News

Well, lots has happened in the last week.  Most exciting of all is that Carla got a new horse!!!  He came on Christmas Eve day.  His name (which may be changed) is Tony, and he is an 8 year old, QH X Paint who is very smart and absolutely adorable.  He has been visiting Jazz and Scotty over the fence, and today he is out with them for the first time!  So far so good.  He seems to be low horse in the pecking order and Scotty has chased him a few times, but as you can see in the photo below, they shared hay!  The girls are in love with him, Starlight (meeting Tony in the photo to left) immediately went into heat, and she and Summer were arguing about who got to stand closest to him (over the fence) and they managed to take out the entire bottom line of fence!  I mean everything, handles, insulators, clips, and fence line!  Girls!!!

Other news is that we've finally got snow.  We had a storm Sunday into Monday that dumped about 18", but with high winds and frigid temps it was not really nice.  The horses stayed in for about 24 hours, and most had blankets on because the wind chills were as low as -20.  It's warming up now, most blankets are off and it may hit 40 by the weekend.  The nice thing is that the ground is now soft so all those ouchy feet are better.

We had a turkey invasion the day before the storm, they were all over the yard, fields, paddocks, driveway, there must have been at least 30 of them and the horses and dogs were all excited about it.   Maybe those birds knew the storm was coming???

Merry Christmas Everyone

 From:


Tapper





Jazz



Scotty

 

Becca






Rosy




Echo









Joey

 



News

Hey everyone, I have some really good news, but first I just have to tell you about something that happened the other day.  Mom and Auntie Carla were talking, and I heard Auntie Carla say that she thought mom should let someone else write the blog!!!  Can you believe it???  Mom set her straight pretty quick because really, I AM the lead mare - right?  And who else could do this?  Jazz or Scotty?  Come on, they're BOYS for goodness sake.  Becca may be able to do this in a few years, when she's settled in more, but I'm 17 years old and have lived here all my life, there really is no one who could do the job as well as me.  I just don't know, I always thought Auntie Carla liked me.....



Scotty



Jazz



Anyway, on to the good news.

We are all naked!!!  It's been so cold this month already that all us girls have had to wear our blankets, but it's a little warmer this weekend so mom took them all off and we get to run around naked until it gets cold again.  I mean, the blankets are nice, and they keep us toasty warm, but there is nothing like rolling naked in the snow on a nice sunny day...

This is some of us, with and without our blankets.

More good news is that mom hung up our Christmas stockings!  That means treats and goodies for us all.  I know most horses share their stockings with their people - so some of the stuff inside isn't actually for the horses, but I guess that's ok because there is always plenty for me!  Just a reminder...  I like most kinds of horsey treats, vanilla wafers, nature valley honey oat granola bars, and of course apples and carrots.  Mom asked me to tell you not to put apples and carrots in the stockings though, because they freeze.  Make sure anything you put in won't be bothered by freezing.  Oh, she also reminded me to tell you NOT to buy us those Apple Wafer treats, she won't let us have them because they are so easy to choke on.  I remember Sundance choking on one years ago and I'd just as soon not go through that thanks!

 

Summer "S'up?"

 

 Sassy checking out the camera.

We had a new horse come yesterday.  His name is Chance, I've met him before because he used to come visit sometimes.  He's only staying for a month, while his mom is home on school vacation.  Too bad really, he's cute!  This is Chance, tall, chestnut, and handsome...  who could ask for more?

Barn Buddies

Hi Everyone!  It's me - Tapper - reporting again...

 I'm good, not great because my feet have been sore.  The ground is frozen and lumpy and it's hard on my sensitive, tender little feet.  Once we get a little more snow to soften things up I should be fine.  A couple of the other horses have been a little ouchy too, but none as bad as me.  Of course I'm still beautiful, and still the boss, and they'd better not forget it!  This is me with Becca.  She's my best friend and is usually hanging around pretty close to me.  Sometimes I'll even let her share my hay (I'm such a nice friend).

Dolly and Sassy are buddies too.  They get along pretty well - at least as well as Dolly gets along with anyone, she can be SUCH a grump!

Another buddy pair is Starlight and Summer.  Considering they didn't get along at all at first, I'm happy that they've worked things out.  Starlight is still bossy with Summer, but Summer doesn't pay that much attention to her...

 Of course Jazz and Scotty have been pals forever.  This is Scotty watching over sleepy Jazz while I watch over sleepy Becca.

Mom is happy that the new house beast gets along with the others.  I guess his name is Joey, I've only seen him a couple of times because he doesn't come to the barn very often.  I know Rosy of course, she's at the barn every day.  Then there's a smaller one named Echo.  Anyway, I guess they are all pals now.  This photo shows how well Joey and Rosy share.

Shady has a New Home!

Shady left on Saturday for her new home north of here.  She is living with 2 mini's (I don't have photos of them yet), and her new buddy Kismet who is a young Morgan mare.  You can see in the photo that they are getting along just fine (Shady's on the right).  Shady's new person - Cheri - is spending lots of time with her every day and that's just what Shady needs.  (You can see Cheri in the background of the photo.)  Shady and her friends have a BRAND NEW barn!!!  Just built especially for them - how lucky can they be?  Cheri has been keeping me updated on how Shady is settling in, so I should be able to update you every now and then.

Sparkie and Ziegy

Summer comes to the farm - at the end of October???

Yes, that's right...  Summer arrived this morning.  She is an adorable little paint mare who belongs to Tarra and Christopher.  She has already started to make a friend of Starlight and I'm hoping in a few days to try them together.  Summer is only 3 years old, she'll turn 4 in January, so I expect she will grow and fill out and learn a lot in the coming months.  She has a deep voice (for such a little thing), and had no qualms about telling me she wanted her dinner when I was making up the feed.  I had to tell her to wait because it's not dinner time yet - she wanted it NOW!!!  Tonight she'll have Shady on one side and Sassy on the other (plus Starlight at the other end of the barn and you have the 4 S's in a row).  Hopefully they'll all get along overnight - I will be turning the fence ON!

Perfect Ride

Last Sunday, October 10th, Carla, Kate, Jean and I went for a 15 mile ride. We had a blast! It was a perfect day weather wise, cool but not cold, sunny, beautiful blue sky, couldn't ask for better! I rode Jazz, Carla was on Scotty, Kate rode Becca and Jean was on her new boy Badger (she changed his name from Caesar). We went through 2 covered bridges, over trails and dirt roads, and on a little bit of paved road including a quarter mile on Rte. 103. We did a LOT of trotting and cantering, and we had some tired horses when we got home - but they were all good, no sore muscles.

 Kate, Jean and Ann headed up Dutton Rd.

 Jean, Kate and Carla.

 Crunching through the fallen leaves.

 Through the 2nd covered bridge, not the best photo but it's hard to get one in a bridge.

 The trail to the top of Mt Ephriam.

 Boedeker Rd.

 Chatting on Williams River Rd - the 1st covered bridge is at the end of this road.

 This river goes under the 2nd covered bridge, shown below with Kate and Becca.

What a gorgeous day and beautiful view!  Taking a break below, about half way home.

Teeth

Dolly, Scotty and Shady all had their teeth done this week.  I was able to video Shady's dentistry and put together a sampling of what she had done.  You should know that all the horses get sedated before we start.  The thing in Shady's mouth is a speculum, lightweight because it's made of aluminum, it holds her mouth open and keeps her from biting the tools and Heather.  Heather uses a dental mirror (on a very long handle), a couple of different kinds of files (long and short), a long pick, a big syringe for rinsing - since they can't really rinse and spit like we can, and the electric drill which has a rotating disc on the end that files down the sharp points on the teeth.  NONE of this hurts the horse.  You may see Shady react by pulling back at times, that's not because of pain, the filing vibrates and makes noise and that is what the horses react to.

Tootsie

Busy Weekend

Well, the most exciting thing that happened this weekend is we got a new boarder!!!  Her name is Sassy, and she is very sweet.  She's a beautiful light chestnut (sorrel) with a flaxen mane and tail.  Sassy is a Quarter Horse cross, and she belongs to Denise.  Sassy is a VERY vocal horse, she has an extremely loud whinny and scream, but she also has the most delightful soft nicker whenever she sees me coming (which I love).  The photo is not the best, I'll try to get some better ones when it stops raining.  Sassy arrived on Saturday, and Denise saddled her up, I saddled Jazz, and he and I showed them around so Denise would know where she could ride here on the property.  Sassy was a very good girl, except that she fell in love with Ziegy over the fence and immediately went into heat! 

Kate and I took Jazz and Scotty on Friday and marked the trail to Sweet Pea Farm.  It was a lot of starting and stopping for the boys while we tied marking tape on trees, but if we didn't do it now, we'd never find the trail again in the spring (we almost didn't find it Friday!).

  

Sunday, Jean came over with her new horse(his name is Caesar, but she might change it). I tacked up Becca, and we went for a ride.  We went from the Brook trail to Massey Rd, then back down to Farmer Browns, then took the Sweet Pea Farm trail - we had marked it well, we didn't get lost!  In all, it was a little over 7 miles, with a lot of hills - some pretty steep - both up and down.  Both horses did great!  They took turns leading, and we had a lot of fun.  Jean's new boy is a keeper, absolutely beautiful face and head, light chestnut, sensible, willing, calm, just a very good boy.  The photo was taken while riding, I'll try to get a better shot of him next time.

Scenes from this summer...

The girls are pretending that Tapper will share the run-in.  She's inside even though you can't see her.

Viki rode Shady in the paddock once this summer.

Scotty and Jazz in the foreground, Eve riding Dolly in the round pen behind.

Eve on Dolly

Sam having a lesson on Becca.

Shady is flying!  All 4 feet off the ground!!!

Shady and Becca head for grass...

Tapper, Starlight, Becca and Dolly grazing.

Carla on Scotty

Carla and Scotty heading out to Boedtker Rd.