Wild things and flowers

 I enjoy sitting in the gazebo in the afternoon and watching all the birds that fly along the river; the osprey diving for fish and the cedar waxwings catching bugs as they swoop down from the surrounding trees. There is a stump near the gazebo and every time I sit there the little house wren comes for a visit. 

It is the cutest tiny bird!  

     

Robin (I assume juvenile) with a white tipped tail. Sorry about the crappy photo; taken at a distance in a hurry from my cell phone. 

Then there is this fellow, pretty sure he is the same one I have seen for the last couple years. 

Other than wildlife, there are flowers happening here, finally. 

Cosmos and calendula that self seeded for the last 2  years

This is a tiny flower with foliage that is similar to maiden hair fern

Snapdragons

Portulaca

We had some dramatic clouds last weekend. 

Love it when there are fingers of light poking through holes in the floor of heaven. 

And of course, one must include horses! Dally has literally no forelock left. 

Who needs a forelock, anyway?

Summer lull

 I have flowers! Finally.... 

The one I want to share with you is an iris I brought with me when we moved from Creston 4 years ago. It didn't like the 1st location I chose for it- too much morning shade- so I moved it to a full sun south facing location last year. This year it burst forth in all its glory! 

The name of this iris variety is Starship Enterprise. My sister gave me the rhizome 6 years ago, it did bloom once in Creston and I am so happy that it is happy! I do have one more that I brought with me but it isn't quite ready to bloom this year. I am hoping it is orange, but more likely it will be purple- cant remember which one I brought with me.  

We had a little change of plans with Happy- I am still sending her to Shayla at weaning, but since she seems to be quite healthy other than the melanoma lump on her neck she is getting one more year at least. Shayla won a stud fee to a very well bred stallion called French Eye Candy who is a son of the great Dinero (aka PC Frenchmans Hayday) Barrel racing fans will know who he is. So Happy and Tuffy have been there for the last week; I should be picking them up this weekend. 

Interesting thing about this stallion, he had a color change from sorrel with a flaxen mane to dark chestnut with a darker mane. 

Yes it is the same horse, I checked his markings closely. 

I also have an update. Some of you may remember that Gussie had a foal from Shayla' s Percheron stallion Layne, and she threw a blue roan filly. That filly, Evie, is now 3 years old and getting started under saddle. 

Pretty girl, isn't she? Draft crosses are becoming very popular, especially as trail and ranch horses. 

I got all my hay in the barn now for next winter; I opted to buy last year's hay, same supplier, as it is going to be iffy for putting up hay without rain around here, and first cutting hay will be already over ripe and stemmy, which also means later cut doesn't give much time to put up a second cut. So I figured to get hay that I know is good, even if it is a year old. 

Now, some summer weather please, with no tornado or hail warnings, all of which have been ongoing for the last 2 weeks. 

Sunday Silence (aka it's time to start using my real camera!)

 

Enough already

 April came in white. Started snowing/raining last night, and this system is supposed to last all day. Enough above freezing to make it snow but warm enough that it's melting on the vehicles but not on the frozen ground.

My footsteps on the walk way this morning, to and from the barn. It was bare yesterday.

My garden containers, a long way from being able to plant. 

The mares have settled into their new routine. Their hay bale is on the other side of that shelter; they only go in there to eat but don't hang out in there. They are currently standing out in the weather in their favourite spot in the winter pasture. 

Happy also has free roaming in and out of the barn, I put most of her hay in there and one flake on the lee side of the barn- and that is where she prefers to be, probably because she can see the other horses from there. 

She too is currently hanging out in the weather, unconcerned with getting wet. All the mares are still sporting their winter coats, guess they knew something we didn't. 

I found this beauty in Walmart and couldn't resist adding a splash of color to this greyness that is hanging in there.

Let there be light and love.

 In all the sadness of the recent weeks, I choose to look for the things that make me happy, to deflect my thoughts from the creeping darkness of this world. 

Hello little ladybug, how simple your existence is. 

Being injured and in pain definitely slows  down one's ambitions, plans and goals. 

But it's nice to get extra Thumper cuddle time.

Having plenty of pasture left for the winter makes me happy, as do shiny, healthy horses.

Patsy aka Pattycakes will be headed back to Shayla later this week. She has grown a bunch and is still the sweetest filly. 

Flowers and bees and butterflies? Happy making for sure!

The moose hung around the riverbanks until the next morning. And now the deer are starting to come back, like these 3 does who didn't have fawns this year, showing up at daybreak. 

View from my dining room window. Can you spot the third one?

Some pretties

 I finally have flowers! My new flower garden has these:

Lavatera

The first bloom on the Jackmani clematis

Yellow marigolds

As well as the pincushion flowers and pink snapdragons and pink  zinnias that are a bit faded and need to be pruned to promote new blooms. The two roses are taking their time to bud, guess they aren't fond of the cooler rainy weather. 

My older flower garden I let the calendula and cosmos that reseeded take over, only new stuff in there are snapdragons and my garden peas which are going to be harvestable soon. 

Calendula and cosmos

I enjoy having pretties to gaze upon on my walks to the barnyard!

Rally now leads into the trailer perfectly, so I started working on her feet again. She is getting pretty good with her left front, I have nipped it and rasped it, a little at a time. It needs more but its a lot better. Her right front she is more reluctant with, I did get to clean it today. Every day, a little progress. Good thing I'm not in a hurry! 

The most important thing in their world is grazing! Humans are definitely second place. 

The farrier was here yesterday and did the other 3; she loved Patsy, who was actually pretty good for her first trim. I noticed with Velvet that she cant handle having the farrier put her front feet between the knees for trimming, it cranks her leg out too much angle from her shoulder and her old bones cant take that any more. Velvet is short and wide so there isn't much room under her. I asked the farrier to not do that but to trim her low; it meant she had to do everything one handed as she held the foot but Velvet was much happier. I don't think the farrier was though. 

A non equine catch up post

 There is always something going on around here. Fun stuff like a new batch of kittens to try to socialize; Misty had another 3 kitten batch, same as the last- 2  females and 1 male. My neice decided to take all 3 which is nice; they will be all together and be endlessly entertaining! 

Simon

Sassy

Shumai

They will leave on July 6. I almost kept Sassy....

Ted built me an enclosed garden for my perennials. 

The start of the project

It isn't really big, but it is plenty big enough for my 2  roses, and several other perennials, like the 2  scabiosa ( pincushion flower) that I decided to buy after seeing them on the 4R ranch blog. 

   

A work in progress- we dug out the sod with the tractor and brought up a big bucket of composted horse manure, perfectly composted into topsoil. He built me a gate on that right side.

Time to add the wire mesh...

And done! I planted 2  Jackmani clematis to grow up the old garden gate that I found lying around and attached to the wall. 

Done just in time, as we had a half dozen muley bucks stroll through the yard. 

Hope that last one is still here in hunting season!

Last Friday I had cataract surgery on my right eye, what a difference! Who knew colors are so vibrant! Looking through my other eye now is like looking through a dirty window, so I am looking forward to getting it done soon too. Meanwhile I am not supposed to do much bending, lifting or working in a dusty environment so doing horse feet will have to wait another week. Rally and Patsy were really coming along well with trimming so I need to get back to that asap.