Soakin' up the sun

We're having such lovely weather -even though we had a snowstorm last Saturday!- that it really feels like spring can't be too far away. I spent some time out in the pasture today with Rio and the mares, they were just soaking up the sun and didn't want to play.

Doesn't Coyote Belle look just the picture of health? I so can't wait for this baby!

So here is a photo of Gussie today,- she is not fat, by the way-

 and the one below, for comparison, was taken last May, right about the time we bred her. Hmmmmm.

Do you see what I see?

Ted swears she is pregnant. 

The jury is still out. 

Rio was the only one with enough energy to bounce around, but even he was more interested in seeing if I had anything chewable than in cavorting around.

He pestered Chickory a bit, and got TOLD.

**pout**

Saturday visiting

After heading up the valley in the snowstorm to get photos of Kai, Ted and I and Merle went down to Idaho to meet fellow blogger, Sarah and her husband, Malcolm, and their three Chinese Crested dogs. Merle's first date! The snowstorm continued most of the way there so we took the old 4X4 Chevy, otherwise I would have brought Tess too, but there wasn't enough room.
We met in the parking lot of the local truckstop just outside of Bonner's Ferry, about a half hour drive for us. Merle was a chick magnet for all of about 30 seconds for the girl dogs, the only one that gave him more than a sniff was Paris, who did a lot of tail wagging before she decided that Merle wasn't her type.

We thought it cute that the girls all had matching outfits. 

We had dinner in the truckstop and visited for about 3 hours. It was just like meeting friends we already knew- that's the beauty of sharing our lives in blogland; we already know lots about each other. Sarah is just as interesting and sweet as she seems on her blog, and Ted and Malcolm had a good visit discussing guy stuff.

Stay safe in your travels, Sarah and Malcolm, and I hope your Florida vacation is wonderful and refreshing. We look forward to getting another visit with you next time you are up this way.

Sunday Stills

Today's challenge is to find scenes that are framed by nature.

...no words necessary...

Some scenes just catch your eye; I shot this before the challenge was posted.

I am fortunate to have trees surrounding my yard, they make wonderful natural frames for the ever changing mountain scenery here.

I threw this one in just for fun- hoofprints framed by snow.

Kai update

For those of you who guessed that it's Kai in the photo in the post below- you are right, and the news is that his owner is putting him up for sale. He's 2 this year, and has the sweetest. disposition. ever. He still has some growing to do, he seems a little small right now at 20 months, but I measured his legs again today and the measurement is bang on 15 inches; so he should be 15 hands when he's all done growing.
Unfortunately, it was snowing to beat the band when I went over to take photos today, so this is the best I got:

I didn't spend a lot of time on photos, I'll get better ones when the weather improves.

The only white on him is that little bit on his forehead. He was tested for color and is smokey black, but he looks very dark brown- pretty much the same color as little brother Rio. Yes, he is Rio's big brother, sired by Beamer and out of Coyote Belle. Did I mention how sweet he is??? Just like he was from day one.

So if anyone out there is interested in a Beamer baby, here is a good one. He is gelded. He will be coming here in a month or so when the snow goes out of the round pen, and we will start ground work on him. And, the price is right, at $1500. He'll make a nice horse for the show pen, the trails, for a kid's horse because of that disposition, and should be cowy too. Personally, I'd send him to the reining pen if showing is what you want.
If you want to see photos of him from the day he was born, check the labels section on my sidebar under Midnight Coyote.
Anyone interested can get ahold of me by email or in the comment section, and I'll put you in touch with his owner.

And now.... I'm off to Idaho to meet up with fellow blogger Sarah and her husband Malcolm!

Here's a hint

Janice, don't say anything!

The waiting game

It's been a quiet week, with lovely warm weather; a little snow, a little rain, but pretty nice over all.

There is that spring feeling in the air, even though there is snow; it's melting pretty fast.

Waiting for spring is tough at this time of year.

 The horses all got their feet trimmed on Monday; Gussie was the fidgetiest but they were all good. I was proud of Rio, he did really well. They are all starting to shed now. Rio was first, he started shedding over 2 weeks ago.
Got to go to Cranbrook tomorrow- our trip last week was cancelled because of the dump of snow. I'll get my ring that I got for Christmas resized, and meet up with Janice to do some girly stuff while Ted goes to do guy stuff. He has started working at home now, doing his repair business, although I have been his main customer so far: he built the hitch for my truck including re-wiring it, and then the heater core went so he just replaced that. Handy guy, my husband!
I got some news a couple of days ago that I'm just bustin' to share....

News? What news? Is it about me?

No Beamer, it isn't about you.

Aw c'mon! tell us please! Is it about us?

No girls, it isn't about you.

But it is about a horse. And you all are going to have to wait for a couple more days.

Wordless Wednesday

Great day in the morning!

Woke up to a frosty morning and some gorgeous color at dawn.



We haven't had such lovely color for some time!



Even the hoar frost was pink. I love me a pink and purple morning.

Rio gets to go back in his alley for his morning scoop of oats, as I'm keeping the stall free for mama Belle who now gets a scoop of grain every day, ramping her nutrition up for foaling. She was bred April 22- 24, which means that foaling could be as early as the end of March- only 2 months to go! Speaking of foaling, Ted swears that Gussie is in foal, and someone else who looked at her today said she wouldn't be surprised if Gus was in foal. We'll see!

The girls. And Rio, of course!

We had a little fun in the sun yesterday, the mares and Rio were feeling good. I took a couple of photos front on of Belle and Gussie- I'm pretty sure Gussie isn't pregnant.



And I'm positive Coyote Belle is!


It's just the foreshortening in this photo that makes Gussie look so wide.


Yes, Gussie, that's your good side. If you say so.
It didn't take much to get them to move out and have fun.

Even Mama Belle hiked up her big belly and raced through the snow.

Rio too!

Sunday Stills

Sunday Stills has gone to the birds... at least, that's what today's challenge is. This was a tough one, with grey skies and missed opportunities (like the bald eagle that flew over me just after I put my camera away). I managed a few shots of the gold finches at the feeders:

When I took Beamer for a ride yesterday, I spotted a couple of hawks in the trees. I snapped some photos but they were really uninteresting, just grey skies and snaggy trees with them just sitting still. So I left, and on my way home one of them swooped down close to me, looking for mice in the snowy fields. This time, my camera was ready, and I was lucky to be able to get a quick shot.

I thought about going to my archives, but I really try to meet each challenge every week without doing that.

Back on black

Happy me- I got to ride yesterday. Beamer was happy to get out of his boring pen too. I figured we had better ride before we got the big dump of snow (it's snowing this morning) so I hopped on bareback and went for a little putt.

I love his walk, he just gets out and strides with purpose. The purpose in this case was to get back to the mares as quickly as possible.....
Gotta haul wood and hay today, might be able to squeeze in another ride; I love riding through snowy fields.

Just a little

We did get some snow out of the system that passed through, but... just a little. Enough for Ted to get out and play with the tractor.

I think we got 3 or 4 inches, and  -5 Celcius, which is 23 Farenheit. Much warmer than Alberta, and even warmer than Cranbrook and Kimberley which are only an hour away- they had -24C. I think this is the banana belt of the Kootenays.
The horses hung out in their shelter for the last few days, so they didn't get covered with snow. Wusses.

I'm going to have to get the tractor in there today and scrape all that poo.....
Tess didn't mind the snow, just gives her softer footing for her outruns as she "helps" me do chores.

We are supposed to get a heavy snowfall tonight changing to rain tomorrow. Great- we are going to Cranbrook tomorrow, guess we'll take the 4 wheel drive.

Thankful Thursday

A heartfelt thank you to everyone here on my blog and on Facebook who sent me birthday wishes yesterday-I was smilin' all day!
My sister came to town and went to Mass with me, then was kind enough to go to Tim Hortons and bring me tea and a muffin, and surprised me with flowers and birthday cupcakes for both of us; her birthday is tomorrow.

Thanks, Georgia!

Ted had flowers delivered to me at work, which floored me, I was definitely not expecting that! There were also a couple of bearpaw chocolates attached.(nomnom!)

Thanks, Ted!

I love the vase set-up, I will be using them this summer for my garden flowers.

When I got home from work, There was another bouquet of flowers, this time from my daughter and her husband; lovely white roses.And chocolates! (more nomnom!)

Thanks, Jessi and Scot!

 With the internet wishes and phone calls, and all the lovely flowers, I had a most wonderful day, topped off by Ted taking me out for supper. I love being spoiled.... at least, once a year!

Look at all the lovely colors- so refreshing in the middle of winter!

Wordless Wednesday

Here it comes...

Here comes winter.... at least, it looks like it. We'll see how much white stuff this system brings.

Yesterday:

Same view this afternoon:

Looking west:

Looking east:

and same view10 minutes later:

The storms seem to roll along the mountains here, and often don't dump any moisture out here in the middle of the flats where we live. I checked my archives for this time last year, and although we had a little more snow, the weather was similar- alternating between rain, snow, warm, cold, ice, mud.... very different from the January weather I remember as a kid, and even 30 years ago. (I grew up not too far from here, about an hour's drive.)

Ted and I hauled a load of wood on Saturday, we wanted to take advantage of the weather to get up the mountain road before the storms hit and make the roads impassable.

We got a nice load of tamarack (larch); my favorite wood as it's so easy to split. The branches are small and as the trees get taller they tend to not have many branches on the bottoms, therefore no big knots at the branch bases, so it makes for easy splitting. Burns hot, too. 

Ted is busy fabricating a hitch for the truck in the above photo; it's a 1976 Chev 3/4 ton 4X4 and it is going to be my horse hauling truck. He had to put a deck on it as the one that came with it was rusty and ugly.The new deck is quite high, so he has had to design and fabricate a complete system to drop the hitch low enough that the horse trailer will ride level.

Salvaging some steel off the old deck

He's a talented man, my Ted. I'm baking him a cake for when he comes in out of the cold. I'm not as talented as he is, but I can bake.