Well hello little cuteness!
Who, me?
Although I haven't seen him yet, and don't have any updated photos, I have decided on a name for my colt.
Boe.
He is named as a tribute to an old cowboy, John Boe, who was my mentor when I decided to get into breeding quarter horses. John passed away a couple of years ago, and I will never forget all his kindness and all that he taught me.
We have secured a place to live; it's a month to month rental in a village 10 minutes from Shayla's, so it's easy to get to my horses. Also close enough to where Ted's dad is, and a short commute to where his son lives. I guess I will have to put up with town living for a while until we can find a farm rental.
I will miss this view....
I was watching a horse program on TV the other day and found this interesting- Clinton Anderson showing a better way to tie horses. I have a puller in Sophie, and it is hard to get the standard slip knot undone when she sets back! So I'm going to use this knot. (Sophie is now at Shayla's)
The next few days are going to be hectic, we can move in on Wednesday June 1, so now it's all about the logistics of hauling panels, Beamer, household stuff as well as cleaning the house and emptying everything in the barn. I may be awol for a while!
I am getting impatient to get moved now, things just seem to be at a standstill. I am 90% packed, just dishes and food left to pack and what clothing we will wear. We should find out about the farmhouse we are interested in this weekend.
Really looking forward to spending time with all the horses! Belle and Scooter, Gussie, Jayne and foal, and all Shayla's horses and getting to know the draft horses.
My foal has a perfect swirl.
Yes, He. No filly this year!
Literally minutes after I hit publish on my last post saying stay tuned, Shayla phoned me as soon as she saw this little fellow, minutes old. Born at7:30 pm.
She video messaged me so I got to see his attempts at standing for the first time.
Mama Belle is in her foal heat, so Shayla moved her to her stallion's pasture for breeding. Everything went well; her stallion who is the same age as Beamer, is a very savvy and kind fellow.
JetAlthough he was happy to see her, he was respectful.
Mama Belle warning him off
Order established....
Lots of spring things going on.
Who wants to see more baby pics?
Yeah I thought so....
Can't wait to go see him! Also Jayne is very close to foaling, so hopefully by the time I get up there I'll have my own foal to fall in love with.
If you remember Belle's history, she has a penchant for foaling on or near the full moon. Well, the moon is full this evening and sure enough, Belle foaled this morning.
Also true to form, it's a colt! No surprise there - this is her 12th foal and she has only ever had 2 fillies. So after her 4:45 am check, nothing happening, by 5: 30 looking out the window, somebody had made his entrance to the world!
Sorry about being awol for most of this week. In my defense, I have had a cold that laid me low for a few days. (Not Covid!) It came with an awful headache.
Some exciting news- Mama Belle is very close to foaling!
37.50% - | Bay |
37.50% - | Buckskin |
12.50% - | Black |
12.50% - | Smoky Black |
We're on the move.
The photo in my Sunday Stills post was the horse shelter Ted built for me a couple of years ago; we sold it to a place just down the road that has a riding arena and horse feed business as well as boarding horses. Half of it will be made into a tack room.
We have decided to move back to Alberta to be closer to Ted's family, as his Dad is in his declining years. He had a stroke last month and his heart is weak. He will be 89 this year. Ted's son and his daughter and their families are both in Alberta, and when we move there it will be easier for my daughter to visit, as we will probably be only an hour from the airport instead of nearly 6 hours.
So for now, even though we enjoy this beautiful area with its mild weather (I have to mow the lawn for the third time today) as compared to Alberta (it's snowing in Calgary as I write) family comes first. The plusses are it's closer for Ted's family, and it's right in the heart of the horse industry for me, as well as being closer to the other half of the Diamond Lazy H herd at Shayla's. I'll be able to help her at foaling time and help with the training of the foals.
As far as the horses go, Sophie is in heat and will be bred to Beamer this week, and I will check her back in June. Hopefully she will catch on this breeding as it will put her foaling time right about the same time as all Shayla's mares for next spring.
We have a potential place lined up to move to, for July 1st which works well for my sister and brother in law, who , once we decided to move, put this farm up for sale. It's a hot market right now, so it won't last long before it sells.
A couple of sessions after Shayla headed home, I discovered a new issue- this one is understandable, but it's something I need to work on for the sake of staying safe.
First off, I grabbed the wrong bridle, no big deal but it was pretty obvious Sophie wasn't as happy with it as with the Billy Allen mouthpiece.
She did get to the point where she was giving to the bit both sides, so I decided to step on her and see how she was with going forward and giving to my hands. I'm having trouble with my left hip, so I wanted to climb on the round pen rails and have her sidle up and stand quietly for me to slide on; not having a stick to tap her hip over meant she would not come in parallel, she wanted to just face me at a 45 degree angle, so I had to climb down and position her from the ground. Note to self- bring the flag next time.
Once on, she was pretty good at being soft in the face, all that bitting up is paying off. No bumping the bit or rooting her nose out. There was one point where she wanted to stop her feet like she used to do , but this time she listened to my legs bumping and kept going.
However....
I stepped off and darned if the saddle didn't slide sideways quite a bit as I swung off. (Yes I did tighten the cinch before I got on her.)Well, her eyes got as big as saucers when she spotted that saddle hanging off her side! And she started to jump forward and buck. I had both reins in my hand so was able to control her forward movement and kept pulling her around to the side and hollering whoa at her, about 6 jumps later she stood and let me undo the cinches and straighten up the saddle. Then I longed her off the bridle reins to make sure she was all done bucking- she was. So my thinking was she needs to get used to things going awry without panicking, so I deliberately recreated the saddle off to the side and asked her to step out.
She trusted me although she was clearly still worried. I made sure to stop before the saddle slid all the way under her! To work on this issue I need to come up with some things I can hang off the side of the saddle (other than my body!) I may ask my friend who packs horses to come give me a hand and we can try pack boxes on her.
So that's pretty much the rest of the story. Lots of things to work on with miss Sophie before I will be able to have a connected and conscious ride (on both our part) and feel safe on her.
Day 3 got pretty interesting right from the start.
Sophie was easy to catch, and I tied her to the trailer as I usually do to groom and saddle her. There was quite a bit of commotion going on with dogs playing, and people visiting. When grooming she wasn't too tight but when I went to throw my heaviest saddle up on her, she pulled back hard and sent the saddle flying and although she didn't knock me over I did have to turn my back and get the heck out of the way. And of course she stretched out the halter which I didn't have done as snug as I could have. Shayla fetched another halter and took over working with her then and there, sacking her out with the lead rope and not letting up until Sophie's mind came back from outer space.
The original plan was for me to ride her on this lesson. However, discretion is the better part of valour! So Sophie got a lot of sacking out. One of the things Shayla did was slapping the saddle (not the horse!) with the lead rope without asking Sophie to move. Sophie of course moved a lot, still being in that tight frame of mind and body. With persistence she finally got it.
Because of her setting back and pulling when tied, she needed to work on giving to the lead rope both in backing and coming forward. She was likely a little sore behind the ears from the episode at the trailer, she does have some hair missing there. Sophie is a very powerful horse, and having a rope halter and a tied on leadrope is one of my tools I use on every horse to ensure they can't break.
There's no more pussy footing around with this horse. She is going to have to figure out that her life of calling the shots is over. Once she had a pretty good (but not perfect yet) give when asked she got bitted around, and we ended the session with sacking her out with a slicker.
She didn't move her feet. Good girl Sophie
I gave her a day off after that and let her soak. The next day when I saddled her I didn't tie her solid to the trailer (just in case) and worked on getting her body soft just cupping my hand and patting her all over; she wasn't flinchy and tight so I moved on to saddling, no problems.
In the round pen she followed the feel on the lead rope easily, and was soft when bitted up. I worked on moving her hip over and moving her shoulder over, all from the ground using something I learned in a Buck Brannaman clinic; keeping it flowing like a dance; move the hip over, change direction by yielding the shoulder do a circle or two, repeat. Then I asked her to move forward in a half pass (still from the ground) and while she was good when I worked her from the right, she was reluctant from the left side to move her shoulder over and cross her left foot in front of her right foot; she did eventualy get it though.
I think the day off helped. However, the next day I found another hole in her training... stay tuned for the rest of the story.
