Monday 15 November 2010

I inherited a new cat, about 1 year old, and he has no fear of the horses at all which is not a good thing. Herbie, my yearling colt, likes to play with anything he can get his teeth onto, branches of trees, jolly balls, plastic containers and recently I added a shovel handle and shaft that had been broken which he holds by the handle and flips up and down. I am trying to get photos of him doing that but when he sees me he drops it. Well needless to say whenever I go into his pen the cat follows me and rubs up against him while he smells him, he is fascinated by the cat. I am terrified that he is going to grab the cat by its tail or something and flip it around!!!! I caught these shots, very close because I had my long lens on the camera at the time and didnt want to move too far away in case he decided to play rough.

Lori

Sunday 10 October 2010

Well it is 10.10.2010 today, wow LOL

Here is my sixteen month old colt, Herbie (Herberts Spooktacular) some of you may be able to see the ghost on his side (look at the white area on his barrel, conical head with hands extended upward and legs flying out beind him). Herbert was my late husband's name and this colt was born 2 months after he passed and the last colt that I intend to breed and that Larry was alive when I did so the name is singnificant. He is a brat like all my horses LOL. He loves his Jolly Ball and will play for ages with anything he can find, which is exactly how his father is. I see so much of his daddy in him, wonderful disposition.

Thursday 11 March 2010

It has been a long absence! January and February were tremendously hard months for me both with the terrible weather we experienced for such a long period and thus my mental frame of mind. It has finally started warming up after 5 weeks solid of sub freezing temperatures, snow and ice (not nearly as bad as some of our surrounding states ... but with 13 horses here and caring for 11 of my friends' horses 5 miles down the road it made it unbearable). We have gone from below average temperatures to above average temperatures in a matter of days. Indianapolis topped out at 72F yesterday, there are still patches of ice and snow all around despite the warmer temps which is a good indicator of how fast it has changed. Of course the mud has come along with the thaw!!! One can just never win LOL!

I put Gee and the two babies (Goldie who is now a two year old and Herbie who is 9 months old) out for the first time in a while the other day and they had a ball. Below is Gee, all 17 hands of her, elevated at least 2 feet off the ground!!!
(Click on each pic to see a slightly larger version)
She has such a joy for life, she is the TB mare who has boarded with me for the past 4 years. I love her to bits, she has such a wonderful disposition and mind for a racehorse! With Larry passing last year (can u believe it has been nearly a year) I havent had much time to bond with my little palomino mare, Goldie (yeah I know that is original but her Daddy is CK Sun, and I had just seen the most beautiful sunrise minutes before I first laid eyes on her that her name CK Golden Sunrise was a must), and have NEVER seen her roll. She rewarded me with a few rolls on this occasion, this one was in a drier area of the pen, you will see further along that she found the wettest, muddiest part of the area and promptly rolled there too! She is not going to be a big mare, might just make a horse but may still stay short enough to be a pony but she is a tank.

Gee just loves to find any water she can, paw it into a muddy mess and then roll in it. There is a small pool that forms at the base of this tree when it rains, and she found it and did her thing. You can see the results, oh yes she made sure she laid down in it on both sides!

Herbie found the Jolly Ball in the mud and had a bit of fun with that. He and Goldie are also best buddies, my next job is to get him gelded, poor boy. He hasnt displayed any studdy behaviour yet but then spring is young that could change quickly.

He also had to coat himself in the mud. It is one way of getting that winter coat to shed out, and when it does start shedding it probably itches like heck so they love to roll all over the place and when I look out in the pastures there are white and brown patches scattered all over LOL.

Here is a picture of the three of them after they had all had their bit of fun in the mud, you can see how muddy and wet Gee got and Goldie too.

I have hardly touched my camera in months. I was looking at my photos the other day and since the beginning of January I have only shot a few more than 100 frames. This is very unusual as I normally shoot hundreds every week. I am hoping that with the arrival of the warmer weather, my passion for photography and life will improve. It has been a long battle the last 11 months. I am still looking for a job and have no income so have become an expert at shuffling money between accounts in order to get the bills paid!

I am not going to aim too high to start with, hoping to maybe get a post a week up. I miss all my blogging friends. (((Hugs)))) to you all.

Lori
xx

Monday 19 October 2009

Well the stretches with no posts seem to be getting longer and longer !!

I completed that temp job, it was very physical and last Wednesday was a 12 hour shift and Thursday an 11 hour shift so I was pretty tired by the time I had finished.

I am looking at another temp position at the moment which will entail far less physical exertion, my friend Lisa is starting there on Friday. The position is in Muncie and is with a photography company who do school portraits etc. They are looking for people to answer phones and take orders as they are extremely busy at the moment.

Todays picture is of Herbie, taken a few weeks ago, he is so cute.

Nothing much else to report, trying to keep my head above water (((Hugs))) to you all.

Lori

Wednesday 16 September 2009

Not without much battling my last show of the year is photographed and proofs posted at http://loriprophoto.jalbum.net . All four shows are up if anyone is interested in some of what I do LOL.

This morning Herbie and his daddy Blue were big buddies out in the pasture. It was so cute, momma was nowhere in sight and there were the two of them standing on the hill, when they saw me they came running towards me and then stood in the corner of the "pasture" together and later I shot another one of them grazing together on what is left in the field. As usual click on each pic to see a larger version.

Nothing much to report, just catching up on everything, the carpet that was given to me is in and I am slowly getting through all the filing and paperwork that has piled up over the past 5 months and some of it longer.

The leaves are already turning and it feels very autumn/fall like which of course it is, but it is different this year as it is every year. Stan is cutting the one large field for hay so we should be baling in the next few days again. I hope it is going to give us enough to get through winter. Then we just have the field next door to where I live to do and we will be done for the season.

I hope you are all having a good week. ((((Hugs)))) to all of you that come to visit.

Lori
xx

Thursday 3 September 2009

Lisa and I had a very pleasant weekend in Rochester shooting the Welsh Pony and Cobb Show, (the weather was gorgeous), that I have been shooting for 5 years now, or it may be 6!!! Wonderful group of people, they always look after me and whoever is with me so well. Of course we both shot far too many pictures LOL, Lisa is WORSE than me LOL and that is saying something!! I have about 3000 proofs to post on a website so that people can go and look at their pictures and order if they find something they like.

On top of that I am still trying like crazy to get orders edited and filled from the show 2 weeks ago (Pinto) and to make matters worse I have another Pinto show the weekend after next! That will be my last show. Larry always used to get this up on my website and I never learned how to use the software and manage my website (lack of time and we would usually end up taring each others hair out because we frustrated each other LOL) so I am having to do everything the long way and it has been very time consuming. I spent a day trying to figure it all out then decided it was just not worth it, I need to get the pictures up asap.

I shot the picture above this morning about half an hour ago, as you can see little Mr Herbie has made great friends with Goldie and Gee, his mother is about 30 feet away to the left of the screen munching away enjoying the fact that she has two baby sitters I am sure (not the prettiest pic because of the electric fence and tape). He and Goldie have started getting really attached and he is starting to play with her like he does with his mother. She was another foal that grew up with no foals her own age to learn from and play with.

Goldie and Gee are already joined at the hip, so I can see problems in the future when I want to do something with just one of them and have to take one out of the group. I am planning on turning Wiggle and April out with them in the next few days so that it will increase the herd in the one field and hopefully get them more used to being around a large number of horses and not get too attached.

Unfortunately it normally works out that horses will pair off even in a large group, it is just a natural instinct and if there is an odd number of horses, one will always be left out and the rest of the herd will chase them off. This is what happened to Taxes when I tried to put him with the older horses at the beginning of the year, poor boy, but he is doing great down the road with the other 4 horses and is fat and sassy again. Will post pics of him as I get time too.

The shot above is of my one barn cat who was drinking out of the water trough last evening. I am always scared that he will fall in LOL but he and Sylvester the B&W barn cat are always drinking here. He is recovering from a really bad abscess on the left side of his face that blew up like a balloon and thanks to Michelle, who was able to get it opened up and cleaned out. I wont go into the details but it was gross and fortunately I wasnt here because he wasnt a very happy kitty, but it would definitely have killed him if it hadnt been taken care of immediately. I zapped him with a course of penecillin which I always have in the house for the horses.

Well there is tonnes more to say but I need to get to work, can't believe it is Thursday already, I have orders I need to get off to the printer so I get them back in time for the next show for delivery.

Hope you all have a great rest of the week, our weather has been very nice and another thing I have been fitting in is hay baling, which we will be doing again tonight, and have a great Labor Day Long weekend ((((Hugs)))

Lori
xx

Friday 28 August 2009

I spent the day yesterday thinking it was Wednesday!!! Dont have a clue why but that is just how my brain is or isn't functioning at the moment, so while I thought I still had plenty of time to prepare for the weekend photographing the Welsh Pony Show in Rochester, I in fact didnt!!

Herbie is only 2 and a half months old but is a very busy curious and rambunctious colt and his poor mother is really feeling the pressure. He is eating so well and yesterday I just decided that in order to get his little mind occupied it was time that he learned to socialise with other horses so that when I wean him from his mother he wont be like Taxes and Goldie were being only babies and unable to socialise with the bigger horses because I was worried they would get hurt.

His arrival with his mother in the field got all sorts of activity going, I put him with Gee and Goldie because I felt they would be the best to start them out with and Sonny protected her colt beautifully and we had no mishaps and it quickly got to the point where she realised, hey this is cool, that little monster that is always biting me and jumping on me has something else to keep him occupied because he headed straight for the other mares. They were very gentle with him and Sonny had a nice break from his attentions and didnt seem to mind that he was on the other end of the field from her just glad of the peace and being able to munch grass. Blogger as usual has posted the pics in reverse order so the one below is of Herbie when I first put him out, the one below is when they all got racing around, it is so cute, Gee always lets Goldie win LOL, now and again she will stretch out and run the full length of the field and outpace her by miles, the 3 on the other side of the fence are Cat, BB and Wiggle.

The first pic is of them when Sonny first started letting the other horses get close to her baby, she only chased them off once then just let him do his thing and he thought he was just the main man.

I havent had a very good few days, so have not been online much other than to do what I have to do and will be away until Sunday night. So I hope you all have a good weekend, ours looks as if it will be pleasant and cool. (((Hugs))))

Lori
xx

Wednesday 26 August 2009

A few posts ago I posted a pic of a butterfly crysalis that was just ready for the Monarch Butterfly to emerge. I took the crysalis pic and had to go out for just over an hour and this is what I found when I got back!!! The butterfly had completely emerged and dried its wings the works, I missed documenting the emergence. Anyway here is the little butterfly that came out of the crysallis, the second pic you can see its clear cocoon/crysalis right next to it.

Balieve it or not this is my little darling born this year, Herbie!!! Just look at the color he is turning. We are not sure if he is going to be tri color (brown black and white) or dark chestnut (liver chestnut), time will tell, in the meantime I can't register him cos I have no idea what color to put on his application! Just look at that attitude, reminds me of Taxes who is 2 years old now and looking awesome. Herbie is about 2 months old here, this was taken a few days ago

Gee loves water and she drinks from the hose, wish I had her with her lips going drinking it but she loves a bath too.

We finished baling and putting the hay up in the loft at 9.15pm last night!! 198 bales. Stan and I were on our own for this one and even though I did the driving of the tractor during baling it was still very tiring and hard on my back. We took this hay to Stan and Val's house (the guy who normally bales it took 108 so we only had 90 - 66 bales from that field and 24 from another small field that we did at the same time - to put up) and Stan has bought an elevator to get the hay up into the mall of his barn which is much higher than ours, so I had to lug it onto the elevator so it could go up where he caught it and stacked it at the far end of the barn. Who needs a sauna, I can tell you I was dripping by the time we were done, but really pleased that we got it done I am getting some of my stamina back at last. Needless to say I slept very well last night LOL. It could have been worse we thought we would get about 300 - 400 bales and misjudged thank heavens, we would have been out there until midnight! Must check if the tractor has headlights LOL.

Pleasant mild day today. Hope you all have a great week. (((Hugs)))

Lori

xx

3 August 2009

I have over the years collected photos of each stage of the Monarch Butterfly's growth and have never been able to get it in the pupa stage. Well this year I decided that when I saw the first caterpillar I would watch it until I thought it was a reasonable size then cover the plant or bring it on the plant inside and monitor it's transformation. In the past I have always seen the worms then they just dissappear and I have hunted and hunted for the crysallis to no avail.

This is what it was looking like today, beautiful green color with spots of glistening gold around the top and bottom of it. I am hoping that I will catch it emerging. The transformation from caterpillar to the first stage where it turned green was so quick literally in the space of a few hours it had turned. I will keep you posted. I have not seen many Monarchs around this year and this is the only caterpillar I have found so far and I have made a point of protecting the Milkweed plants which are their staple diet along our fence lines but I dont know if it is the mild weather or what but I have only seen one butterfly and one worm thus far.

The next pic is of Herbie. He is such a beautiful little boy, if you look on his right side the white pattern looks like one of Casper's beastly brothers with the sheet over its head and hands up and legs behind!! We still havent settled on a name for him but Michelle thought maybe Herbert's Spooktacular would fit him LOL. He also appears to be changing color from the sorrel we thought he was going to be to a black, or grullo. If you look closely at his hindquarters, his baby hair is shedding out and it is coming back almost black??? I will post a better one of it when it has shed out a bit more.

I have been trying to get all of my paperwork sorted out. Stan got me a lovely carpet to put into my office and bedroom areas. While Larry was alive it was not possible because his wheelchair just wasnt compatible with carpeting and this piece although it is nearly 10 years old is in immaculate condition. The piece out of the lounge alone is big enough to do both of these rooms, so I have moved everything out of the back room that used to be the dumping ground and am making that into my bedroom and the main room where we spent most of our time which was the bedroom I am going to set up as my office with tables and computers etc. The only problem with this is that I have had to pile everything into my living room until it gets done and it may be a week or so before anyone can get to it!!! So in the meantime I am just going through stuff and filing and keeping what I need to keep and throwing what can go out away, a bit each day.

Hope you are all well and had a great weekend ((((Hugs))))))

If you like my photos, I am offering a very inexpensive way to have a small copy (trading card size) of them as collectors items which I am doing using my Etsy site or if you are looking for inexpensive gifts for you or family or friends please visit my Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6874447 here you will find all sorts of goodies from my photo trading cards to crocheted dish wash cloths (which I highly recommend as once you have used these woollen ones you wont use anything else).

Lori
xx

Friday 10 July 2009 - Still Hanging On

I am trying to be proactive with finding work but between the horses, baling hay, a few orders and the heat and an unreliable vehicle I have had no luck.

I am starting to panic a bit now because I have zero income as I dont qualify for a widow's pension (long story wont even get started on that) and I lost all income from Larry the day passed. I am going in a big circle at the moment, damned if I do and damned if I dont.

Oh well just thinking one day at a time. This is a picture I shot of Herbie when he was a few days old, he is a gorgeous colt, and has a personality like no other as do each of the horses. It is breaking my heart to think of parting with them but even the horses arent selling, heck I have offered some of them for $500 and no takers, so if you know anyone who needs a green young unfinished paint horse let me know I have quite a few looking for homes aged from 2 years old up to 15 years old. Some have a bit of riding experience and they are all fast learners and easy to get along with. They dont need a heavy hand and are all sane and sound and just need someone to give them some time and love. I want to at least give them a chance at life or else they will end up in the sale pens, I will be lucky to get $50 let alone $500 for them there and then they will probably be destined for the slaughter house. They say that they have banned the transport of horses for slaughter in USA and have closed the two processing plants, but the horses are going somewhere and where there is a will there is a way.

I read in one of the magazines that I submit photos to that people in the Florida area are finding their horses slaughtered and butchered in their pastures!!!! What is this world coming to???? It is just too horrible for me to even contemplate. This is not just an isolated incident it is happening more and more.

Oh well sorry about the doom and gloom but it is how I am feeling a bit at the moment. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We had a hot one today but may get a bit of rain tomorrow which will be great for the hay fields.

(((((Hugs)))

Lori

Friday 19 June 2009 - Herbie Tests His Legs

I have had a much better 24 hours and have to say the relief of having this baby on the ground has really shown. I feel a whole lot more relaxed.

I had to wait until yesterday evening to let Sonny and Herbie out to stretch their legs and even then because of all the mosquitos she wasnt too charmed. Sonny hates the flies and bugs and would rather stay in the barn in front of the fan which is where they are now because we are expecting a heat index of 103 today. The cooler weather couldnt have held on for just one more week, it had hung on thus far and then the County Fair would have been over.

So we are starting with BB and April going with Michelle and Kendal to an open show on Sunday, which will be a test drive for the 4H show at the fair on Thursday. The horses are looking wonderful, having horses with lots of white has its drawbacks and we are trying to keep them clean but they will always find that one wet or poopy spot to lay in and then have yellowish stains on them at the last minute!!! Here are a few pics of Sonny and Herbie last night (I had to bribe her out with food) and Kendal, she is smittten with the new arrival and they make a good pair because his coat should turn the same color as his mommas which is the same color as Kendal's hair, red!

Just showing that he knows where to put all those long limbs if he needs to. He is a very sweet baby and is going to be spoiled rotten. He doesnt have the same arrogant attitude that Taxes had so I think he will be much easier and safer to be around LOL.

It looks as if we are going to have a dry spell from Saturday afternoon for 5 days so we are going to be making lots of hay if that forecast stays. We have 4 or 5 big fields lined up and are going to have our work cut out for us so if you dont hear much from me in the next week, I am still around will just be baling hay from the time the dew is dry in the am until dark at 9.30pm to get as much in as possible. Wish us luck.

Hope you all have a good weekend, think of us at the horse show on Sunday and keep fingers and toes crossed that the little darlings dont embarass us LOL. ((((Hugs))))

Lori

xx

Thursday 18 June 2009 - It's a Boy

Relief, I can stop worrying, for about 2 seconds LOL. Sonny had her baby sometime in the early hours of this morning. It is a little boy and it is raining so I have them in the old barn which is pretty dark so havent been able to ascertain if both eyes are blue or just one. We are going to call him Herbie as his barn name and he is a little cutie pie.

Everything that is working is working great so I can relax for a bit. When I can get them out to take some decent pics of him I will but this will have to suffice for now, taking a nap in the straw. This will be my last baby and it is unfortunate that there is only one again this year because they so do need to have other little ones to learn from and older horses too, so I will probably not keep him and momma separated like I did with Taxes and her and the other horses, because I want him to be more sociable. Needless to say I will be asking the vet to make him a gelding at the first opportunity which will be far less traumatic for him now than later when the surgery is more involved.

((((Hugs)))))

Lori
xx