. Need not have worried, it was a lovely stroll.

She was a bit head up as she looked around, but never put a foot wrong. 

Turned her loose in the round pen to see if the energy was the same and yes she was pretty relaxed. 

So the next day we saddled up and off we went. No prep in the round pen, but it is where I mount up as my step stool is frozen into the ground there. So that gave me the opportunity to work her on opening the gate and ride through it- she tends to get in a bit of a hurry so she got the one step at a time treatment and relaxed into it. 

My route was a short one, up the long driveway and into the hayfield for a little tour. 

Here are a couple videos that speak better than words. 

Yes that is a long driveway!

Out onto the hayfield. We still have 2 ft. of snow out there that is a bit crusty, but where the tractor plowed to get at the feed bales it was bare and getting really soft. I may have to wait a bit to ride out there once the snow goes as she could sink in too far. Don't want cranky farmers  complaining about pock marks in their field! 

I have started prepping the foaling pen, raking up the old feed and the manure so that the ice underneath will melt. We have 5 days of snow in the forecast starting on the Vernal Equinox- go figure, spring comes in with a remnant of winter- but by Tuesday the 26th it starts to warm up again. Hopefully NO MORE SNOW after that!!!! Because , you know, Velvet is due mid April, so just a month from now. 

I will be keeping a close eye on her as she starts to bag up- I have been checking, but no sign of it yet. I have never foaled out a 24 year old mare so I am hoping all will go well. I think this is her 10th foal so she knows her job. 

Stay tuned for the foaling contest by the way, I have a really nice prize for it. 😏

Mares in the sun

 The mornings have been so bright and sunny lately, I sure enjoy morning chores. It's always fun to try to get nice shots of the sun shining on the manes and the happy munching faces. 

Now that Ruby has gone, Velvet has taken over Boss Mare duties. Maybe for the first time in decades? 

She pinned her ears at Gussie as she walked over to check if Gussie's hay pile tasted better than hers, and then happily munched right next to her. 

Belle used to be Gussie's BFF but that seems to have changed. Maybe because Belle is not mobile enough to move quickly, she has been ostracized by the rest of the herd and put at the bottom of the pecking order. Sadly, this will be Belle's last year, I won't put her through another winter. But I do appreciate that I am able to spend her last months loving on her and letting her know how special she is to me. She will have the summer to amble around and graze to her heart's content before being laid to rest. 

The little one in this big belly will fill my heart, I'm sure. One door closes, another one opens. 

Also- Ruby's new owner liked Beamer so much she asked if she can bring 2 mares to him this year, so I will have to un-retire him!

Ruby, colts and varmints

 

Ruby and her new owner

The sale of Ruby went well today. Even though Ruby played hard to catch (insert eyeroll) it didn't seem to bother this lady. Once caught, of course, Ruby was her normal good self. We had a nice long chat, discovered people and interests that we have in common, and generally had a good visit. She asked all the right questions, didn't miss anything, and best of all, Ruby likes her. 

All chilled out while the humans chatted

She plans to breed her to Sweet Mr Katz, a cutting horse stallion who happens to be owned by someone I know - I took lessons from him and my dog Reba was out of his dog Alice. The horse world is a small community!

I had a good visit with Shayla yesterday, took a few photos and got to mess a bit with her two yearling colts, Zipper (the paint) and Fire. Mostly we concentrated on getting photos of Fire. Here are just a couple of him, mostly quick snapshots so forgive the lighting and focus please! 

3 feet up!

He is a nice minded colt- and he is going to be big! We measured him to top out at 16 hh. 

The last couple of days I could tell that the raccoons had come back- the cat food in the barn was completely cleaned up and the bowls were scattered. Well, I started putting the cat food in the locked feed room at night to discourage the coons from freeloading, and this morning I could tell just what they thought of that. 

This was the water bowl that I left out. It had never had food in it, only water. It's one of those collapsible silicone dog water bowls.  They totally destroyed it! I am using a stainless steel water bowl for them now. Sink your teeth into that ya li'l varmints!

Now that Ruby is gone I can change out my herd arrangements. Belle can live with the other 2 mares, as Ruby used to push her around, and I can take down the partition in the mare shelter . Now to wait for warmer weather and the snow to melt so I can get Ted in there with the skid steer to clean up the corrals! C'mon spring!

Hellooooo sunshine!

 After a week of cold and snow, we finally have weather forecasted above freezing for at least the next 2 weeks- although dipping below for nights. Hopefully this will melt the 8 inches of snow we got from that last blast of winter!

Ruby sez the snow makes a cushy bed. 

Showing off her baby belly and giving her legs a rest from all that extra weight.

The other mares were happy to doze in the sunshine too. 

The lady who wanted to see Ruby is coming on Tuesday now that we have better weather. She said she's bringing her horse trailer....  I hope she buys her; she is looking for mares with some substance to breed to some of the smaller bodied cutting horse stallions. Ruby definitely fills the bill for that. 

Lionized

 Well. 

March marched in like a roaring lion! The last 2 days of February and continuing on for the next 3 days, here is a little photo essay. 

Haha he makes me laugh, coming in for his feed all tough looking! Whatsa matter Beamer, tired of the snow after only 3 days?  Hang in there buddy, it ain't over yet!

We have had a bit of a north wind that brought this system in, so it was kind of nasty for doing chores, but I bundled up in my insulated coveralls, down coat and fuzzy hat.

Said fuzzy hat post chores today

Needless to say, the next few days will be pretty low key. How is March coming in where you are?  I am slightly jealous of the daffodils posted by 4 R Ranch blog!

Leap day

 What to do on a cold blustery Leap Day? There is only so much housework a person can bear... so off to the internet it is! 

For those of you who hobble their horses and haven't had much luck with leather or biothane hobbles, especially ones that have hardware that can break, here is a simple and inexpensive way to make your own hobbles. I will be making a set for myself.

 

I have also been looking at videos of different knots and how to tie them... does that make me weird? I use knots a lot, not just for making halters but in several applications in my daily horse activities. Today I learned the double bowline knot. I use the bowline a lot especially for tying down tarps, and this version looks like it will be easier to undo than the single loop version. Especially when it gets frozen!

I have a cute story- a couple of days ago Ted went out for his evening cigarette, he sits in the chairs that are just outside the living room window. We hang the bird feeder close by there so we can watch the birds.  Well. Humphrey was apparently there scavenging for bird seed- it was dark so Ted didn't see him, and sat down in his chair- only to have a fright when Humphrey scooted out from under his chair- the poor porcupine was more frightened than Ted I think! He hasn't come back for a few days, hopefully he will get over it and come back. We do enjoy watching him.... through the window!

The lady who was to come look at Ruby cancelled due to the weather, said she would reschedule when its a bit nicer. About 2 weeks away for any kind of decent weather. 

 

And then there is Velvet....

Mid April can't come fast enough! I guess this harkens back to my key word for this year.... patience.

 

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. 

Going with the flow

 Today was supposed to be a riding day- such a beauty of a day, even though it started out with heavy fog- for miles, apparently. 

Beamer was up watching for me to come do morning chores

You know what they say about fog- wait 90 days and there will be rain (or snow depending on the season) so that of course, puts us right at the May long weekend.... go figure. 

Anyway, this afternoon I brought Gussie out and saddled her. There was something going on with her, as I tightened the cinch she sort of went down a bit, possible ulcers?  Anyway, she was a bit on edge so I opted for ground work instead. She wasn't too focused; she's easy to read and when she gets anxious like that, riding would be counter productive until we get calm and willing instead. So I free longed her to get that emotion dissipated , then worked on drifting her hind end over with a cross over of the inside hind in front of the outside hind. She had trouble with doing that with the left hind, which was related to stiffness through her body on her left side. Once we got it with a bit of softness, I decided to see if a bit of Masterson Method on her neck would help. I didn't do the whole progression, just the neck. 

She tends to hold her head up and her neck inverted, so I want to work on her stretching her topline down and lifting her back, relaxing through her body from nose to tail. This may take a while! 

Anyway, working on her neck brought many releases, and we finished the day on a good note.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to see Shayla and get some photos of her sale horses- the paint yearling  and a quarter horse mare. 

So I will leave you with some Velvet pics!

Hi pretty girl!

Only 7 weeks to go before she is due . 

This morning's foggy belly pic.

I'm getting quite excited for this foal! And yes, we will have a foaling contest. 

Out and about

 Put the third ride on Gussie today. The second ride was all about me getting the feel for how Gussie was going to work in the bosal. I actually think she didn't like it much. She felt reluctant, I think is the word, to soften in it. I attribute part of that to her lack of physical fitness and possibly needing her teeth done. I booked her in with the dentist to eliminate that as an issue. 

So today, I decided to put her back in the bridle I have always used on her. It was obvious to me that she was quite happy to have that familiar bridle. 

She carries that bit well, and everything can be done on a loose rein. 

A couple trips around and then it was time to open the gate. Gussie tended to want to rush a bit with the gate, so we went to the one step at a time routine. Open it part way, stand and wait. Roll to the opening, stop and wait. etc. One thing about Gussie, if you rush with anything she just gets ramped up and anxious, so slow and easy is the way to go with her. 

We toured around the yard for a bit, and did a bunch of Stop and Stand Still (SSS) exercises. 

Admiring the shadow; not quite the same as Carmen admiring herself in the mirror!

Facing away from all the horses who were gathered watching. But her ears are watching!

We went back in and out of the round pen and headed for the trailer  where she thought we were going to stop- so we went around and around it, both ways and then back into the round pen, where we just sat and soaked up the sunshine and enjoyed the silence. 

I am taking it easy on her as she is half way through her pregnancy, so lots of little light rides to help her get back in shape- better than no riding!  And this weather is supposed to hold for a few more days; sure hope we get some snow melting so I can go ride the big pasture. 

Cue the music....

The last 2 days have been beautiful (albeit cold overnight) So I was inspired to bring Gussie into the round pen to assess her . Yesterday I just worked her at liberty for a few minutes, then today I brought her out and saddled her. You should have seen the look on her face when she realized I was going to saddle her! I took this shot after the saddle was on....

Oh Gussie, tell me how you really feel!

Bonus is that the saddle I bought for Ruby fits her- whew! Gussie was always hard to fit.

I longed her first, and there was no funny business. I opted to ride her in the bosal, which apparently she agreed with- no cold steel in her mouth in this weather. I hope to continue to ride her in a bosal and will be looking for a lighter one as this one is actually for starting colts. Those big stirrups were perfect and my winter boots fit in them with room to spare. 

Gussie is very out of shape as you can see from her neck in that photo- she needs lots of work to get back in riding shape and get nice and rounded out in her neck and back. In her defense, she hasn't been really ridden in at least 3 years. 

I did a short ride in the round pen just to see where she is mentally with being ridden after such a long break. It was like coming back to an old friend! So light and responsive. We will build on that with longer rides as we go; I will stick to the round pen for a bit as I build her strength and muscle, but I am so looking forward to riding once the snow goes. 

You can bet I was grinning ear to ear! So happy to have my old friend back. 

No drama

 Today it was so beautiful and sunny and warm that after Church I went and turned Gussie and Belle in with Ruby and Velvet. Belle led them all out to the pawing pasture- it's a pen I reserved for this time of year that wasn't chewed down during last summer. 

They all went a high tailing it out there but quickly dropped their noses and searched out those tempting tufts of grass. 

Belle can't really paw but she found several pre pawed places to nibble on.

She can, however, go for a good roll in the snow! Note how she holds her left leg, with the bad arthritic knobby knee. 

The big difference between how Belle and Beamer lay down as compared to  sound horses is that they lay down back end first instead of front end first as shown in the photo of Gussie on my last post. I was concerned about how well she can get up after laying down (or rolling) and as you can see, it isn't a problem. 

I watched for a while to make sure Ruby wasn't inclined to take after Gussie, but she limited it to a couple of ear pinnings and glares, which Gussie kind of flipped her the bird at and just moseyed on her merry way. 

I'm being good!

Ruby had to roll too. While the peanut gallery looked on.

Three Beamer babies in those 3 bellies! Velvet mid April, Ruby late April, and Gussie mid August. That will keep me entertained! You can see how little Velvet is (14 hh) next to 15.2 hh Gussie. 

I will be listing Ruby as soon as her foal is born, with availability depending on the gender of the foal. I kinda wish there was a way to find that out like there is with people!