Friends of all Kinds...

The photos above are of Esther's last ride with us before she went back to school. It was also her birthday -
Happy 21st Esther!!!!!
We are already missing her but hope she has a great Senior year!

The weather has been a little whacky lately. Last week it was cold - one morning I had 34 degrees at the barn, in August!!! Then over the weekend it got HOT! Saturday afternoon it was almost 90 and VERY humid. Just very strange.

We have been riding a lot, mostly Carla and me but we are occasionally joined by others. Kate came and rode with us - her first ride in over a year, plus she had a baby last month, and we were out about 3 or 3.5 hours! She wasn't even sore the next day!

The horses have all been getting along pretty well, No major disagreements! I've been trying to move them around a little so they don't get bored. I have some more fencing to do (don't I always?!?), then I'll have more options for them. It has been an extremely dry month. The grass isn't growing so there isn't much to graze on. We've had thunder and lightening, power outages (5 hours the other night!), but NO rain! We really need some!












Ken was here last week. He put shoes on or trimmed Tapper, Deja, Ziegy, Maggie, and Autumn. Scotty is on a different schedule at the moment but will hopefully be with the rest of the horses soon. Scooby lost the acrylic on his bad foot. For now he's walking fine on it and we've decided to hold off putting it on again for a while.

Jim finished up all his work here and moved his machines out. He made us 2 little trails on the property, one off the field where we usually ride, and one at the other end of the property, behind the house. That one is great because it comes in off the road and means we have less tar we have to ride on when we come home from that direction. We've named that one "Excavator Alley", we are still working on a name for the other one...

Finally an update!

Hi everyone, sorry I didn't post last week, it has been a busy time! Let's see.....

Heather came and did another acupuncture treatment on Tapper and she did Scotty's teeth. Scotty's teeth were not bad, they needed to be done but it was "typical young horse issues", no surprises which is VERY good! Rosy went to Heather's office for another acupuncture treatment for her hips - it's seems to be helping! Since she started with Heather she has not been limping!

Bruce was here and did the draft's feet (Scooby, Dolly and Jazzy). He was very happy with Scooby's foot, it's made some good progress! He put acrylic on the hoof to build it up so it is more like a normal hoof. Hopefully the acrylic will stay on until Bruce comes back next month, I don't want him to have to make an extra trip. You can see in the pic how good the foot looks now!

We have been riding as much as possible. We rode to the top of the mountain last weekend, we have also been doing some longer rides (3+/- hours) and are planning some even longer rides and some exploring when the temperature cools down a little.

The new run-in sheds came and look great! The horses go in and out of them a lot, and Jazz and Scotty have moved into one for overnights (yea!!! 2 less stalls to clean!!!). I bring them in to eat so I know they each get the right grain and supplements, then they go back out with hay for the night. They seem to like it!

Petrucchio and all the horses are well (knock on wood) and it has been a great summer for riding. Carla, Chris and I rode Saturday, we were out for about 3 hours. I rode twice yesterday! Carla, Kathi and I went for a trail ride in the morning and Gail and I went in the afternoon.

Dolly and Scotty seem to be in love.... Scotty decided he didn't like Dolly's braids though, apparently he likes his girls to wear their hair down, so he took the braids one by one, ran them through his lips until he got to the twisty at the end, pulled it off and dropped it on the ground! It was the funniest thing to see, I tried to get a pic but just couldn't catch them at the right moment...

Jim has been working with the excavator and loader here. He got the sites leveled for the run-ins, we were not too picky because they are movable and I may put them closer to the barn this winter. He has also been clearing along the fence line where it was all grown in by the woods. He did more in 1 day than I did in weeks!!! He has just a little more to do before he's finished.