Zircon Memories

It was a lovely day today, warm, sunny, a nice breeze. The horses and goats are all shedding, so there was hair in the air. I let my two does out in the yard for some green, tender munching and some exercise this evening. They kept their noses to the ground, so I worried that they would get too much of a good thing.

When my DH got home from his job, he worked with a new 2 year old filly that we just got in, she really needs some work! The only lesson she has been getting so far is how to be caught without tearing down fences.

Then he brought Zircon to the barn to trim his feet. With 30-something horses, hoof trimming is going to go on and on for awhile. He managed to get Zircon, a 2 year old and Sky, our only yearling done this evening.

I took some new pictures of Zircon, he is such a good boy. I remembered back two years ago this June when I helped bring him into the world. You can read that story here.

Zircon has gone from being an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan. I knew he would!

When the horses were trimmed, I casually said something about trimming Rancid's feet. My wonderful husband whose back and legs were already hurting from the work involved in trimming two horses, one of which was an inexperienced yearling, told me to go get him. Well, I jumped at the chance to get my doe's hooves trimmed and brought out Collette instead. When he finished with Collette, I put her up and brought out Calico. He is an absolute perfect Husband. Rancid will have to wait, I didn't want to push my luck too far.

The last few days have been such perfect weather that I hate for it to end but from the look of the weather map and the forecasts, we are in for some stormy weather. There may be some severe storms tomorrow. I haven't had to shut my computer down because of lightening for months, unfortunately with the Spring weather comes the Spring thunderstorms.

Before Seat Belts and Car Seats

You know that you are getting old when you wake up one day and you are living in a very foreign country. Things are just not like they used to be. This has the potential to be an extremely long post. I will try to keep it short.

Are the changes that have taken place in the last 50 some years for the better or the worse? Some are definitely better but most, in my opinion, are for the worse. For instance, Banquet Pot Pies used to be full of tender white chicken or turkey breast meat and large chunks of good quality vegetables. They were delicious.

The last time that I had a Banquet Pot Pie it was full of some type of dark meat that was hard to identify with microscopic vegetables that looked like they were the castaways from someone's poorly performing garden. But most importantly the taste was terrible.

Many foods have changed for the worse. Potato chips bags used to be full of potato chips instead of air. T.V. Dinners tasted good and were cheap too. Pepsi doesn't taste the same now at all. My Son recently bought some cans of Pepsi that were made with real sugar in "re-makes" of the original cans and it tasted so good.

I told my oldest Son the other night that he didn't have a car seat or even a seat belt when he was young. When he was a newborn until he was 2 or 3 years old, he sat on my lap in the car. If he and I went somewhere alone he was on his own because we didn't have seat belts in all cars and trucks and even if they did have belts, you didn't strap your little kids in them, they weren't made for kids.

With our second Son, we did have a car seat of sorts. But it was probably more dangerous than no car seat at all. It was a hard plastic booster type seat with a hard plastic shield that came down in front of him. It didn't work with seat belts, so if we had ever been in an accident he would probably have broken his nose hitting that shield.

Station wagons used to be popular for families with children because the kids could entertain themselves by crawling over the seat into the back to play games or take naps on long trips.

When I was young and you went anywhere in a truck, it was a given that the kids had to ride in the back if it was warm weather. That's just where the kids all rode. We were still riding in the backs of pickup trucks when my kids were young.

I have blogged before about how we hauled horses when I was young and even when we were first married. Our horses just jumped into the back of the pickup with a wobbly, wooden rack with their heads over the roof of the cab facing the wind.

We weren't the only ones who hauled their horses like this, that's the way everyone did it. Now you have to have padded trailers, bumper pads, blankets and leg wraps. You also have to go to seminars, read books and work with your horse for hours or hire a trainer to teach it how to step up 4 inches to get into that trailer.

I honestly do not remember having problems loading horses into the back of pickups. I don't remember spending hours training them and we certainly didn't have to read a book or go to some big name expert's training clinic to figure out how to load a horse.

Our horses just jumped in when asked because they were livestock and not pets. They respected us and trusted us. If we asked them to do something they did it because we were confident that they could and would do it. We have dumbed down our horses today, we no longer give them credit for intelligence and ability. Our horses of yesterday didn't get a lot of mixed signals from their owners like horses do now.

I recently read in our local paper that they are thinking about making cold medicine by prescription only because of the Meth problem that is getting so out of control. That is such a shame for the people who are stricken with a nasty cold on a weekend or during the night and who can't afford to run to the Doctor every time they get a sniffle.

This all makes me wonder when we will have to start signing a paper or getting a prescription to buy drain cleaner. It has already caused farmers grief and heartache by having to account for their chemicals and the worry of keeping everything locked up tight.

We can no longer give privileges to the majority of the people, we have to punish the majority for the abuses of the minority.

The Horses Ate My Computer

Our beautiful white farm is quickly turning to mud. This is not good, I know that we must have mud before we can have Spring and grass, but mud is so muddy.

We are trying to figure out where we can come up with the money for gravel to cover the muddy mud that was once our driveway. We still have a hay bill that is not paid and continue to need more hay.

I gathered a little money at the end of 2009 and at the beginning of 2010. We both decided that money would be used to purchase a new computer that we desperately need, as ours is now operating solely on prayer.

I shopped a little for a new computer but by the time that I put together the system that I wanted, an iMac, I didn't have enough money and would have to wait to gather some more money. Low and behold, instead of gathering more money, that which I had started to dwindle.

The horses haven't completely eaten my entire computer yet. But they have a good start on it. Even if that money isn't used to pay for hay, it will be used to pay for things that hay money should have paid for. So, in the end, the horses will have eaten my computer or perhaps my new computer will be used to cover the mud in the driveway.

It would be nice if the horses could pay for their own feed like they used to, but those days are gone. We do have someone coming to look at some horses today and hopefully they will purchase one or two and my computer will be saved.

Dashing Through The Snow

We ended up getting around 8 to 10 inches of snow. It is hard to tell how much we actually have because it tends to move around so much. In some places it is up to my knees. It is still snowing today but we aren't suppose to get anymore accumulation.

We were under some type of snow emergency yesterday. No one was suppose to be out on the roads unless they were coming home or going to work or had some type of emergency, like needing medicine. But we had to go feed a sick friend's horses. I am not one to like to get out on the roads when they are slick but for some reason I wanted to go yesterday. I took my camera and had fun getting out. There wasn't much traffic and it was a beautiful drive.

These are some pictures of our friend's place and her horses.

Now A Warning

Our winter storm WATCH became a WARNING this evening. It was suppose to start with rain and it started raining around midnight. I love winter and snow, always have, but with the prices we are paying for hay and being caught with so many horses this winter, it has taken all of the joy away. I sure will be happy to see green grass growing again. I will also be happy when all of the hay bills are paid. It has been a struggle.

We worry about the horses because the big bales that they are getting are not what we would normally feed. My DH likes "good" square bales that he can regulate without much waste but all of the decent priced "good" hay anymore is just junk, moldy and weedy. We were forced to switch to big round bales that are nasty but are still costing us thousands of dollars.

We had to buy the big round bale horse feeders when we switched to round bales and you talk about a joke. They cost an arm and a leg. They start falling apart and getting dangerous after a couple months of horse use and sitting in the weather, more money down the drain.

The horses made me feel a little better tonight. They all look great and were running, racing and playing like a bunch of kids. Even my old gelding stood on his hind legs and pawed at the sky. I think they must be looking forward to the storm.

Ridin' Ranger

We went riding on Monday, swallowed our pride and paid the $10 for a one day ride at Blackwell Horseman's Camp in the Hoosier National Forest, otherwise known as the Charles C. Deam Wilderness area. We have been riding there since we were kids and now we have to pay to use the trails, it just isn't right. I was riding there before it was even a horseman's camp.

I took Ranger and my DH took Darth, they both did well but Ranger was awesome. He doesn't shy from anything. He walks through horse swallowing mud holes and didn't even notice any of the horse eating stumps or fallen trees.

He doesn't scrape your knees against trees unless there is gravel in the trail, he hates gravel, we will have to shoe him for the next ride. Who puts gravel on horse trails anyway? The thing that really grates me is that we are paying for the stupid gravel with our $10 per day.

The thing that I really love about Ranger is he puts his nose to the ground and he doesn't stumble, he is super careful on rough and steep ground. Flies don't bother him either, even horse flies. I don't mean that he doesn't mind them (which he doesn't) but they don't like his color. They did land on the saddle and pad though. Darth got the bites but the flies really weren't that bad.

Darth had to go twice as far as Ranger went, because he kept having to turn around and come back down the trail to make sure we were still coming. Ranger is very slow and does not mind being left behind, there is not a buddy sour bone in his body. All in all he is a perfect horse, just needs to learn some neck reining and maybe to speed up his walk.

 

 

We only rode for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. I didn't get too sore but my back was demanding that I get off and walk awhile. We had ridden a few weeks ago down the road to check on some young horses that we are pasturing at a friend's place. I rode Leroy that day and my Husband rode Heath.

We were about halfway to our destination when the sky cut loose and engulfed us in a ferocious thunderstorm. We had heard the sound of distant thunder but we didn't think that it would find its way to us. All of the sudden there was lightening flashing all around us. The flashes were scary enough without the sound of the ground shaking thunder. We were all ducking.

When the rain came it was large stinging drops that were being blown horizontally. My DH tried to turn back but I talked him into going on in search of shelter. We finally found a barn with easy horse access. We rode into it and waited and waited for the rain to stop.

The hard rain on the tin roof made it hard to even talk, so we waited some more. I tried to clean the water off of my glasses but neither of us could find anything dry to wipe them with.

Here are some more pictures of poor Ranger after our little ride at Blackwell. We met some other riders on the trail, three ladies on cell phones (you get a strong cell phone signal in the Deam Wilderness), they called my horse fat. They didn't say that I had a nice looking horse or a pretty horse, they just said that I had a fat horse. Here are some pictures of my fat horse and his saddle sores after a three and a half hour trail ride.

 

 

Horse Adoption

The comments on my last post about the theft of our pictures and the theft of the word Rescue, brought up another good point. That is the overuse and misuse of the word Adoption. Adoption is a "feel good" word and it should be, if you are adopting a child, but the adoption of animals is just plain silly.

If your adopted dog viciously attacks someone or some other animal, you will soon learn that you actually OWN that dog, he is yours and nobody else's, he belongs to you. Whether you bought him or adopted him it makes no difference.

Do words really have that much power? We no longer buy animals, we adopt them. We no longer sell animals, we re-home them. The money is the same whether you buy, sell, re-home or adopt. The only thing that is different is the terminology.

Using this thought, I will now reword and try to explain my previous post to you again.

There is a young woman in Texas who is a Novice. She was a minor but is now an adult. She supports herself in a career of extracting goods, services and donations from the trusting individuals who she comes in contact with.

She uses a free website provider to highlight the horses that she has never seen, in order to obtain donations to feed and care for horses that she does not own.

If you have come in contact with this woman, who's name is something like Cortney, and made donations to her horse rescue, then you can feel good about the fact that you have provided resources for the care and feeding of her imaginary animals.

If your plans to adopt one of them fell though. I am sure that she just decided that you were not a good match and could not provide a good home for them. However, your money will not be refunded because of the time and effort that she put into making that decision.

Please be warned, there are many people out there on the internet who will scam and otherwise defraud you, more than you can even imagine. Make sure that you are dealing with an established business when adopting any animal because the words "adoption" and "rescue" are terms that many unscrupulous people are using in order to sell their animals and make more money than they could by using the term "for sale".

**Update: Her website has finally been removed, she must have found a new way to scam people or is hopefully in jail.**

Fake Horse Rescue

We received a phone call letting us know that one of our riding horses is for sale on a rescue website in Texas. The owner of the "rescue" and website posts pictures of other people's horses along with the horse's actual information including price. She doesn't even bother to change their registered names. She takes deposits on horses that she doesn't have or own.

Our horse is for sale on our own website, she lifted his pictures and information to put on her site. The horse's name is Chips Ahoy Leroy and he has never been outside southern Indiana. The lady who called to inform us had the same thing happen to her and one of her horses.

This thief has bought horses from elderly people who could no longer care for them with a promise to pay which she never does. She has even sold shipped semen from her stallion advertising it as from some champion stallion or stallion with great bloodlines. No one catches on until it is time to register the foal then they find out that the DNA does not match the stallion that is named.

She has been reported to the local authorities, the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and her web host, but no one has done anything with her. So the lady who called us just keeps an eye on her site and reports her activities to the people who's horses and pictures she uses.

This young lady also offers training and boarding using other people's pictures. I talked to a local detective and he laughed saying that she is going to be quite the gangster, but he did give me some tips on who to report her to. The good news is that her website is at one of those free website places and it doesn't show up in search engines.

So here is a word to the wise; Watermark your photos with your name or website name.

Here are some other tips; Don't buy horses or semen from just any website. Google the horse's name and make sure that the seller is an established ranch, breeder or rescue. Don't assume that just because the word "rescue" is used that it is really a rescue.

It has become quite stylish to call yourself a rescue and that is the reason some crooks are using the word as a sale's tactic for their horses, dogs and cats. I suppose we could call ourselves a rescue, as we have rescued several horses throughout the years and refuse to sell our horses at low prices or at auction.

We certainly could save ourselves some huge feed bills if we just sold them to stop the financial bleeding like most people are doing. But they are our responsibility and we will take care of them as long as we are able.

Horses Killed For Meat?

Horses being killed in South Florida for their meat? - CNN.com

If you haven't been following the above story online, it is terribly frightening. I don't think that it is getting much coverage. I have asked several horse people that I know and they haven't even heard about it. They are saying 19 horses have been slaughtered but they think that many more have been killed. Some people are just not reporting it because they don't want to be involved with the police or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The articles are saying that horse meat is bringing $7 to $20 per pound on the black market and possibly even $40 per pound. The strange part of this story is that they aren't stealing the horses but are butchering them right in their own pastures or in their stalls. I read in another article where a lady went out to feed her horses and found nothing but the horse's carcass in the stall. How shocking would that be?

It is not illegal to kill and process your own horses for meat in Florida. So with horses selling at auction for $10 to $250 each or being offered for free, why would someone risk jail time to do this? They are also risking being shot by the horse owners. With all of the unwanted horses out there, it is a real shame that good, well loved horses are being slaughtered.

Explanation

If you have not read the previous post from yesterday, please scroll down or click here to read it first before reading this one.

I guess an explanation is in order. Angus has spent some 'off and on' time in the goat lot. The goats eat hay out of a barrel with holes cut in the side. When Angus was smaller his head fit in the holes and he ate their hay. Then one day he got his head in and couldn't get it out, he managed to tear the barrel off of its anchor in the goat shed.

My DH rescued him from his plight the first time, however, calves don't learn from their mistakes. Every time he gets close to that barrel now he gets stuck in it. The only way to get him out is to pull on the barrel at the same time that he pulls back.

On Tuesday morning when the picture was taken, he had been stuck for quite awhile and he had broken the goat lot's bottom strand of wire to get into the main horse pasture. Luckily the horses had not come down to water yet or they might still be running for the hills. Since I was home alone on Tuesday, it was my turn to rescue Angus and I had to fix the fence that he broke with a very sore thumb.

Steady Rain

The rain started last night, slow and gentle. The perfect rain is not a downpour or a thunderstorm, it is a steady, gentle rain that last for hours. I had not watered my plants last night so the rain was very welcome.

This type of rain slowly soaks the ground with moisture and nourishment. It doesn't wash away loose seeds, plants, dirt or gravel, it doesn't cut ditches. This is the kind of rain that we cherish.

I woke up all through the night to hear the gentle rain and it made me happy. It means more grass for the thirty some odd horses that we have, not all are odd just most of them.

It also means more grass for my DH to mow. Mowing gives him something to do in his spare time. I would venture a guess of 47 acres of mowing in his down time, when he isn't working six days a week. Some of that mowing is with a push mower to keep himself healthy.

When I arose from my slumber this morning, I found that it was still raining. I waited for awhile before going out to bring the goats to the barn for milking. After looking at the radar on the internet, I decided that this sweet rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon and that my feet were wet from where the lovely rain was coming through the wall under my computer desk.

Upon venturing outside, I discovered that there was barely a dry spot inside the barn. My milkstand is standing in about two inches of beautiful rain water. Angus' stall is now a marsh area but he isn't there, he is outside enjoying the steady rain.

I have tried to stay positive throughout this post but after just hearing the weather forecast on the radio, I am beginning to have negative thoughts. There is more rain in our immediate future and the possibility of thunderstorms tonight. How could such a lovely summer rain become so annoying?

Worming

This morning was worming day for the goats. I milked Collette early this morning then wormed her, her milk tonight went to the dogs. I will go back to using her milk tomorrow evening. I don't worry much about getting the wormer in the milk that I drink since the wormer that I use is used to worm people in third world countries.

The wormer that I use is Jeffers Ivermectin 1.87% Paste Wormer for Horses it is currently only $2.59 per tube and made in the USA. You also can get free shipping if you order $60 worth of Vet supplies from them, which is easy to do because they have so much really neat stuff at reasonable prices (I love Jeffers!). I use this wormer for the horses, the goats and the dogs.

I dose it at three times the horse dosage for my goats, so if the goat weighs 100 lbs. then I treat it like a 300 lb. horse. I hit them again in two weeks with a second dose for any worms that have hatched out since the first worming and this seems to take care of all of my worm problems. It also takes care of lice and mites if they are a problem.

I have been hurrying to get this post done because I wanted to get it in before tomorrow, in trying to blog everyday. However it is time to say "Good-bye" because the thunder is rolling outside and it is getting louder which means it is getting closer. We are under a Tornado Watch for tonight, so I hope to post again tomorrow, Lord willing!

It's a Filly!

I had a plan, was looking forward to working the plan but Jetta didn't want to cooperate. I stayed up with her all night on Tuesday night. I had the new Mary Higgins Clark book, so I sat in my lounge chair out in the barn with my headlamp on, reading. She was anxious and nervous all night. This is just not her character, so I thought that she might be in early labor. We had tasted her milk, it had turned white and was just slightly sweet, so it was possible.

She had calmed down by morning and by around 10:00 a.m., she had waxed.When my DH got home from work he put her back out in the dry lot, so he could clean out her stall. I decided to take a nap to prepare myself for a long night. Before I laid down I took her picture eating some hay.While I was napping, my DH came in to get something to eat and the next thing that I know he is waking me up saying that it is a filly and she is already dry. I jumped up feeling cheated and mad. I wait all year for this and then miss it because I take a little nap!

If this had been twins we would not have been there to get the second one out quickly and since we knew this one was going to be really big, she probably could have used a little help. It helps to get the baby out as quickly as possible because they just get up faster and learn to nurse easier. With slow, hard labors the foals can have dumb foal syndrome and just have a little more of a struggle in the beginning.

This is what I found when I arrived on the scene...I named this filly "Sky" on the spot because of her unusual eyes that were the first things that I noticed about her. She is very large and didn't want to nurse as quickly as we would have liked but with my Husband's great skill at getting a newborn foal to nurse, she was nursing within a couple of hours.

She is a dark brown or bay with roan mare and tail, blanket with black spots and she has partial blue eyes. This is the first blue eyes that we have ever had here at Pintura Springs other than Grandkids.The above photo was taken as she first found her feet.



There will be no running under Mommy's belly to hide from danger with this big filly.
And last but not least a Family Picture that includes Sky's sire who came to look her over and pass out cigars.
It is dark and rainy here today, so Sky and her Mother are still in the stall and it is too dark to get any new pictures unless the weather changes.

Cushings Disease

Our first experience with Equine Cushings Disease has arrived. Our best foundation Appaloosa broodmare has Cushings.

We rescued Trouble many years ago along with her yearling daughter after she had just lost a foal, she was in horrible shape, running with a stallion and pregnant again. She also was unsound in a front leg, she has always had a slight limp that gets no worse or better. She lost the foal that she was pregnant with when we got her and we nearly lost her. A kind Vet spent a lot of time with her that night through the early morning hours. The foal was a gorgeous black and white leopard filly.

Trouble has given us some of our best foals and we never have a problem selling her babies. She has produced a black filly with large spots on her rump, a black colt with blanket, a palomino leopard, a palomino few spot (Ranger, my gelding), a blanketed Buckskin colt, a sorrel blanketed filly (when bred to a sorrel AQHA stallion), and her last foal was a blanketed Buckskin filly. In addition to the beautiful babies that she gives us, some of them are Indian Shufflers like my gelding Ranger.

We bred her back last year after a year's rest and this winter she has started showing all of the signs of serious Cushing's Disease. She has a long wavy coat that will not shed this spring, has lost muscle tone and stands at the water trough most of the day. She is drinking tons of water. She has not gotten laminitis (founder) yet, but from what I have read about horses with Cushings, it is just a matter of time.

There is no cure, it is a tumor that grows on the pituitary gland. However, you can treat the symptoms, give them back a normal life and extend they lives with treatment. In researching the disease, I found that normal Veterinarian treatment is very expensive on a monthly basis. But I found many good reports on a natural treatment that works just as well without any complications.

The treatment I found is Chaste Tree Berries, I could buy a liquid form that is as expensive as the other chemical medicines that I have researched. So I thought surely there must be a cheaper way to go. Then I found this rescue site: Eye of the Storm. I am thankful for the information that I found there.

I began my search for whole Chaste Tree Berries in bulk that I could grind myself. I would also have to buy a coffee grinder since I don't have one. Then I looked on eBay and found a powdered form of Chaste Tree Berries from as seller who sells natural remedies. I purchased 3 lbs. for $9.40 per lb. I think she will only have to have 1 Tb. once or twice per day, so this will be a very cheap alternative treatment.

According to what I have read, we should start seeing results very quickly, so I will report how she is doing, along with pictures, here on my blog from time to time.

Due Dates

Everyone is having babies and I am getting a little jealous. At this time last year We already had one set of twin kids and a set of twin foals. I checked my due dates again just to make sure I was clear on when to expect some action and was surprised to find out that somehow I had my dates mixed up on when Calico got loose with Cooter.

After referring back in my blog archives, I realized that she got out with him in December instead of November. So her due date is May 10th instead of April 10th. Now that is even more disappointing. She is getting so big that I fear she might have triplets.

I checked our mare's foaling dates also and it looks like Jetta will be the first to foal. She is due on May 4th and is huge.

This is Dandee last year on the day before she foaled twins on her actual due date.

And this is Jetta last week. This picture really doesn't show how big she really is. But she sure looks bigger than Dandee did to me. She also looks like she is going to foal earlier than her foal date. Her hips are already hollowed out and her tailbone is pronounced. She isn't strutted yet but has a good start on a full udder.

The possibility of having another set of twins after having twin foals last year is nearly impossible to imagine and it is scaring me to death. My DH says not to worry that when the first one is born he will know whether it is a twin or not by its size and will try to get the next one out as quickly as possible, to avoid the problems of last year.

If this is a single foal, I am afraid that it will be a very large foal and that could also cause problems. Below is another picture of Jetta after we cleaned her up today.

For those who have goats and want to calculate due dates, if you will look at the bottom of the side bar on this page you will find a Goat Gestation or a Doe Due Date Calculator. All you have to do is put the last date your doe was bred in the first text box then click the Calculate button for the due date to appear.

The Second Day

After my successful ride on Tuesday and feeling so well Tuesday evening, I was afraid that getting out of bed on Wednesday would be hard, it wasn't. However, this morning was a different story. I was sore in all of the places that you get sore after riding a horse for the first time in a long time.

My last long ride was in the summer of 2004, we took an 8 hour ride and I was quite sore after that, today wasn't that bad but I sure am feeling it. I hope that the weather permits us to ride for at least another 3 hours next week and hopefully even a little bit longer.

We have some neighbors with horses now who ride nearly every Sunday. They have been making some trails that are very convenient for us. We don't have to ride on the road for very long and we don't have to trailer our horses anywhere.

And now back to the farm news...I lost another Silver Lace Wyandotte hen. She just died on the roost like the last one. I hate losing them without knowing why but I don't know how old they are. The rest of the hens are giving us at least a dozen eggs a day and sometimes fourteen. I haven't had any hens go broody yet, so I guess they aren't convinced that Spring has sprung.

Calico continues to grow wider, as does Paris. Everyone who sees them say that they both must be bred but I am still not convinced about Paris, we will see in a few weeks. She has still not shown any signs of heat, so hopefully she is.

Angus is growing and getting a little too smart for his own good. We may have to confine him to his own area soon. He still has the run of the farm and we couldn't find him the other night at feeding time. He had made his way through the electric fence and was in the goat/chicken shed settled in with the goats.

When he gets to feeling his wild oats, he takes a run out into the big horse pasture. He loves being chased by our curious young horses, I guess it gets his adrenalin pumping like it does mine. He can outrun them now but I told him that as he gets bigger he won't be able to run that fast and then what is he going to do when they catch him?

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.

Foaling Anxiety

I am going to try to answer your questions here, Rae. I don't know what is up with all of the problems trying to leave comments, but I wish they would try to get it fixed.

One thing that you said in your comment was: "So who knows???" and that is a great summery. We have been foaling mares for many, many years and I still get nervous and anxious with each one. I lose many hours of sleep and when I do sleep it is so light that the lest noise startles me. Our foaling stall is right outside our living room door, so that makes it very convenient.

My DH just goes to bed and says, "Wake me up when you see feet." He figures I worry enough for both of us. But if he doesn't have to work the next day he does occasionally set his alarm and checks the mare throughout the night to let me get some rest.

We have had mares foal at all hours, day and night. All mares are totally different but I do take notes on each mare and they usually follow the same pattern year after year. We have one mare who stands and eats hay, stops, yawns, then yawns again, then lies down and pops the baby out. She shows no signs of foaling other than yawning.

We have had mares who just turn and look at their bellies on one side, then turn and look at their bellies on the other side, then lay down and foal. We had one mare who would try to destroy the stall. One of our mares was an embryo transplant mare for many years for a popular show stallion and she thinks that it takes a whole crew of people for her to foal. She will definitely let you know when her time has come, she wants you to hold her hoof and tell her to breathe.

People do not understand why we watch our horses so closely and won't leave home if we have one close to foaling but we have had so many times that if we hadn't been there we would have lost both the mare and the foal, we take it seriously because they are our responsibility.

Another sign that you can look for but probably not with Georgia is by opening the vulva. Mares will normally be pink inside but will become very red during or right before labor. Their udder can look tight without being tight also, the only way that you can tell that the udder is strutted to the max is by touching it, again this is probably not possible with your mare.

I would just about bet you that your mare has the same bloodlines as mine. Our mare is a registered TW and she is beautiful but totally nuts, we took her in on trade from someone who rescued her, they thought that she had been mistreated and would come around but she never did and she ended up kicking the lady. From what I have been told about the bloodline they are the smoothest of the smooth but are crazy and very high strung. The good news is that we have had two foals by her and she has not passed this trait down to her foals when bred to a level headed stallion.

We have thirty something horses at the moment and we have had tons of abscesses, we have even had two get abscesses in two feet at once. They are very painful and disturbing to see but they eventually blow out the top of the hoof and all the pain is relieved. You can have a Vet or Farrier open them up but we only did that once because it really didn't help that much.

As for the bute, we don't use it. We do use banamine and it has it's problems too. I have even been told by a Vet that she doesn't recommend the injectable because it can cause a rotting hole at the injection site. We have given a lot of shots and have never had a problem with it but I guess the paste is safer.

PayPal Chargeback

It had to happen sooner or later, because I use PayPal a lot. I got an order for CRS Gold DFM, a horse probiotic, $60 for a 10 lb. pail. The order was paid by charge card and it was an instant payment, so we shipped out immediately. Four or five days later I got a notice from PayPal that the funds were being held because the issuing Bank had denied the charge.

The email from PayPal included a warning not to ship the item but it was already long gone. They asked for detailed information about the transaction, a description of the item, the name and address of the buyer, any emails that we had exchanged, a phone number where I could be reached and all of the shipping information if the item had already been shipped.

It was shipped out by UPS and we did have a tracking number, that is what saved us. After around five days I received a notice that it had been an unauthorized purchase but that it was covered under PayPal's Seller Protection Policy and that because I provided a tracking number and it was valid, my funds had been released from the hold.

The moral of this story is: If you sell online and use PayPal, make sure that you have a tracking number for each shipment.

Wind Chills

Not looking forward to the weather for the next few days. It is currently snowing and sleeting here. We are under a wind chill advisory for -10 to -30 from tonight through Friday. I know that is not as cold as it is some places and I don't mind the cold but I don't care much for wind chills.

It is hard to keep water to everyone, we have a big heated tank for the main pasture but with so many horses they can drink it dry in a day's time. Which means that it has to be filled everyday, even in subzero temperatures. The problem, of course, is the hose. Yesterday it was warm in the morning but the temps dropped all day and I didn't think to top off the big tank before the hose became frozen, so I had to wind the hose up and bring the whole thing into the house. We have a hard time remembering to unhook and drain the hoses.

We have to provide water in nine different places, two tanks are heated but require hoses to fill them, two tanks are not heated and required hoses, the others are small and we can carry the water.

I carry warm water in my little red wagon to Cooter, Angel and Abby, I also carry warm water to three different places for the chickens. The does in the barn are not hard to keep watered because it is normally warm enough in the barn to prevent frozen water but last night I brought their bucket into the house after they were bedded down. I will have to remember to do that again for the next three nights and probably most of the day tomorrow, I will just have to take the water out for them to drink and bring it back in.

Our biggest headache is the two tanks that are not heated, I usually take a splitting maul and drop it down on the ice to break it for Badger's water and for the young horses that are separated from the main herd. It will not be an easy task to keep them watered for the next couple of days. I will also have to keep breaking and refilling for Cooter, the dogs and the chickens. I break their ice with a hatchet and scoop out the ice with a very handy kitty litter scoop that I bought for that purpose, then refill with warm or hot water.

So, while some of you are sitting inside your warm, cozy houses listening to the wind howl, think of me trudging across the hard frozen ground with a bucket or splitting maul in my hand fighting against the icy wind. We will also have to feed and milk in this cold, it is all part of the joy of farm living and I love it, my eldest son and his family got me a new face mask for Christmas, so I am prepared.

We have been getting around 8 eggs per day but the temperature took a nose dive yesterday and we got 10! I don't think that I will ever understand chickens. They might all lay tomorrow since it will be so cold and there will be nothing else to do.