Thursday March 18, 2010

It has been a tumultuous week. This poor little guy has been singing his heart out to attract the perfect mate to no avail for about two weeks now. It is the closest I have been able to get to a Cardinal, he is so absorbed with his song that he doesnt mind me. They usually disappear in a flash when I want to try to photograph them. Unfortunately it was overcast and raining.

It had been raining for over a week when last Friday night we were hit by a severe storm. I am usually always keeping tabs on the weather so I know whether to close barn doors etc. but missed this one and when it hit at about 10pm it was too late to go out. My barn was a bit flooded the next morning but not as bad as I have had it before. Those who have been following my blog for a while will have seen the scenes below a few times over the past 3 years LOL. This is my "pasture". This is how it looks after it has rained heavily. We had 1.5 inches in about 8-10 hours and it rained the whole day on Saturday afterwards!!!

Cat (the B&W mare) and Piglette loved the water, Piglette loves to roll in it despite the just above freezing temperature.

This is what it looks like from the road looking back up my field, the house it out of frame on the right!!!! Waterfront property!!!! You can see the two horses in the distance and the railroad runs along the top of the frame.

Here is my oldest mare, Sonnys Copper Gal (Barn name Girl Sonny). She is 20 years old now and has borne many foals for me, and Larry when he was still with us. Here she is peering out of the barn doorway as I was walking up the lane. The mud was too terrible!!

We have a small farm down the road from us which I pass on the way to feed my friend Judy's horses every morning and evening. The sheep are always so shaggy and they have started having their little spring lambs. Quite a few sets of black twins this year. With the dreadful weather I havent had much chance to photograph them yet but shot a few frames a few days ago. The gese were chasing the little lambs LOL.

I think this is also a twin because it has white paint on its head, even on the black twins one has a bit of white paint on its head. It is very new because you can still see the umbilical cord hanging underneath it.

On Monday the weather improved dramatically and I got to let Judy's and my horses out for the first time in over a week on Tuesday morning when things had dried a bit and the temps had risen a bit. They are very muddy and dirty but were very happy to be outside. Here are 3 of Judy's brats (she has 11). L-R Snickers, Rain and Red.

Here are some of my brood next to the "Lake" L-R Piglette, Blue, Kooter, Wiggle and April (Kendal's filly). Top right of frame is where our road crosses the railway track. They have installed booms now which is great because I got tired of watching people come flying over the tracks, sometimes with all 4 wheels off the ground, never even slowing to check for trains even though there were warning lights, what the heck would they do if they werent working, and often I would see people taking really unneccessary chances to cross the tracks despite the close proximity of the train. This photo is looking north and sometimes the trains travelling south to north are speeding down this track, it makes me cringe. How we have not had an accident here I have no idea. Now the booms come down but I have seen people weaving in and out to cross the track anyway!

The lake has nearly dried up now and we have had a wonderful week of beautiful weather. We are expecting freezing temps, rain, wet snow and cold again from Saturday evening onwards. We always get these few cold snaps before spring sets in for real so I suppose I should have expected it. It just sucks because it has been so nice after the dreadful February we had.

Judy's one mare tried to jump over the stall wall into the aisle on Monday and I found her on Monday night with her two front legs and one back leg in the aisle and her one back leg stuck straddling the wall and in great distress. She has obviously been there for more than a few hours. The boards had pulled out of the wall with her stuggles and there were 6 inch nails protruding. Thank God she didnt get into those and was so exhausted that I somehow managed to get her off of the wall, still dont know how, just shoved loads of hay over the protruding nails, tried to get something bulky under the hoof to give her some footing and leverage to get up and out and she eventually lost balance and got her leg out without more damage. Her leg was severely grazed and the inside of the leg that was stuck has a long laceration right up by her udder where her legs rub together, only the skin fortunately, and a bad cut and grazes on the top of the leg on the front. By the time I had got help to get her to the vet and got her back home it was 3am Tuesday morning. She was so sore she couldnt or wouldnt move, poor little thing. Long story short, with cold hosing of the leg twice a day, lots of penecillin, pain killers and salve she is doing really well today and I am hopeful that there will be no permanent damage, but infection and the possibility that she has done nerve and tendon damage are still there which will leave her with a limp, so we are hoping for the best. She is only 2 so this is a big blow. I would post pics but they would probably gross you out. I will try to find a photo of her, she is called Jeannie.

So that is my week in a nutshell. Got hay in today, I am running a bit short but this should carry me through until we start our own baling Mid to end of May. Everyone else is well and enjoying their time out. (((((Hugs)))) and I hope you are having a good week. Have a great weekend!

Lori
xx

Spring Has Sprung

The weather has been all over the place the last few weeks it is difficult to remember what we had on which day LOL. These little lambs are down the road from us and they were a bit far away so they arent too crisp and I could only get two in the one shot. There are 7 and they are all black. Too cute!!!

The owner had a big roundbale of hay on this wagon at one stage and they have obviously eaten it all and this ram was laying on the wagon in the sun, when he saw me approaching he got up so I only got this quick shot and he herded his brood away even further.
They also have geese and this guy was perched in the sunshine and when I got too close he got up and screeched indignantly all the way over to his buddies. I am hoping that I will get there again soon with good light and that they will be closer so I can get some cute pics of the lambs.
Lori got an abscess in her hoof. I noticed a few days ago that she was limping a bit but the mud is so sticky and thick that I wasnt sure, and they sometimes pull a muscle when they try to walk and their hooves suction into the mud. Yesterday morning I went and had to force her up to the barn because she could hardly put the foot down and the mud was so bad.

I tried to clean her hoof out and her joint looked swollen but I wasnt too worried because I found nothing in the hoof so decided to hose her leg and see if it improved. By that evening she was grunting in pain each time she tried to step on that hoof and was only using the tip of her hoof. Stan luckily has had experience with trimming hooves and normally shoes his own horses which is far cheaper than getting a farrier in to do them, it can cost $120 for a set of shoes and that was before all these rediculous price hikes.

So he got her foot up and was strong enough to hold her leg when she tried to pull away (it is her right back) and he cleaned the inside of her hoof and the next second liquid came pouring out of it. She had obviously got a cut in the hoof (I wont go into details because most of you wont know what the heck I am talking about LOL) and it had started to go septic. He had a hoof cover (Like a shoe for a horse that has a base and coers the hoof) which you can put poultice into and strap it over the hoof and keep the medicine in place. Luckily she has left it alone, because she normally cant stand anything flapping or strange on her body.

This evening we took it off and it is looking really good, there was hardly any discharge and the swelling has gone right down on the joint and she is putting the foot down normally despite the shoe on it.

So that has been my few days, today it was soooooo windy, the wind always makes me feel uneasy, I hate it. I can take the cold if need be but the wind just makes me uneasy.

I got my load of hay yesterday and it is really a nice quality hay. I am still trying to get the round bales for the field. I would normally never use round bales because it is so hard to measure quantities and have only used them once 5 years ago when we couldnt get hay at all the whole summer and we managed to secure 2 round bales for an absolute fortune and within 2 days I had 16 horses off their feed. So I resorted to Alfalfa cubes which doesnt help a horse which is a browser and needs to chew and keep itself occupied. They were getting the calories but dying of boredom and it was costing a fortune. I have already substituted some of the hay this year with beet pulp but my supplier has run out and wont be getting any until June/July and they have the price listed at $10.99/40lb bag shredded beet pulp. Four weeks ago it was $7.99 a bag. Dont even ask me what alfalfa cubes cost now because 5 years ago they were $8 a bag and I used 2 bags a day on top of their normal grain.

So the battle carries on, we are keeping them fat and sassy just not occupied but health is better than starvation in my book and they are all healthy. Still hoping a few wonderful people would come and buy some of them and give them wonderful homes.

I am glad to say I am feeling a lot better with the longer days and better weather on its way. It is still in the 30s a lot but bearable and we are drying up and warming up slowly.

That's about it for today. I have a few other shots that I have done but will post some more of those tomorrow, I havent had new material to post often over the last few months so I am going to make the most of it.

(((((Hugs)))) to you all. See ya tomorrow

Lori
xx