Beautiful day!

 Since my photos from yesterday were rather poor, I brought out the real camera (Nikon ) and took advantage of a day that actually feels like spring. Most of the snow is gone, except for shaded areas and places that snowdrifts built up. I tried river shots of the Common Goldeneye duck but my focus was off. I did, however manage to capture the mating pair of geese as they flew overhead. 

Love that blue sky and the snow eating south wind we have today. I inspected my flower gardens, and the shoots in my previous post are tulips that my niece gave me last year, and I planted the bulbs last summer after the flowers died. Also surviving the long cold winter are dianthus and at least 1 of my 2 irises. Still waiting to see if the butterfly flower, roses, and clematis made it. 

Happy is doing great- baby has stopped bouncing around, so has probably grown enough to take up most of the room. Her udder isn't quite full but it is getting there!

If you look behind the curve of her jaw, that is the melanoma. It doesn't seem to be bothering her at all; not sensitive to touch and she doesn't react at all when I touch it. So hopefully it will just lie dormant for a long time. 

Cell phone photo

Happy is 21 this year and she looks great. As far as I can find out, this is her 13th foal. Previous owners say she has no trouble foaling, so hopefully that will be true for this one too. 

If you are wondering about that funny looking mark on her side....

it is a patch of hair  in her original color, bay. I think it looks like a cross or an arrow. Or both! 

Stay tuned, I will do the foaling contest post in a day or 2. 

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

 

I has a happy

 First of all, because it is officially spring!  Although this morning it wasn't very spring-y with temps of -18 C . There was a herd of mule deer does munching near my bales this morning and I paused for a while to watch them- they sure are graceful jumpers as they hopped over the fence to go down across the still frozen river. 

The day warmed up nicely though- all the way to plus 3 C- woohoo.... but it was nice enough to head out with the other thing that I am happy about- I finally got batteries for my Nikon with the telephoto lens! So of course it was time finally for some action shots of the mares. 

They were pretty lazy in the warm sun, so I led them to the far end of  their pasture, and turned them loose. Sure'nuff that woke them up and it was tails up and go time!

Power take off

Old pregnant mares can still give 'er!

Who you callin' old? 

One toe balance

Didya get all that?

Deep snow is hard work! Yes we do still have 2 ft. of snow.

Powering through!

Nothing like a good roll!

Love how uphill this mare runs

She's gonna be fun to ride!

The mares are wintering really well. I did the math and all 3 horses are getting about 30 pounds of hay a day; a 1300 lb. round bale lasts me 15 days; I fork feed, not free choice. They are fed twice a day and usually have just a few scraps left between feedings. Beamer gets a half a scoop of oats so I can give him his 2 oz. of camelina oil, and Velvet gets a pint of senior feed with a pint of oats. Hopefully we will start getting some meltdown so that they can slowly get back to grazing; I do continue to feed hay for the first month of grazing so they aren't eating too much spring grass. It's a little different here than the last 14 years where they lived on a dry lot and had minimal pasture- here, it's all pasture so it will be a learning curve on managing them. 

The saddle hunt is still on... 

Spring stuff

 Another quiet week here. But busy with non horse stuff like getting my gardens cleared of last years dead branches, dividing some perennials, raking the barnyard debris from putting chaff down on the icy winter paths, and raking poo piles away from the buildings and fencelines to prepare for corral cleaning in the next few days. 

I worked Sophie a couple times in the round pen, and decided to switch to using a Billy Allen mouthpiece snaffle on her, thinking that the single jointed snaffle was more distracting to her; she seemed to be much more comfortable in the Billy Allen so I will ride her in that until I feel she is ready for a curb bit. 

I was planning on riding her the day after our stroll, but she came into a pretty strong heat and was so focused on Beamer that I thought it would be pointless to work on her issue with leaving with that strong of a distraction. Discretion is the better part of valor! 

Ted is back now so I can haul away from here to ride - I'm sure that will help. 

Eeeeh what's up doc?

 That was my question as I headed out to my gardens to see what indeed is coming up, since today is the spring equinox. Turns out the answer is lots! 

Aurora- that is my Heleborus which apparently is quite happy! 

Purple Emperor Sedum

One of several irises, all of them with new growth

All my daylilies are sending up new leaves

Lilies! this is my earliest one, it's a deep red.

Red bee balm, one of my favourites. I harvest leaves and flowers for tea and an oxymel.

Spinach that overwintered! It should have new growth coming along, I'm sure these leaves will be bitter. I also left beets and carrots in the ground but alas, the cold got to them. 

What's up in your garden? I know you southerners have flowers already, hope you post them!