It's been almost 10 years since that last post.  Lots of things have changed here at the farm.  

There are just 3 horses here now, my boy Jazz is living a life of leisure and retirement.  

Carla still boards here, she has 2 mares, Lea is a bay Dales Pony, and Gemi is a black Arabian x Quarter Horse.  

All 3 horses are well into their 20's and every day they are here and healthy is a happy day.

They get along well (most of the time)...

We also have 3 miniature donkeys now. They live where the goats used to be. They are Tory, a sorrel mare, Phinn, a gray gelding, and his half brother Dexter, a brown gelding. They are incredibly cute and usually sweet.

Tory has always been very friendly with people, but Phinn and Dexter were not well socialized and have taken patience and time to get used to us. They can still be skittish, especially with new people, but have come a long way since they arrived several years ago.

There is just one dog on the farm now.  His name is Quinn and he's an almost 7 year old Giant Schnauzer. He's quite a lovable goof/lap dog (at 104 lbs)!  Unfortunately, he is a dog who loves to chase so doesn't often get to go to the barn but he spends a lot of time in the garden with me.

Dancing Horse Farm has seen so very many animals and people come and go.  I've learned from each and every one of them and it's been a time full of joy, sadness, love, excitement, and lots of fun.  It's much quieter here now but there are still happy animals here and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Fall Update

Hi Everyone,

I know.....  about time I posted again.  This is just going to be a short post to fill you in on the good news and bad news.  I'll try to post again soon with photos.  

So, on to the good news first... 

Ivan was sold at the beginning of the summer to a wonderful new home where he is loved to pieces!!!  His new owner is named Carla - no NOT our Carla - and she has been riding for 50 years.  She's been a dressage instructor/trainer, and has done just about every other kind of riding you can think of so she definitely knows what she's doing.  She figures Ivan will be the last horse she buys and she wanted the perfect horse so she looked at many before she found our boy and fell in love.  She loves how smart he is and she loves that he makes her laugh - hooray!!!

It's been a rainy summer so we haven't ridden as much as usual.  My cousin Mary has visited twice, once by herself and once with her grand-daughter Caylie.  They managed to visit while it wasn't raining and they both had several chances to ride.  Mary rode Becca, and Caylie rode Becca and Jazz and did really well with both of them (except that Jazz lost his shoe and pad during our trail ride - drat!)  They are taking riding lessons in Maine (where they live) and have just found a new instructor who hopefully will be perfect for them both!

Kate and the kids came a few times to ride but with the weather, and everyone's schedules, they weren't able to come every week like they have in the past.  At least both kids got a chance to ride, Sam graduated from Becca to Scotty (in the ring), and Eve moved from Dolly to Becca.  Both kids did really well.  Kate came a few times without the kids to ride with us.  We are hoping she'll get up here at least once more this fall to ride.

Now the bad news...

Ketu has come up lame so he's on a few months rest (not stall rest, just not riding).  Heather took several x-rays of his right hock and stifle and nothing showed up which means it's not a bone issue.  So he either pulled a tendon, ligament, muscle, or has some other sort of soft tissue injury that hopefully will heal with some rest time.  He also just blew out a huge abscess on his right front.  Blew out both heel bulbs.  Carla had his shoes pulled and he has the fall off.  That means Becca will get ridden a lot more this fall which is good for her - though she's not too sure about that.

Now the really bad news...

Tapper is not doing well at all.  She just hurts all the time.  We put front shoes and degree pads on and that has helped some with her front feet, but she has arthritis in her back, her hocks, and pretty much everywhere in between.  She's getting 2 grams of bute a day and it doesn't seem to be doing much.  I'll probably need to increase the bute even more, but then of course you get the side effects from that.  What it boils down to is that she'll be put down this fall.  I'm not sure exactly when, it mostly depends on her and how comfortable I can keep her.  I've been giving her a choice to stay in a stall run or go out with the girls during the day and 4 out of the last 5 days she has chosen to stay in.  She's been a huge part of the farm for 20 years and it's going to be really hard to let her go.

Dolly is also having issues.  She has arthritis, plus her respiratory problems, plus her ever sinking back, so Carla has decided to put her down at the same time as Tapper.  Dolly has been here for 7 years and has been much loved by many kids and adults.  She's provided us with some laughs and stories we'll tell for years to come.  She and Tapper both will leave big holes in our hearts.

That's it for now.  I'll let you know how things go.

 

So, what's been happening on the farm you ask?  Well, it's been another crazy winter.  Just to give you an idea, let me recap the last few days.  We'll start with Wednesday night.  It rained...  a lot...  all night.  So Thursday morning when I went to the barn I definitely needed my Stabilicers!  Tapper and Becca had all they could do to come in for breakfast.  I wasn't sure they were going to make it without falling but after some very harrowing moments they both made it in safely.  Of course, with the paddocks all ice, nobody could go out that day.  I managed to spread some manure on the worst spots and hoped it would warm enough to melt some of the ice.  6 of the horses had light blankets or sheets on, and they were all soaked.  The horses were dry underneath, but the outsides of the blankets were saturated and the insides were all damp - so they had to come off.  They were so wet and heavy they felt like they weighed at least 30 pounds each!  I hung them all to dry,  told the horses I was sorry they couldn't go out but to get over it, and set it up so Tapper and Becca could roam around the barnyard, right in front of the barns and in the hall of the smaller barn (everyone else has a run in stall so they could get out a little).  Oh, and did I mention it had rained a lot???  So of course, I had water in the washroom and the tack room.  I had to spread bedding in the tack room to soak it all up.  AND...  the outlet for Tapper's stall needs to be replaced so I had to run an extension cord for her water bucket - sigh...

The winds on Thursday and Thursday night were incredible, and the temperature dropped all day so I had to find blankets for at least Tapper and Dolly overnight.  I brought a few down from the house and managed to find sheets that fit the 2 of them.  Everyone else did without Thursday night, but they all had shelter from the wind so they were ok.  I had to flip all the hanging blankets inside-out so the inside would dry (the outsides dryed during the day Thursday). 

By Friday, the paddocks were still icy but not as bad, and the horses were able to go back out , carefully.  They all went slowly and picked their way around the ice - except for Ketu who decided to just run as fast as he could to get to the hay bags and since luckily he still has his winter shoes he did ok...  I ran some errands after moving the tree that fell across the driveway - high winds, remember?  Oh, and I had to wait a few minutes on Middle Rd. because the town crew was just finishing up clearing the tree that fell across that road.  Friday night everbody got their (now dry) blankets back on and Saturday was thankfully pretty uneventful - if cold - except for 2 things.  First was Ivan, who had managed to take down one line of his fence for the 3rd time this week!  He doesn't break anything, just somehow manages to get it off the insulator.  I changed it this time when I fixed it so hopefully that's the last time.  The 2nd thing was that Jazz and Scotty managed to get one of their small hay bags off the wall and outside on the ground.  After eating all the hay, SOMEBODY peed on it!!!  Yuck!

It's now Sunday morning, and I'll be heading to the barn in a few minutes.   I'll write some more when I come back inside...

Well Brrrrr!!!  It was zero degrees this morning, same as yesterday morning.  It's been colder, I think the lowest so far this year was -17.  Anyway, more news below.  Stay warm!

(By the way, the above pics are all from the last 2 days.  I love the one of Starlight and Dolly making witchy ears at each other...)

 

 

 

Cami:   As most of you know, Cami made it to New Orleans and was reunited with Kathi.  Kathi let her settle in for a while, but now she has her jumping again and she's doing great!  Hopefully she'll get some new pics to me soon.  This one is from just after Cami arrived at her new home.

 Shady/Wrenn:  So, remember how I told you that Shady was being a lesson horse?  Well, that actually didn't work so well because she was a little too much horse for the beginners to handle.  So her owner sold her - to one of her students who absolutely LOVES her!!!!!!!  M. is a high school student who has been riding and competing for many years.  She has renamed Shady - she's now called Wrenn.  She did some eventing this summer and Wrenn did really well in both cross country and stadium jumping portions as you can see in the pics (doesn't she look amazing???).  She needs more work on the dressage portion of the event but considering this was her first summer showing like this she did pretty well.  She also gets in lots of trail rides and fun, like swimming with her owner in the photo.  M. hops on her bareback sometimes and lies back and reads a book while just hanging out.   Wrenn couldn't have a more perfect home and I'm thrilled for her!!!

 

Recognize the handsome guy on the right?????
It's Roo!  This picture is from summer 2012.  He's doing great, still with Elaine in PA (of course). If you want to see more of him, Elaine has made a video from last summer.  The link below will hopefully get you there. 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elainetweedy/8435662153/



 This coming Friday (Feb. 8th) is Rosy's birthday!!!  She turns 8 this year.  Hard to believe she was once such a tiny little puppy...  And yes, she had a pink nose with black spots and as she grew, the spots filled in and her nose is all black now.

Foxes, horses stuff, and GOLIATH!!!

Hello all,
There's lots to show & tell you so lets get right to it!
The horses are all very happy to be on grass again.  The boys didn't want to come back so Carla had to chase them down the hill...

We've had lots of wildlife around this year, the usual deer, ducks, herons, etc.  We also hosted a swallowtail convention.  Most exciting of all is that the gray foxes are back and they have babies!  I haven't been able to get a photo of the kits, Rebecca M managed to get a shot of some of the kits returning to the den but it's not very clear so I didn't include it here.

We had quite an exciting time when the farriers were here last month.  We had Ketu and Becca in the crossties, and all of a sudden they started to act very nervous and were looking behind the barn on the hill.  We all looked outside and there was an oreo cow!  (A Belted Galloway for those who want to be more precise.)  Ketu broke the crossties and ran away - such a brave boy!  I quickly untied Becca and put her in a stall in the other barn.  Chad went out to see if he could herd the cow down into one of the runs but he came right back and said "that's not a cow...  it's a BULL!!!  Alrighty then....  So Carla and I knew where it most likely came from, we tried to call but their phone number wasn't listed so she hopped in her car and went to look for them.  She was headed back here and met Steve and his wife on the road so she stopped and asked if they were missing a bull.  They said YES, and followed her back to our barn.  We herded the bull - named Goliath - down into Ketu's stall and shut him in while they went to get their trailer.  He was actually quite sweet, just a little guy, liked to have his head rubbed and petted.  He loaded easily onto the trailer and is quite happily out grazing with his cows now.  From the reaction of our horses, you'd think he was a giant horse eating monster - silly horses...

Heather was here last month to do teeth and sheaths.  Cami, Tapper, and Ivan had their teeth done and all the boys had their sheaths cleaned.  Cami needed extra drugs, she just really doesn't like the vet.  Ketu and Jazz were a bit difficult, but we got them all done for this year!

Cami is looking great!  You can see for yourselves in the photo below. 

As I mentioned, Rebecca M has been around quite a bit.  Carla has had her working with Ketu a few days a week to get him in shape and remind him that he has a job to do.  He's doing very well, is probably in the best shape of all the horses and is feeling just fine!  Rebecca also rode Ivan a couple of times - she REALLY likes him and will hopefully come ride him some more.  Carla has also been riding him quite often.  We've had a lot of rain lately, so we are riding when we can.  We usually manage at least 3 days a week but with 5 horses needing exercise it's really not enough.  Hopefully the rain will stop sometime soon.  We were able to meet up with Jean and Badger one day and had a very nice ride.

Last but not least, I finally have a Shady update.  Shady is loving her new home and they are loving her.  She is being used as a lesson horse (jumping) for the more advanced riders, she's a bit too much of a spitfire for the beginners.  She went to her first show last month, and this is what her new owner Coby had to say about it.
      "Shady was AMAZING! She was better at the show than at home, she loved it! This wasn't a small schooling show, it was a big rated hunter/jumper show with fancy, fancy horses! She took 5th in a hunter class (over fences) that had about 12 riders in it, and then her jumper class (speed and athleticism over fences), she would have won it (out of 15), but her rider accidentally left before the buzzer in her jump off round so was disqualified from it, despite having the fastest time and no rails down. She still pulled off a 5th in that one despite that issue!! Those were the only 2 classes we put her in." 

These photos are from her practicing at her stable, I don't have photos from the actual show unfortunately.  She has another show coming up this month, I'll let you know how it goes.

Echo

1998 – December 31^st, 2011

Echo became part of my life in 1999.  At the time I had Sadie (a beagle) and Loki (a Shepard mix).  I heard that they had another Shepard mix at the shelter so Loki and I went up to meet her.  We waited in the “getting acquainted” room and the shelter manager brought in the new dog.  She and Loki did NOT hit it off.  They didn’t fight, but it was obvious that they were not going to be friends and it was not going to work.  The manager said she had another dog she thought I should look at so she took the Shepard away and came back with a VERY dirty brown dog.  She and Loki bonded immediately, one look (and sniff) and they were best buds.  Then she came over to me, climbed up on my lap and started licking me.  I later learned that she had the fastest tongue in the east and she’d French you if you didn’t watch out!  I was told she was a Keeshond mix, about a year old, who had been picked up as a stray and not claimed.  Loki and I were sold.  I asked if we could take her home with us right then, and since I had adopted from them before they agreed.  After the paperwork was finished and we were ready to leave, the manager gave me a little more of the story.  It seems that the dog was terrified of people, hid in the back of her kennel run whenever anyone came near, and they suspected she had been mistreated (ya-think!) 

The first order of business when we got home was an introduction to Sadie.  Once again, the bond was instant and they were friends forever.  Next up was a bath.  Did I mention she was filthy?  After a double wash and rinse cycle, she turned out to be a gorgeous shiny black – not brown at all!  After some deliberation, I named her Echo.  She was a love bug, snuggling and cuddling whenever she could, and loving to play with Loki and Sadie.  Everything was great until… company came!  She was terrified of everyone!  She’d hide in another room and tremble when anyone else was here, but had an especially difficult time with men or more than one person at a time.  Over many years, she became friendlier with most women, loved kids, but with only a couple of exceptions, she never trusted men.

Echo saw several dogs come and go during her life here; the 2 she’s been with most recently are Rosy, who is almost 7 now and has been with Echo since she came at 7 weeks old, and Joey, who is 4 years old and has lived here just over a year.  There are so many Echo stories to tell that I could write a book, but let me just tell you a few more things about her.  When she was 5 or 6 years old she needed x-rays for a lung infection.  Aside from perfectly healthy lungs, what showed up on the x-rays was shot, bird shot probably, all through her body.  Apparently she had been shot at least twice, maybe more times, when she was just a puppy!  Now I understood why she was so afraid of gunshots and loud noises, and had such trust issues – poor baby!  It seems a miracle that after all she had been through she could still be such a loving and happy dog.  When I first got her, my vet’s had written on her chart “shy, but nice”.  After a few years, they crossed out the “shy” part!  She was clever, and could be very sneaky.  When the other dogs had a treat she wanted, she’d go to the window and bark like someone was here.  As soon as the others left their treat to check out the window she’d run back and grab it, then take it out back to bury it for later!  She was definitely a character, and brought a lot of love, light and joy to my home.  Rosy and Joey are both still waiting and looking for her to come home, and there is a big hole here now that she’s gone.   

Finally!!!

Hi Everyone!!!  It's me, Tapper!  I know, I know, it's been AGES since I updated the blog.  Don't blame me, it's all mom's fault - she wouldn't let me use the computer!  But she has a new computrer now (the old one finally died) and since it's SO cold this morning (8 degrees), she said I could eat my hay while I'm doing the blog in the house, though I had to promise not to get hay in the keyboard - as if!!!  Anyway, I'm fine, and so are all the other horses. 

Cami is back here at the stable.  She came back at the end of November but wasn't turned out with us until yesterday.  She's kind of skinny, and mom and Dr Heather had to shave all the hair off her back, butt, and part of her hind legs.  Mom said something about scabs and fungus, yuck!  Cami's feeling better now though.  She has to wear a blanket all winter -BUMMER - but she still gets in plenty of rolls.  The blanket in the photos was clean yesterday!  You'd never know it now!!!  She gets lots of extra hay (no fair!), but I guess she needs it because like I said, she's skinny.  She said they didn't have much to eat where she was, so she's glad to be here with us now. 
When mom turned Cami out with us yesterday, she was a little concerned about how we'd all get along, so this is what happened...
Mom put out 2 hay bags (more on those later), let me out, then let Cami out.  Cam came right over to me and my hay bag.  We sniffed noses and said hello, Cami said (very politely) "may I have a bite of your hay?"  I (very graciously) told her she could have 2 bites.  Then she wandered over to her own hay bag and started eating.  Mom said since that went so well she thought she'd add another girl and asked me who I thought should be next.  I said that if there was going to be a problem it would probably be Dolly so I'd suggest she be next.  Mom agreed with me of course, so she put out 2 more hay bags, then turned out Dolly.  Dolly marched right down the hill, straight to Cami, and said "That's MY hay bag!!!"  Cami looked at her, said "I don't think so!", and went back to eating.  Dolly said "Um...  I meant that hay bag over there, not the one you have", and everything was fine.  Mom brought out 2 more hay bags (whoo-hoo!!!) and let Starlight out.  Starlight ran right over to Cami and said - and I quote - "hi cami, remember me?  i'm in heat, i remember you, remember me?  i'm starlight, i remember you, guess what?  i'm in heat..."  Cami was very polite, they touched noses, squealed, Starlight squirted, and Cami went back to eating.  Becca was the last one out, she saw Cami and nodded a hello to her, came over to share my hay, and that was that.  Mom was very pleased with us all!

Now, about those hay bags.  Mom started using them last winter.  They are "slow feed" hay bags and mom says they are better for us, and they save her hay.  They took a little getting used to, but we all like them now.  They keep our hay up out of the mud and poop, and make the hay last longer which is kind of nice.  They are more work for mom but she says they are worth it.

On another note, rumors have been going around about Ivan so let me set the record straight.  Yes, his name is Ivan again (he likes his name), and he now belongs to mom.  I know, I know...  she didn't need another horse!  But he's a nice boy, a little young and green but well trained and she thinks he'll be a great horse when he gets some more miles on him.  This is the 4 boys, left to right is Scotty and Jazz in the front, and Ketu and Ivan behind them.

Mom and Carla rode as much as they could this summer.  The weather didn't always cooperate with them but they did their best.  Ketu had some hoof issues, a REALLY REALLY bad abscess, so he was laid up for most of the summer, but Jazz, Scotty, and Becca, (and Ivan once mom owned him) all got ridden plenty.  Kate came and rode too, and she brought her kids.  Sam rode Becca and did awesome with her, tacking up, riding, and even trotting on his own!  Eve rode Dolly.  Eve's still pretty little, so she mostly just got led around, but she had fun and Dolly got a little easy exercise (Dolly says the trotting wasn't so easy!)

Well, there is plenty more I could tell you, but my indoor hay is all gone now and I'd better get outside before the other girls eat all the hay out there, so I guess that's all for now.  Hope you all have a nice Christmas, and send any gifts "Care of Tapper" please!

Changes

Changes at the barn....

Tarra and Christopher have sold Summer.  She'll be leaving in the next few weeks.

Jennifer has sold Ivan, he won't be leaving because....

Tarra and Christopher have bought Ivan!  They have changed his name so he is now called Montana, and Tarra has been having lots of fun riding him.  He's a very good boy.

Spring is finally here and there is plenty of mud to show for it.  Things are starting to dry up though, we just need a good stretch of dry weather.

Otherwise, things are much the same as always.  We are riding whenever we can and all the horses are doing well.  Tracy has been out with Starlight several times and Carla and Kate have ridden Ketu.  Both horses are being sensible (yes, even Starlight). 

No photos this post, I'll work on getting some for next time...