The youngsters

The pups are doing a good job of staving off the February blahs for me. It's that time of year when spring is so close you can almost taste it; the red-winged black birds are back, the gold finches have left for who-knows-where; the ravens are courting; the horses are shedding like crazy, every snowfall lasts only a day before melting away, the geese are back, and it's still too dang slippery to ride on the roads and fields. So I amuse myself with puppy watching.

That's Chase on the bottom, with Quinn and Tag.

Little Nick made his way to the top of this heap, and that's his sister- who now sports the name of Belle- under his chin.
Their eyes all have a bluish cast to them at the moment, but that will change as they get older. They are 3 weeks old now, and it's time I moved them from the house to the shop where we have a whelping pen set up in a heated room. Tess won't be too happy about that, as it will keep her out of the house where she thinks she belongs, but she'll just have to deal with it. By 2 weeks from now, she will only be feeding them a few times a day; I'll start them on mash this weekend.

Josie will soon be a year old- March 19th only a month away! I took some photos of her yesterday, she is so photogenic and seems to have her daddy's love of performing for the camera.

She is pretty rapid, can out run Rio- but then, I've never seen him really open up, I bet he could fly if he put his heart into it.

 Caught Josie doing that extended floating trot that we are so used to seeing Rio do; little miss seems to be saying "anything Rio can do, I can do better!"

 She is going to be a lot of fun over the next few years! I must confess, I'm partial to mares, so I am pretty happy to have this filly to play with.

Just had to include a Beamer photo too- can't leave Mr. Handsome out! He had just had his snow bath- and he needed it, you should see the dirty snow angel he left behind!

He is looking a little chubby, time to get riding him soon.