Foal Watch

I'm sitting up watching Jetta, our ApHC Black Broodmare. Her milk has turned white and tasted sweet this evening. She should foal tonight, she is pacing in her stall. I'm hoping that she goes early so that I can go to bed at a decent hour.

Facebook and CRS Gold DFM

To all of my Blogger friends and followers, I have taken the plunge.

Alright, I wanted to promote CRS Gold DFM Equine Probiotics on Facebook, so I signed up for a Facebook page. There isn't a way to promote a product page without having a personal account with friends and all of that stuff. So I have given in to temptation and started a personal Facebook page as well.

The good thing is that I can continue to blog here at Spinning Yarns from the Farm and it automatically posts onto my Facebook page. Thanks, Tonya, over at The Simple Life, for that tip.

This means that I won't have to spend all of my time posting on both sites. I also removed email addresses from my blog so you won't be getting my blog emailed to you anymore.

I may eventually add a Rope Halter page but not right now because I have all of the orders that I want to deal with.

Here is the CRS Gold DFM page.

Horse Owners Stampede

I was shocked when I read the following article, has this country totally lost its mind? Our Government is sticking its nose into every area of our lives. We can kill our unborn children and I am sure that infanticide of aborted babies who survive the abortion process and euthanasia of the sick and elderly will soon be accepted practices.

The sanctity of human, God given life is no longer guarded or respected by our Government but the life and health of animals are becoming ridiculously guarded by our fearless leaders.

Oklahoma horse owners stampede Capitol | NewsOK.com

When you read the above article you will see that Oklahoma has made it a Felony to float a horse's teeth without a Veterinarian license. What you may not notice is that the law also includes shoeing horses and transferring embryos in cows.

A horse's teeth continue growing throughout their life and can get sharp edges, making it difficult for them to eat. This is corrected by a simple filing of the sharp edges. As far as shoeing goes, I don't know of any Vets who would even want to do that hard and back breaking job.

My Granddaughter currently has a loose tooth. We don't have to take her to a licensed Dentist to pull that tooth, we can pull it and it can cause her pain and it can bleed without being charged with Child Abuse or any type of felony. Oklahoma's horse owners cannot file their horse's teeth or hire someone other than a Licensed Vet to file those teeth. Floating teeth might be annoying to a horse but is not painful and there is no blood. What is wrong with this picture??

Can you even imagine a farrier being arrested and charged with a felony for putting shoes on a horse?

Back in the Saddle

The end of the trail and I was still smiling!

I am so proud of myself and so happy. My DH even congratulated me yesterday evening on our good ride. We started out at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, we would have started out earlier but we ran into the usual sequences. We had mud to scrape off of horses and saddles to scrub, then of course we had to find a headstall that would fit my gelding.

My goal with my new gelding is to ride him with just one of my rope halters with side pulls, so I wanted to start him out with a kind and gentle hackamore. He has only been ridden with my former horse Dan's sweet iron split bit but that is the same bridle and bit that my DH uses on everything. So locating something else was not easy. We have tack located in several different boxes, in several different locations.

I haven't ridden a horse but three short times (less than 15 minutes) since the wreck that messed up my back four and a half years ago. I was determined that I was going to ride again. My Doctor told me that I could try it but only without any medication, so that I would know when to quit.

Since the one bridle was all my DH needed to ride with, my bridle was used for all of the horses. We finally located one of our good aluminum hackamores and then had to find a leather curb strap because I didn't want to use a chain curb on him. My poor DH was getting quite annoyed at the time that it was taking us to get ready. But it was a good lesson in patience for him.

After my heavy Tex Tan saddle was placed on my horse, I had to listen to my wonderful Husband gripe again about having to tighten my saddle. It has one of those square metal girth riggings built into the skirt. I hate them too, we both prefer a round rigging ring that isn't built in and I usually like to tighten my own saddle but I was trying to conserve my energy yesterday.

When Ranger, my new horse (Dan has been semi-retired at 22 yrs. old) was saddled and bridled my DH got on him to take the buck out of him. Ranger has only been ridden a few times at 7 yrs. old and still bucks a little when starting out. He humped up once, then they spun around several times, I got a little dizzy watching them. When they finally started walking out in a nearly straight line, he bucked and got his hind feet a good 6 inches off of the ground. Six inches doesn't bother me because Dan always bucks that high when a fly lands on his rump, even higher if it is a horse fly.

My DH on Ranger after the buck was taken out of him.

Now it was my turn to ride Ranger for the very first time, the problem was that I couldn't get on him. He wasn't suppose to get as big as he is. His Sire is only 14.3 and his Dam is maybe 14.1. Ranger does have a full brother who is over 16 hands and thankfully Ranger only grew to around 15.2. On a side note here, to those who now own Feather, Shadow, Thorn and Shay, Ranger is their full brother.

My first time on Ranger. Had on my back brace.

I decided to keep Ranger when he was first born because he is an Indian Shuffler and I love that gait. He also has a lateral canter that is smooth, if you can hold him at the right speed. My DH isn't good with gaits, so I hope to be able to teach Ranger the speed and gaits that I want now that I can ride him. That will take some time but that is another of my goals for him.

Ranger and Leroy stood pretty still for me before the ride.

I had a horse fall with me several years ago and he stepped on the outside of my left knee when he got up and totally messed it up. After that I always had to mount Dan on the right side, Dan has always been a hot horse but he did always stand perfectly unflinching when I mounted, no matter how long it took me. This is something else Ranger will have to learn.

Tying rope halters has given me good upper body strength and even after our accident and my being overweight, I could easily pull myself up on a tall horse. However, now I am having some problems with my left shoulder and that made mounting difficult for me yesterday.

Once onboard, I couldn't reach the left stirrup, this was strange, maybe I am shrinking on one side. My DH adjusted the left stirrup but not the right, they felt balanced but I didn't feel balanced, after we took off I completely abandoned that left stirrup. We rode off down the road and I was having to fight Ranger all of the way, he doesn't neck rein at all and he didn't respond to plow reining very well either. I was also having to kick him hard to get a turn out of him. This just wasn't working for me.

I felt thrown forward in the saddle, I did have a back brace on and I thought that it might be causing the problem. After riding my boy for 15 minutes I was done. My back was killing me and I was very upset. The combination of kicking hard, pulling hard on the rein for every turn and feeling thrown forward, I told my poor DH who had worked so hard to get me going in the first place for only a 15 minute ride that I was done and wanted to go home.

When we got home, he asked me if I wanted to try changing horses. I took my back brace off and got on Leroy, another of our young horses in training. The difference in saddles shocked me and I realized that I have a saddle problem. My DH said that my saddle throws you forward because he could feel it too. This saddle had always been comfortable for me before, but with the back injury that I have, it just won't work. So now I am on a saddle hunt.

We ended up riding for three hours and it was great, Leroy is a perfect horse and his price is going up. We had a inquiry on him the other day and they wanted to know if he had ever been trail ridden, I had to say, no. He had only been ridden in an arena and on the road in traffic.

Well, Leroy has been trail ridden now and it was a new experience for him. But I was able to negotiate trees and brush on him without one skinned knee and we accidentally got off the trail once and it was rough going but he and Ranger both did great. We did a little mountain climbing and they were exhausted when we reached the peak. Then we did some mud hole wading that neither of them liked but with encouragement they learned that deep mud holes aren't always quicksand.

Here is a list of things that Ranger and Leroy learned yesterday, some of which they had experience before so it was just a refresher course.

• The hollow sounds of hoofbeats on a long and tall bridge can be soothing.
• Stepping on solid ground again at the end of the bridge is startling but not life threatening.
• Muddy waterways will not suck you in deeper than knee height.
• You can trust your rider to guide you through the woods and brush even without a clear pathway.
• Ranger learned that you can't stop and eat just because you are hungry or there is something new on the menu that you have never tried before.
• Large hay bales wrapped in tarps are not meat eating dinosaurs.
• Stumps are not hungry wolves.
• Large camping trailers in the middle of nowhere do not contain vampires
• Abandoned tires and brightly colored plastic jugs in roadside ditches are harmless.
• Walking through junkyards on a windy day is very interesting, there is so much to see and do.
• Cadillac Eldorado's look very different when standing up on one side, the bottom is just not as pretty as the top, it in no way resembles a rogue elephant even if it does have a trunk.
  
• Junkyard dogs can be ignored, their bark is much worse than their bite even in packs. Though these Pit Bull and Pit Bull mixes look much more intimidating than the neighbor's little Jack Russell Terriers, they aren't nearly as dangerous.
• Diesel trucks make a lot of noise when coming up behind you but not as much noise as a big well drilling rig coming up from behind.
• Discarded tires, roofing shingles and other unwanted household items in a quarry hole are not environmentally friendly but are not an immediate danger to a passing horse and rider.
  
• When riding South to North in the evening hours your shadow will not give you much trouble, but when turning eastward you will suddenly have the setting sun behind you, you must not be alarmed at your own shadow.

This list is just to let you know what we and our two horses experienced on our three hour ride yesterday. They didn't, however, have a problem with most of this stuff. The only slight problems that we did have were with the knee deep muddy waterway, Leroy had a slight problem with stepping on the solid ground again after being on the bridge for awhile. Ranger did spook at his own shadow. For the most part these boys did excellent with all of the scary things we exposed them to.

The end of the ride, I was flexing Leroy to the left.

Then to the right. Who is that fat Granny?

I did great too. It took me a little while to get my land legs back after the ride was over and I did take some pain medicine to get me through the rest of the evening but I surprisingly felt really well this morning and am looking forward to our next ride and getting a new saddle for Ranger.

I reached some personal goals yesterday and I look forward to reaching some more this summer. We have several young horses that need some wet saddle blankets, this is something that I used to be able to help out with and these horses deserve a chance to become the excellent horses that they were bred to be.

Wet saddle blankets are good for white horses,

But look better on Leopards.

Mare Waxing

This is for Kyfarmlife. I tried to leave you a comment, Rae, but I couldn't again, it may be a Firefox thing. But anyway, Georgia's udder doesn't look quite ready to me, in the picture that you posted. Mares are not as predictable as other animals. Before last year we were foaling out about 10 mares each spring. This year we only have two and then another in the fall. With the price of horses being what they are and the price of feed being what it is, we only bred two old mares that we would like to keep the bloodlines on.

We very rarely miss a foaling but we taste the milk, it goes from salty, to oily to sweet. When it turns sweet they will foal within 12 hours. I don't think that your mare will let you milk her, she sounds and looks like my TW mare. Is your mare gaited?

Here is a not-so-good picture of a waxed teat. The waxing will build up and get quite long but then fall off. Some mares never wax at all and one of our mares waxes for a full seven days before she foals.

Disappearing Wire

For those who have horses, you know how deadly a stray piece of electric fence wire can be. We have had our worst horse injuries come from a piece of wire getting loose in our pastures. Electric fence wire can escape the fence posts in a number of ways but usually it is the horses themselves that break these devils loose with their own foolishness.

On one occasion we found empty t-posts right before dark where one strand of wire was missing. While searching the field for the wire my DH discovered a very horrible leg injury on my gelding, the injury was so bad that he couldn't walk and we had to take the trailer to bring him to the house for first aid. Darkness fell before the wire could be found and the search was to be resumed the next morning by me.

As soon as dawn broke, I was walking the grid in the upper pasture until I came to a group of horses with a young filly's leg shooting blood out two feet with every heart beat. I summoned help, got a disposable diaper (a must for all horse owners) and some vet wrap and returned to the scene. Once the bleeding had stopped and I knew help was on the way, I left the filly standing where she was and started the search again. My top priority was finding that stupid piece of wire.

It took a long time to find it but I finally did and we doctored the two injured horses several times per day for three months. Both fully recovered with only slight scarring. Time and space does not permit me to tell you the endless heartbreaking stories of horses that I know of who have been injured and even put down because of electric fence wire and high tinsel wire.

Alright, now that you understand the dangers of wire around horses, this is what happened on Saturday morning. When I awoke, I heard banging around in the barn. I looked out to find Cooter in the barn wrecking havoc. I snatched him up and drug him back to the goat lot only to find that the whole bottom strand of electric fence wire was missing between his lot and the lower horse pasture. Gadzooks! I said, and turned him loose in the lot anyway.

I started searching for the missing wire immediately and could not find it, it was not in any of the usually hiding places. Now bear in mind that the lower horse pasture is where the big round bales of hay are fed and we have had a lot of rain. There was no way that I could walk out in that deep mud soup to look for a piece of wire.

I went to the house and got my binoculars, I stood out there on firm ground for about an hour combing the pasture. First I searched every horse's legs with my super vision because that is always a good place to find wire. No luck, I couldn't see it anywhere.

When my DH got home he started walking through the mud looking for the wire, he walked back and forth many, many times without finding the 100 feet of wire. I suggested that perhaps it was buried in the thick mud but he doesn't think that there is any way 100 feet of wire could be totally covered with mud.

So now we have a mystery, what happened to the wire? Neither of us will rest easy until we figure this one out.

The Faithful

To my faithful blog follower and friend; I am so sorry that you lost your mare to EPM so quickly after you learned what was wrong with her. I know it hurts and I know that it isn't fair, because no one takes better care of their horses than you do. I knew when the phone rang on Sunday morning that it was you and my heart sank.

To my faithful blog follower, cousin and friend; I missed you this weekend, sorry to hear that you were under the weather and I hope you are feeling much better.

To my other faithful blog follower and friend; I owe you an apology, I have new pictures of Buddy, Bullseye and Fancy from this Spring and Summer that I have never taken the time to send to you, maybe after Thanksgiving.

To my other faithful blog follower and friend; I see that you signed up at Goatbeat.net, now introduce yourself and join the conversation.

To my other faithful blog followers, who are also family members; We hope to see you on Wednesday night or Thursday afternoon.

To my other faithful blog followers who don't fit in any of the above categories; Thank you for reading my blog and just in case I forget to tell you, have a wonderful Thankgiving!

Bone Chillin'

The weather forecast is nice for the next few days. These recent cold nights have been hard to adjust to. I am normally a polar bear. I really like cold weather, it may have something to do with hot flashes. Last winter we really saved on heating expenses but my poor DH nearly froze to death.

I got all of my green tomatoes picked before the freeze and I had to rush around to get my pool filter unhooked and drained. The wind was so strong and cold one day that my hot cup of coffee was just lukewarm by the time I got to the fire that my Husband had built to burn some stumps.

There I sat on a chunk of wood by the fire drinking a slightly warm cup of coffee. It just kind of ruined the whole affect. That wind not only ruined my coffee but it kept changing the direction of the sparks and smoke. My DH ended up having to set up two chunks of wood, one on each side of the fire for me to sit on and I kept having to get up and run to the other side. A very relaxing evening.

Some of my hens have stopped laying, I am only getting five eggs a day now. I also lost one of my Rhode Island Reds, we found her dead on the nest.

We sold Collette to a friend with good fence, so I will get to see her babies and still get to see her occasionally. My DH and I both sighed a big sigh of relief after we delivered her to her new home. Paris is still getting out once in awhile out of habit but I think that she will eventually stop.

Calico is still not liking her new living quarters inside the barn, she cries day and night. Her cries are sorrowful, mournful and loud, they are actually more of a wail than a cry. I thought that she would get over it eventually but I don't think she is going to. I tie Cooter up outside the goat lot and put her in with Paris when the weather is nice during the day, so it isn't like she is totally without companionship.

Naylor's eye still looks bad, the cloudiness is still there and he is still keeping it slightly closed but it isn't watering anymore. We have tapered off putting the medicines in it to once a day. He is still being such a good boy, most horses wouldn't let you get near them after what we have put him through. He always comes right to us and sometimes we don't even have to halter him.

Corneal Ulcer

While showing a horse to someone on Sunday afternoon, I noticed that several of the horses eyes were watering. One of them had quite a bit a pus in his eyes so I meandered down into the herd for a closer look. His eyes were fine but I started looking at other eyes and was shocked to find Naylor, our two year old, AQHA, solid bay gelding with a painful, runny and milky eye.

This looked very serious and we tried to get him in to see the Veterinarian on Monday but he wasn't available. On Tuesday morning we tried again to get him in to see our Vet and failed. So we called the new Vet who just opened a practice very close to where we live, she is just a young girl starting out and when we had called her once before her prices were too steep for us but we were desperate this time. She said that she could see him at 2:00.

She did a very thorough exam of his eye and diagnosed him with a corneal ulcer caused by an injury of some type, which she wanted to treat very aggressively. Very aggressively means that we have to keep him out of the sun or keep a fly mask on him and give him a shot every day plus put three different ointments in his eye twice per day and two of those ointments 4 to 6 times per day.

It wouldn't have been so hard if we could have put him in a stall and kept him here at the house but he had never been stalled and he wasn't having any part of it. He nearly tore the barn down. Naylor is a very quiet and gentle boy, my DH just got on him and rode off the very first time he was ridden but he didn't like being confined at all.

Since my Husband was going to be working all week, I didn't want to have to deal with him getting himself in trouble or hurt in the stall, so we stuck a fly mask on him and turned him back out with his herd. His herd doesn't want anything to do with him and treats him like he has cooties or worse.

They are savage, vicious and down right nasty to him. They bite him, kick him and chase him. He is totally confused and so pitiful, these were his best friends. We take the mask off of him at night and they are all happy to see him. Then the next day it's the same old battle.

This has been difficult for us, having to walk so far to get him in the dark and bring him back to the house. We have to twitch him to get him to hold his head still to put all that stuff in his eye. Tonight it was raining and cold, we drove to the top pasture and my DH had to walk out into the herd to find him, which isn't easy in the dark, he went right past him to another bay horse. Then he had to bring him back to me and the Blazer headlights to do the dirty deed.

What is shocking about the whole thing is that he never tries to get away from us when we come after him with a halter and lead rope. Sometimes he even sees us coming and walks to meet us. I don't understand why except that he loves to be petted and loved on, he doesn't exactly like having his eye messed with or getting a shot though. We have tried giving him some grain as a reward for his good behavior but he won't eat it, he just wants to get back to the herd after the loving and petting is over.

The Vet called to check on him yesterday evening and I didn't get her called back until this evening. I told her that we weren't seeing much improvement except that he doesn't act like it is hurting as much. She said that we wouldn't see much yet but that he should start keeping it open more, even if it does continue to water and look white. She said that it might even take a couple of months before all of the milkiness goes away.

I have to say that she impressed me, she is a very empathetic Doctor, her eye watered the whole time that she worked on Naylor's watery eye, plus she didn't charge us too much and that earns her a lot of points.

Darth

He finally did it. My DH finally named a horse, he says it is his first. I usually do all of the naming around here and had been throwing several names at him for the new Tennessee Walker, who is totally black. Then my Husband took the horse for a ride out on the road and when he came back he had come up with the perfect name, Darth.

This horse is pretty awesome, we don't think that he has ever lived outside of a stall or been ridden outside an arena or round pen. He is just acting like he is seeing the world for the first time. My DH said that he did great out on the road, he wasn't flighty or spooky but he looked at everything with interest.

When we turned him out in the main pasture yesterday with the rest of the herd, he was more interested in sight-seeing than in the other horses. He just wondered around everywhere and looked at everything like he was seeing nature for the first time. He is a loner, he wasn't really interested in socializing.

We are very impressed with this gelding, he really seems to have the right stuff. We were told that he is a 3 yr. old but in comparing his teeth with one of our 2 yr. olds, we think that he probably just turned two this past Spring. He will probably be a tall boy when he stops growing. I have taken some pictures of him but haven't transferred them to the computer yet.

Replacement

We can't seem to get ahead for falling behind. We sold our last AQHA Palomino gelding and delivered him yesterday. He got a good home where he will be spoiled to death. This brought our number of horses down to around 32, when you have this many horses, you never know for sure how many you have at any given time.

On our way home with the horse trailer, my DH suggested that we run by a friend's place who had a 3 yr. old, Black Tennessee Walker Stallion for sale. I should have screamed and cried and refused to go, but I didn't. I also forgot to make him wear his light green sweatshirt that reads, "I do not need another horse" three times on it. Needless to say, we brought the horse home with us.

We are going to have Zircon, our leopard colt, gelded on Friday, so we are going to have this new guy gelded as well. He is a tall black horse without any white on him. He is green broke and very well behaved. You would never know that he was a stallion.

We don't know where he came from originally but he looks like he should probably be registered, he looks and carries himself like a full-blooded TWHBEA. With the value of horses being what it is right now, many people just aren't going to the extra expense of putting papers on their low valued younglings. This is a real shame for this horse, if that is what happened with him. Because he is nice looking, calm and well behaved.

We put him in the stall right outside our bedroom last night and he didn't make a sound all night. He has only nickered once since we loaded him. The man that we bought him from had never ridden a gaited horse before and said that he really enjoyed riding him. I am assuming that someone probably gave this colt to him, he had him broke, put some weight on him, then started trying to sell him.

We will have him gelded, try to put some more weight on him, give him some more training and try to find him a good home. I will post some pictures of him as soon as I get some taken.

Videos

I got all of the videos of Mark Burnette and his Mustang, Hoof-Hearted, uploaded to YouTube.com. These were taken on the same day that they left for Fort Worth, Texas, for the 2008 Extreme Mustang Makeover. This was his last practice ride at home. The last video is of my Husband riding him.

The radio program did air this morning and Mark mentioned us as one of his sponsors and commented on the good horses that we have for sale.

You can see all of the videos here: My YouTube Channel. I currently have 34 videos there, so you will have to click the "see all" link under the videos listed on the first page.

Sequences

If you are a loyal Patrick McManus fan, you will know what sequences are. If you don't know who Patrick McManus is then you need to do more serious reading. Go to Amazon.com and buy some Patrick McManus books, he is a very famous author to some of us. Sequences are the things that happen to you along the way when you start out to do something simple. One thing leads to another and you get caught in a tangled web of sequences.

Most of the time sequences are very bad things. But every once in a great while, good sequences come along and that is what happened to us on Monday. My chicken obsessed cousin was still wanting more chickens and especially if they were free. So we planned to go back to the place where I got my new chickens for free, they also had a pair of peacocks just the color that his mother had been wanting. We planned to leave here for the long 50 mile trip on Monday evening.

At some point during the day on Monday someone called us looking for a big AQHA horse that was broke to ride. My Husband took the call and told him about Joe, who is a large 4 yr. old palomino gelding who we had broke last winter by Mark Burnette. Mark had said that he never bucked or did anything wrong but he had only put 30 days of riding on him and we had never been on him since we brought him home. My Husband told the man that we were coming right down to the area where he lived and if he wanted to see him and try him out, we could bring him with us.

It all happened so quickly that we were a little bit in shock, we needed the money to pay for this year's hay and hadn't been having much luck selling horses this year. So we met the man just a few miles from where the chickens were located and he tried him out, then bought him. We then proceeded to the peacocks and hens.

None of us had ever handled peacocks before and we had no clue how to go about it. Needless to say the poor peacock hen lost a few feathers and we discovered that peacocks can be very nervous and flighty. We then caught 8 Barred Rock hens for my cousin and he decided that he also wanted the very large, stately looking Barred Rock Rooster.

At some point on the trip home my cousin started worrying about the rooster. He already has several roosters and his Dad has roosters too. So he started lamenting about how his Dad was going to kill him. Being the wonderful person that I am, I told him that I would take the rooster, to which my Husband said a flat, NO!

My cousin only had one large cage that would fit in the back of his Jeep, to take all of the hens and peacocks home in. So I had told him that he could leave whatever wouldn't fit here and he could pick them up whenever he got a chance. I quietly told him that the rooster wouldn't fit.

All of the chickens that we got had bad cases of leg mites, so I gave my cousin a syringe of Eprinex and told him to put 1/2 mL on the skin on the back of each hen between their wings, then to coat their legs with some type of oil or salve, Vicks Vaporub is the best but vasoline will work, I used Avon Skin-So-Soft on my new hens and on the big rooster who we put in a dog cage for the night, right outside the door that goes into our house.

My DH told my cousin before he left to make sure to come back and get the rooster as soon as possible. The next morning at 5:00, we were awakened by a man with a deep, gravelly voice imitating a rooster's crow. That is what my new rooster sounds like, it isn't a pleasant sound, but I suppose that I will get used to it.

Update On Garnet

After the crisis seemed to be over for Garnet and he was on the road to recovery, something new cropped up. He had three large whelps the size of hot dogs come up on the back of his right hind leg above the hock. They finally busted open and produced a lot of yellow pus. He had been on Penicillin at the time this happened, so I switched him to SMZ Tablets.

I am grinding the tablets with the bute and putting the powder in pancake syrup then syringing it into his mouth. He is still taking his medicine very well and is still tolerating the fly spray but he doesn't like it when I treat his sores. He did let me treat him this morning without any problems because I caught him when he was lying down and he didn't want to bother with getting up. I treated the sores on his body then lifted each leg and treated them on both sides. I just couldn't get to the other side of his body, so it will have to wait until later.

Mowing Pastures

I have always enjoyed mowing the pastures but since we got the new tractor, my DH hogs it all of the time. He tells me that my back couldn't take it but I think he just wants to do it until the new wears off.

He is aways mowing, he no sooner gets one field done and it is time to start on the next one. He is spending all of his days off on that tractor. The thing that worries me is that he goes to sleep while mowing. He dozes off anytime he sits still for very long.

He has also discovered the one thing that he doesn't like about the new tractor and that is that the exhaust comes out the side, so that you get all of the heat blowing right back on you. The side exhaust was my idea, I wanted it because he always likes to mow under low hanging limbs and that tends to knock off top mounted exhaust pipes. I guess I was wrong on this one.

He did get one horse rode this morning. I had someone here on Saturday that is interested in Lulu, she is one of our young AQHA mares. We bought her as a green broke horse a year ago and have never been on her. He didn't have any trouble with her, she saddled nicely and accepted him on her back. He rode her around in circles with just a halter and lead rope for awhile but it was hot and dusty, so he didn't ride her for very long. They ended on a good note, she did very well.

Colic

I looked out the bedroom window this morning and saw my old gelding Dan lying down. He was all by himself, the rest of his herd were pretty far away from him. Since he is the alpha male of the herd, I knew something had to be wrong, so I went out to check on him.

When I got close to him, I wasn't even sure it was him. He looked almost sorrel instead of very dark brown. He was covered in mud and dust, probably from a rough night of colic. But I wasn't sure what was wrong with him yet, he wouldn't get up for me, he was groaning, but he wasn't rolling or looking at his belly. I could hear loud bowel sounds.

I felt of all of his hooves, they were all cold, his face and even his nose were cold to touch. I looked at his gums and they were a nice pink. So off to the house I went to get a shot of banamine. I estimated that he weighed about 1200 lbs, so I pulled up 12 mL.

I don't like giving shots, that is what I married my DH for, but he was at work, so I would have to do it. Dan has very sensitive skin and hates shots. Since he wouldn't get up for me, I didn't think that it would be hard to do. I would give it to him IM in the rump. I didn't even take a lead rope.

I got him stuck and was pushing the banamine in, when he jumped to his feet. I did manage to get the needle pulled out. I had only gotten 4 mL in him, so I would have to stick him again.

He just stood there looking at me and my syringe. He didn't act like he could move. So I stuck him again in the neck, well, he could move and off he went with the syringe flopping, it finally fell out.

Now he won't let me get close to him, so I guess that I did get something accomplished. I at least got him on his feet and running, which didn't hurt him at all if it was colic. He hasn't laid down again, so I guess he is better. I will just have to watch him today.

99 Bales

We got 99 bales of hay in the loft this evening. We will pick up what's left in the field tomorrow after the dew is off of it. I have a blister from dragging the bales all the way to the back of the loft with my hay hook. It gets easier the more hay that you get in there. The dragging distance shortens with each load.

I also got two rope halters done and ready to be shipped out in the morning. My hands are sore and swollen but hopefully they will recover tonight in time for more hay and more halters tomorrow. I will be so happy when our loft is full, about 800 bales, and our friend's barn is full, about 300 bales. It would be nice if we could also fill the neighbor's barn but if not, we should have plenty of big round bales to see us through.

There doesn't seem to be a hay shortage this year and the prices are coming down. I don't think that the farmers around here are happy about it, but we sure are.

Gripping

Here we are, August 10th and still no hay in the barn. We were suppose to have around 300 bales ready to bale this afternoon but yesterday proved not to be a good day for curing hay. So it isn't even raked yet. Hopefully it will be ready to rake in a few hours and we can get it in the loft this evening.

All I have to do is drive the truck and trailer around in the field, then get in the loft and use a long hay hook to pull the bales out of the elevator's way. The loft floor is nice and slick, so that part is easy. I used to be able to heft, throw and stack bales but not anymore. The hardest part for me now is getting into the loft, I hate ladders.

I am close to finishing a barrel racing website and will be able to start on a local community website soon. When that is done, I plan on completely redoing our website, it gets totally neglected.

I also have 39 horse rope halters to make and ship out as soon as possible. I can only do so many halters per day or my hands and fingers start cramping up on me.
Tying and tightening around fourteen knots per halter tends to make your hands complain a bit.

Between knot tying and goat milking, I have quite a grip. I never have to ask my DH to open a jar for me anymore. When my back Doctor tests my grip by having me squeeze his hands, I can bring tears to his eyes. He doesn't ask me to do that much anymore.

Spooky

We were in town yesterday and my Husband stopped to talk to an older gentleman who had bought a horse off of us many years ago. He said that he had come coon hunting on the back side of our property awhile back and that he would never come down here again.

Indian Creek runs on the back side of our property but we also own a strip of land across the creek that has the remains of Bridge Church on it. There is also a very old Cemetery there and an old stagecoach road that is the actual border of our property.

When we bought the land we were told that this was the only place that stagecoaches could cross Indian Creek. There is a county road and a bridge near that crossing spot now but the county road doesn't follow the same route that the old stagecoach road took.

We have a place where you can pull off of the road into the Church lot that is very secluded. This is where the man was coon hunting. He said that they heard a horse come running down the road that dark night. Since we have horses this was possible, but he said that there was no horse. They looked everywhere and though they could hear the clippity clop of the horses hooves running on the road, there was nothing there. I guess it scared them bad enough that they won't come back.

Changing Colors

Sapphire, our little black twin filly that survived, changed from black to brown and is now changing to blue roan. So, her name will fit her now.

Garnet, our sorrel blanketed colt is changing to either blue roan or gray, so his name will not fit him anymore.

Zircon, our little crooked legged sorrel leopard isn't changing colors but he is growing and his legs look much better, he also thinks that he is king of the world.