Yeah I'm still here!

 I know it's been over a week- my bad- but I wasn't up to posting. 

First of all I have a big sad because my favourite kitten, little Badger, disappeared on the 9th. 

This was the last photo I took of her, the day before she disappeared. I had made great progress with her; she even let me pick her up and move her around on the feed table. Also, the other cats could see that she wasn't afraid, and that led to me being able to pet every one of them - at feeding time only, so far.  I miss her little cuteness! Pretty sure she was victim to an owl or coyote as she disappeared at night. 

Thumper sez: You still have me an' I eat coyotes and owls for breakfast!

Yes Thumper and you are very good at guarding the  hay piles from marauding rodents. But please stick close to home!

I got the seasonal flu Thursday night, I'm on the mend now but I had no energy for about 4 days. It really brightened  my day when Ted brought these home:

Yup, a dozen red roses for his mizzer'ble wife! What a sweetheart. 

All that being said, I have a few things to look forward to. Ted built me a shaping block for my bosal so it has been tied on to that for a week now, and with nice weather for the next few days I'm going to see how Ruby does in it. Ruby and I have a nice "friendship" going- it's food based for her but if that's the way to her heart I'm not complaining! She offers her itchy spots to me, and generally seems happy to hang out instead of just immediately leaving once her handful of grain is done. 

Got my fall deworming done too. Had to laugh at Velvet, she has such strong opinions. Once I squirted the ivermectin in her mouth, she was like. "I'm leaving. I hate you!" Hahaha poor girl. 

Then there's Misty, she is my next cat project. She was the most aloof of the kittens. But thanks to canned cat food, she's allowing as how I might not be such a monster after all. The biggest problem is that the grey cat, Smokey, is a bit of a bully at feeding time; he doesn't allow Smudge and Misty to come up until he has had his first dibs. Hisses and swats at them.  But I have gotten to touch  all the cats, even Smokey and Misty. Bandit is letting me pet him and even pick him up by the belly to move him over.  I will eventually get a system figured out that works for taming Misty. 

Just hoping that she doesn't get pregnant first! Hoping to get her spayed next year.

Also coming up in 2 weeks is the Canadian Finals Rodeo, just a half hour from us. There is a Ranch Horse Competition and sale there on Nov. 4th that I plan to attend. Back in 2000 I put on one of the first Ranch Horse Competition and Sale events in central Alberta- did that for 3 years until we moved more north.  I wanted a format to showcase horses' abilities in a competition before selling them so that the buyers could actually see what they were buying; as compared to just running them through a sale ring and talking a big talk about them. The horses were vet checked prior to the sale. Monies raised went to the prizes and all profits went to a charity.  It was a lot of fun! Nowadays this is a common format for selling horses (out here in the western ranch country). 

The catalogue on the right, of course, features the photo I use for my blog background, that is Coyote Belle's mama, Sundee. The other two are my artwork, with the middle one being a drawing of Beamer's half sister, Montana, who was Velvet's mama. The one on the left was done entirely out of my imagination and depicts the history of the foothills of Alberta- oilfields and ranching. 

So even though it was a bit of a downer week, it's all good now! 

Just stuff

Spring runoff is in full force here. Our pond is full....

and the route down to the dyke is under water too as the pond is overflowing.

It looks like just a leaf covered trail but it has about 8 inches of water. When runoff is in full force this can get knee deep on the horses. Fun! I love riding through water.

Time for an Eli update! Actually, I have taken to calling him Lijah. He is quite a little character, sometimes as sweet as can be and sometimes opinionated!  But mostly just curious and cute.

and good looking! He's a mama's boy for sure, doesn't go full tilt around the pen like Nitro did, has some of Stella's dance moves and is just a nice mixture of all the endearing attributes of all his siblings. He will be 4 weeks old tomorrow (Friday) and we have begun the teasing process with Belle as she should be coming into heat soon.

That hip! He sure is built! He finally decided he likes butt scratches, which makes it easier to catch him.

As far as Sparkle goes, I haven't ridden her yet. She has been here for a week now and the herd has accepted her. This morning in the rain, she was eating hay in the shelter and Gussie came in too- and didn't chase her out, which is what I was waiting for as I want to pony Sparkle from Gussie and I need them to get along to do that. 

So that's what's next.

ENTER THE CONTEST FOR SASSY'S FOAL!

Riding day 39

Keeping busy

It's been a busy few days... got Rosalee's front feet trimmed; had to wait several times for Tumbleweed to have lunch.... hauled a ton of square bales into the barn, worked some more on my flower gardens, entertained some folks over the weekend to celebrate my husband's birthday.... went to town on Monday and spent time with my friend Janice for her birthday.
I have been trying to get photos for Tumbleweed's registration, easier said than done! Still working on the 3/4 front shot.
I got his dna test back, he is definitely a dunskin, which is a buckskin,dun, who carries the cream dilute gene.

He is eating hay all the time now, and I checked in his mouth and his molars are in. (ouch....). He likes to lay in the hay pile and have a nap while mama tries to eat... silly boy!

Mama is letting him wander farther away all the time. He zips around the pen, and she just keeps eating.They are getting daily turnout, so he has lots of room to run and build those muscles! He is filling out nicely.

Mesa is really growthy right now. She needs to fill out some more and put some weight on those ribs, but I don't like giving too much supplements to growing horses when they are getting lots of fresh grass. She'll fill out a bunch over the summer.

I have tentatively put her up for sale too. I am not in a hurry to sell her, but if the right person was interested in giving her a show home I would consider it. Meanwhile I will have fun teaching her things this summer. Ponying and more obstacle work are next for  her, and this fall she will learn to carry a saddle.

Gussie can do some obstacle work too.

Sunny snow day

We got nearly a foot of snow- uggh, shoveling..... but then the sun came out and it looked spectacular.
This is the first deep snow for the foals, and I got a giggle out of watching Mesa explore it.

They were having a play fight too.

Mesa started it.... and she usually gets the upper hand.

I took this next photo just to show our set up here. The barn has Beamer'e pen attached to it on the left, then the middle shelter is the foaling pen, it is across a 20 ft. aisle from Beamer's pen.
On the right is the  back view of the shelter that the guys just put the tin on- wasn't that good timing!

I think I am almost set up the way I want. I still need to crossfence the mare's pen; the posts are in place and I just need to do the wire, but that is a next spring project; Ted has to build me 2 gates out of the pipe we have. And next year's big project will be to build a completely separate pasture/pen so that at weaning time I can separate mare and foal without having to put tarps over the fence like I have to do if I use the foaling pen.

You can see the line of posts behind Belle, that is the unfinished cross fence. I used hotwire this year to close it off. I think that considering we have only been here a year we have it set up fairly well.

The main thing is, we have happy horses, and doing chores is set up to be as easy as possible, so happy me too!

Busy in a good way

Got a few things going on here. Mesa has foal scours so she has been getting bum washings twice a day and I have been giving her yogurt and peptobismal, she is starting to get over it.

She actually seems to like the pepto and yogurt although she didn't like the feel of the syringe tube at first.

She has big toofers now! All the better for grazing! 

I really enjoy watching her zoom around, although with all the hot weather lately, she spends more time napping than zooming.

I took photos for Shayla working on starting her 2 year old- some of you may remember the buckskin colt Fuse who was here for a few months last fall.

Working him in a local arena, the sun streaming in the entrance made for a cool photo.

He is coming along nicely with his groundwork, this is his second time being saddled.

I have been taking the dogs swimming down at the pond nearly every day; Thea finally learned to swim, and even Merle enjoyed getting wet.

I also got started on my Cowgirl Hideout - got the tar paper up and then decided that I want a window put in so that means I have to stop until Ted can help me with that.

Just stuff

My wonderful husband is rebuilding the horse trailer we just bought. Went through it, tore the floor out and is replacing all the boards as well as some of the metal that is not up to par.

Using the jack to get a tight fit and keep everything straight

This spot for some reason didn't have angle iron and it's right where the horse's front feet would go- so he welded another piece in there. 

I don't know why there was no angle iron there- I had visions of a pawing horse getting it;'s foot stuck between the frame and the sheet metal of the wall. You can see that a pawing horse has battered the metal of the wall; there are no kick boards anywhere on the interior of this trailer so Ted is putting puck board around on the inside. 

There are a couple more fixes to do, like the square tubing along the sides where the divider attaches that need to be replaced but they can wait until next time as he is heading out for another 2 week tour of work. 

Yesterday I did a photo shoot of a lovely little 3 day old filly, a perfect little black darling with a future as a barrel horse.

Spring has sprung

I got Clancy's turn out pen set up yesterday. She is one happy horse now! Room to move and grass to eat in the sunshine; life is good.

I had to get after her to move out a bit, she just wanted to drop her head and chow down on that spring grass; I am restricting her and Beamer to short turn out while the grass is so rich and their systems adjust to grazing again.

I got the insurance on my trailer today, so hauling time is about to begin. Time this stout girl went back to work.
Totally unrelated but on a side note- my garden is right next to Clancy's pen, and I noticed that I have some volunteer plants there- some lettuce (I let the romaine lettuce go to seed) as well as spinach. Yippee! I also have kale that over wintered.

Looks like there is lots of green around here for St. Patrick's day tomorrow!

Sunday Stills- skeletal

That's right- skeletal. No skeletons here, so what I have is the skeletal structure of our Christmas tree after the mares were done with it.

This was a Balsam Fir, they ate all the branches and bark over about a couple of weeks. I loved the smell of their breath!

This dried up bunch of seed pods is all that's left of the black hollyhocks. Linda, I'll bring some over for you when I come, if you'd like some.

Winter is on its way

As the days draw shorter, and the skies grey up, the start of our winter is upon us. Yesterday I took down all my electric fence paddocks, storing it all away for next season when the grass once again sprouts green and fresh. As I was gathering it all up, I had that feeling of being watched, and sure enough, Mr. Owl was perched above me, and stayed there all the time I took fence down and gathered broken branches from the last wind storm to place in the burn pile.

As I was nearly done, another owl flew into  another one of the trees that ring my yard. This one looks slightly different- a female perhaps?

I did some riding last week, as well as in hand work with both Josie and Clancy. Josie is on her winter break, but I'll be keeping up with some of the ground exercises I learned in the Buck clinic. All the work Shayla did on her (25 ground work sessions) has really paid off; Josie was light as a feather on the lead line as I asked her to follow the soft feel. The only place she got a little stuck was backing the circle, but it is a new thing for her and won't take long for her to pick it up.

I'm really working on my timing with Clancy- with her, if my timing is off just a little, she gets heavy on the forehand. Lots of work to do with her and me!

I rode Beamer the other day- a lovely evening ride on my boy. This is the hawk's nest just west of us.

And what's a blog post without a horse photo?

The half moon, centered between Beamer's ears faintly visible as the setting sun lights up the Skimmerhorns.

Today, it's snowing, but there's sun in the forecast so more riding this week!

Heat again

We are headed back to the high temperatures, over 100 for tomorrow (38 C ) and for the next week at least.
Clancy is nearly ready for riding, or at least I can do some ground work with her- but not in this heat.
There is a fire on the mountain south of us, it's actually about 5 miles into Idaho, so over 10 miles from us but looks closer.

It just started this afternoon, I hope they get it out soon because the bush is tinder dry here.

I mostly leave the girls in their pen- I have very little pasture, and their pen is over 100ft long so they have lots of room, just very boring for them. They got a little turnout yesterday, I put their fly masks on for turnout because the flies bug them there, but don't seem to pester them as much in their dry lot.

Bff's

I have my winter hay paid for- actually, I feed hay all year round, so I plan for bales to last right up to first cut next year. I have 16 big square bales coming , at 3 weeks per bale that will get me through 48 weeks, plus I have 80 small square bales. I'm set, just waiting for the equipment to get the bales delivered.

Josie is really growing and filling out... maybe a little too much, she looks kind of fluffy! Really excited to start working her, was hoping for this weekend but that's not going to happen; way too hot. Think we'll go to the lake with the dogs tomorrow.

What's happening here

This last week has been busy around here. During the week, I was helping my sister with her job search, did a lot of yardwork including thinning the dead canes out of the raspberries, and this last weekend made a trip up to Janice's to pick up some flowers for all my baskets- today I planted most of them; it's hot here and no frost in the forecast for a while! Yay!
Ted rototilled the garden for me, as well as fixing the little 1942 tractor so we can clean the horse pens now and move compost to the flower gardens.
We worked an auction on Saturday, a fundraiser for a local church. Sunday I laid out a pen with electric tape for the mares- the lawn, which takes me an hour to mow with a riding lawn mower is now repurposed into two horse pens which use up over half the space- might as well let the horses eat it, as I have no pasture here any more.
Today I took Delia out for a ride, I wanted to go bareback and in the sidepull, but she wouldn't even leave the yard.... so I saddled her up and put the snaffle bridle on her and away we went. I wanted to know how she would do riding out by herself but still within sight of her buddies- she is kinda herdbound. She walked out real good at first, keen and interested.

We turned down a road that runs through the fields, parallel to our place, so she could see Josie in the distance. She called a bit but not too bad. I asked for lateral flexion a few times and got absolutely nothing! She's iron jawed in a snaffle- I get better flexion in the bosal so that's what I'll use next time. My dentist apparently doesn't want to come to Creston for a few more months so I am going to have to get a vet to do her teeth. Which makes me a little cranky because the vets here are not exactly good at horse dentistry, but hopefully will do a good enough job.
On the way back she was really doing the quickstep, focused on Josie who was galloping around the pen calling, but she did stay in the walk as I asked. I've got a long way to go with this mare before I can remotely call her broke! Wish I had my round pen up, it's a shame on my landlord that I had to take it down and use it for fencing.
On the plus side, nothing bothered her, there was traffic and strange things in the ditches, and one guy hauling a boat that made a lot of rattling and banging as it went over bumps.  When we got back I worked her for about 5 minutes on circles, and watched Josie as she ran hard and tried to stop but wiped out and slid into the panel fence... could have been a wreck but it wasn't.
Tomorrow is plant the garden and hopefully another ride, this time in the bosal. I have decided that I am going to either have to get a saddle custom made for Delia or sell her- both my saddles leave dry spots on her very wide withers. Since I like her, I will probably get a saddle made.... (grin).

She is "double backed" which means that the muscles on either side of her spine rise up above her backbone, and although she has a high enough wither, her shoulders are really wide. Even setting my Wade saddle behind the shoulder blades it still leaves dry spots. So I have ordered a Dennis Lane fit kit from a saddle maker in Alberta, it should be here in a few days. Once I have her profile figured out, I'll get the right tree ordered from Rod Nikkel and have the saddle made at Top Hand Western Shop in Claresholm Alberta.
In other news, I had my collie Tess bred at the end of February, and her due date is May 1st- but I am doubting that she caught, sure doesn't look or feel like she is carrying any puppies. If I'm lucky, there will be a couple. I have orders for 5 pups, so it's disappointing! Tess is going to be 9 this fall, and unless she comes back into heat this year, she won't get bred again. I really wanted a female to keep, as grandma Reba is really starting to go downhill, she will be 14 this September.

Sunday Silence

Bugged

The mosquitoes that normally plague us are minimal this year- probably too hot for them. But other bugs are making up for it!
I have been bringing the horses in off pasture at midday as it is so hot and humid, and they have no shade to hide out in- except Beamer, who has trees and the side of a building. But today when I went to get him, I could see that he was pretty upset. As I was leading him in, he kept bucking at a big fly trying to land on him- until I swatted and killed it. Poor Beamer! Darn thing was huge!

Ignore all the gravel embedded on it from me stomping it! That's a matchbook next to it for size.

Then there's the wasps- darn things are prolific this year. They dive bomb me at my tackroom door because they have a nest in the tube for the track of the sliding door. Apparently they think the dog water tub is their personal swimming pool/fountain. At least they don't sting Amber when she jumps in to cool off.

The face flies are out even in the early mornings, so I make sure all the horses have their fly masks on. Everyone but Rio manages to keep their masks on- I think Kai is the culprit where Rio is concerned. Yesterday went something like this:

Turned Rio out this morning with fly mask. He rolls right away. Fly mask slips so that his ear comes out the center hole for the forelock. 

Mask gets re adjusted. Come home from work, no mask on. Replace mask. Catch Josie to bring in for a trim, get her in the stall and look back- Rio is doing perfect spins with his mask hanging off one ear. Grab camera but by then he has dropped the mask, stands there and looks at it. like "Oh, is that what was on my ear!"

 Put mask back on. Check the fit. Decide that perhaps this mask bothers his eyes so I don't think I'll put it back on him. Notice that Kai is standing there looking smug. Hmmmm. Think perhaps Rio had assistance in mask removal.

Kidz!!!

Spring stuff

Haven't been up to much lately, trying to get the yard cleaned up for spring, which has definitely sprung here- can't mow the lawn because it's too wet so I've been thinking of setting up electric fence and turning the horses out on it. :)
Amber has been taking up a lot of my time. I'm trying to house break her, even if "house" just means the dog room and the deck, so I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out her potty schedule. Who knew puppies had to pee and poo so often!

Looks like her eyes will be green

Tess is really good with her, she does discipline her when Amber gets too rambunctious but also plays with her, whereas Reba avoids her. She is a very busy dog with a strong work instinct, and I do have lessons lined up for her when she is old enough. Getting her to relax is tough! 

This is a rare sight! 

I trimmed Josie's feet the other day, she was so good, just stood quietly ground tied while I knelt on the ground beside her to trim her, and considering that I took over an hour, she did awesome. I only had to reposition her a couple of times on her last foot, the right hind. 

She is such a lovely filly....

I am totally smitten with her!

Spring deworming is all done, I still have to trim Beamer, and it's time to start doing some trail riding. Shayla is considering leasing Rio out to someone who needs a horse to ride while she is in California- I don't think I will be able to ride him as much as he needs, so if anyone is interested, let us know.