Sunday Stills- the letter C

I had a lot of fun with this one, seems like everything was comin' up C's for me! First, I was making my Christmas Cake; ( stay tuned for a post on making them, Complete with recipe!)

A bowl full of Cherries, on the Counter, in front of the Carnations.......

Then it was time to go out and play Catch with my Collies!

Of course, everyone has to have their Coffee in their favorite Cup, while at their Computer.....

and back outside to check on the ruckus the Cows were making.

Which reminded me of this photo I took earlier in the summer:

Hope you all had as much fun as I did!

Feeding to prevent colds

In the fall, I usually have weanlings, and I've developed a feed program over the years that helps combat the onset of colds due to the weather changes and the stress of weaning. Since the mares get grain while they are lactating, baby has learned to eat grain from an early age, chowing down alongside mama, and at weaning they continue to get grain, and mama doesn't. As soon as the cooler weather hits, I start adding garlic to their feed, as well as dried nettles.

I also top dress with a good mineral mix. The garlic I feed is crushed garlic; this photo shows how much I give them, as well as how much nettles. I call it their gourmet dinner. Nothing like getting horse kisses with garlic breath!

Beamer and Chickory also get this concoction, but they only get about a cup of grain, just enough to mix everything up; they are plenty fat and are loving the hay from this area.

So to those of you who have stinging nettles in your barnyard; don't get rid of them; harvest them! Feed them to your chickens, your horses, your dogs ( the commercial feed I give my dogs has nettles in it) and even yourself!

Are you ready....

For a big dose of cuteness? Errrrrr, make that a little dose of cuteness! Everybody, meet Poco!

He is a 3 week old mini donkey that belongs to the folks who bought Coyote Belle.

Ain't he just 'dorable! Becuase of the damp weather and being born so late in the year, he gets to wear a little dog blanket at night:

And he is about the same size as the dog!

He posed so pretty,

that I could have taken hundreds of photos!

So I have a question for all those of you who raise donkeys; do they need any vaccinations, and are there any special requirements for them, other than hay, grass salt, and water?

Wordless Wednesday

Ridin' a good horse

Come for a ride with me.

At about 10 seconds into the video, we break into a lope from a trot. Sorry about the over exposure, I'm having trouble with that lately.

Anyway, it is so nice to have a steady horse that let's me play around doing silly things like taking a video as we are loping along. Love my good horse!

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quick post this morning to wish all my Canadian readers, family and friends, a happy Thanksgiving. Hope you all have a wonderful day, and don't forget to actually give thanks for the many blessings in your life. I am off to visit my mom, brother, sister and neices, and cook dinner for them. I leave you with some photos of some of the blessings in my life. I don't have photos of them but my daughter and husband are the greatest of these blessings.

Sunday Stills- Photoshop

Well, I wasn't going to do this one because I don't really have a program that does much more than editing contrast, brightness and saturation. But I found that even that simple program could make some delightful changes in my photos, so here you are- enjoy!

Edited for contrast and color saturation.

Edited for contrast, and cropped so that you can't tell it was taken from my truck window.

Contrast, tint, saturation in this one, just for fun.

And my personal favorite, making a photo into black and white by editing brightness, contrast, and saturation.

Just a couple of things....

To brag about!

I'm proud of Chickory, she has really filled out and is a stout and pretty girl; not too bad for a long yearling. But what I'm braggin' about here, is my new hitching rail! My beloved husband did this while I was at work, I helped the next morning with putting on the rail- granted, mostly I just took pictures while he did all the work!

Here he is leveling the posts to the right height; this is before the sun came up!

Check out the heavy frost in these photos.

He drilled holes and bolted the rail in with very heavy lag bolts. (Supervised by Tess and Reba!)

And the other thing I'm braggin' about is the other thing my sweetheart did for me, just to surprise me when I got home from work:

He built the shelves in my office. No more stuff on the floor! (Check out that '70's wallboard!) You know your husband loves you when he spends his only days off doing things to make you happy. (This is much better than flowers, or jewelry!) I hope the cookies I baked him helped him to feel loved too. I'm blessed to have such a loving, caring, and capable husband. I love you, Ted! Thank you!

The many faces of Beamer

I was out playing with Beamer the other day, it was a chilly afternoon, and had snowed at the higher elevations.

Snow, don't you dare cross that line! Stay up on the mountain tops!

Beamer was full of himself and did a little performing for me; I tell ya, he knows when I have the camera out, and shows off for me!

Round and around he went,

he made sure to point out the snowy peaks;

Didya see that? 'S cold up there, ya know!

He also made sure that I got him posing:

(Ain't that just a classic quarter horse pose!)

Hey is that my blanket I see over there?

Would you hurry up with these buckles?

Ahh, so much better!

(That's a size 80 blanket he's wearing, fits him great in the chest and shoulders but it's long in the back. )

There's nothing like a happy horse!

Macro Monday

Sunday Stills Happiness is......

For some folks, happiness is wealth and fame

For others, its winning -a medal, a prize, at the end of a game.

For me it starts

with what's in my heart:

Love of God and His blessings,

and the treasures He has given.

Two dogs who adore me,

and a good horse to ride.

A dry place to hide,

and beautiful countryside

a husband who loves me,

and my daughter, my pride.

True happiness comes

when you love to live,

and live to love.

Tack talk

Canadian Cowgirl did a post on tack, about how you put your tack away. I find that I put my latigo up differently from most folks; this way was taught to me by Walt Vermidahl, who has spent more years in the saddle than I've been alive. I feed the latigo through from the back to the front:

Then I pull it down a little and feed the end through the loop I just made:

Walt always did things with two objectives- safety and efficiency. This method fits the efficiency category, because you can just grab the tail of the latigo-

and pull it down and feed it through your cinch ring in one easy move, one handed. Having fed it through from the back, it releases easily.

Things are getting cooler here but I'm sure it won't last; this is just a little gift to all the hunters who were complaining about the hot dry weather.

There's snow in them thar hills; that is the Skyway pass, and the snowplows have been out there the last two days.

I took Beamer for a little ride today, carefully watched by the girls as we rode by them.

(Tess wasn't supposed to be in that picture!) Such pretty girls! Love the little tufts of red in Velvet's ears, the last remnants of the dun color she was born with. She is getting darker as her winter coat comes in.

Beamer and the girls

Beamer's reaction when I told him that I'm trying to get the horse dentist to come here soon.

The girl's idea of posing for a picture.