The Pasture Down The Road

The owner of the field finally found someone who would cut the field we wanted to use and bale it so we could move the horses on but she wanted us to get the horses there as soon as possible. She only called yesterday just before middday and I managed to get hold of Stan who, God Bless Him, waited for me to do a shoot in the evening and then came over with his trailer and helped me load four horses and get them to their new home. I sent the three two year old fillies and my filly Lori because she is looking a bit on the thin side.



There is tonnes of grass there so I am going to have very fat horses by Fall for sure. I am so happy about that.

I have had a couple of very hectic days and am heading to bed now, hopefully tomorrow will be better but thought you might like to see some pics of the fillies in their new field.

Taxes is getting gelded tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it, but he has just become too unmanageable to keep as a stud with no-one putting time in to train him.

Have a great weekend all, my thoughts and prayers are going out to everyone around us who is suffering so badly with the floods, Mike I dont know if you are affected, I will go check your blog quickly but am keeping you in my thoughts.

Lori
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Another Hot day

This darned squirrel has been avoiding me and I am determined to get a decent picture of it that I can use for something so I try to carry my camera everywhere now. I was hoping to see some black squirrels around town, there are normally stacks in the gardens but today I only fleetingly saw 2 so no joy.

I did the shopping and after putting the groceries in the van looked across the street at some of the old buildings that are still standing in the square around our courthouse. Some of these buildings are being torn down now so I decided that I better get some pictures of what is left while I can. Unfortunately I didnt have my wide angle lens so managed a tight crop on an interesting fire escape on one and another building down the road which used to be the jailhouse, and was built in 1879 which I had to crop the back off of because there were cars parked there.


I will definitely be going back with my wide angle at a better time of day so I can get better shots of these old treasures.

We had an intense storm late this evening, I was worried about tornados, the clouds were like an encroaching wall of pitch black and the wind was gusting so hard that it blew our old refrigerator which is standing on the deck outside (and is not on wheels I might add) about 6 feet along the deck!!!! It didnt last long but it watered my new pasture nicely, we are seeing more of the oats coming through now, just waiting on the grass seed which is much finer and will take longer to see.

It was gone as fast as it came but I got drenched in the process and had flying missiles all over the show, barrel lids and anything small enough to get blown by the wind went skating off down the driveway and I had to go back and retrieve them LOL.

Well that's about it for the day. We reached 90 degrees F again, this weather is weird! ((((Hugs)))) and have a nice weekend everyone. CG (Julie) thanks for your continued visits, you are always on my mind.

Lori
XX

Work, work, work - it just never ends

(Original photograph by Jeff Kirkbride and used with his permission)

It has been a very rushed few days since Sunday, so much going on and I am exhausted. LOL



We are trying to get the field down the road cut and baled so that we can take our horses out there I hope it happens soon.

One of our neighbors helped me till/lightly plough and disc the one field and plant horse pasture seed and oats, now all we need is some rain!!!! We have had very little, we always appear to be in the little pocket that the rain misses for some reason. Feast or Famine!



Well by the time we had finished that and I had fed the horses it was after 9pm! This is becoming the norm for me, I never seem to get to sit down before 9 at night.



I had some exciting news tho yesterday. I have always wanted a Palomino horse, I have just always had an attraction for the color. Well we still have two mares in Iowa with a friend that run with his band of brood mares (Quarter horses) and whatever stallion he wants to breed them to that year and it so happens that they shared the huge pasture which has a creek running through it with his Champion Palomino stud CK Sun. The picture is a trading card that Larry made of him for our friends, his details and their name and contact details are on the back of the card. I didnt take this picture, the original photograph was taken by Photographer Jeff Kirkbride who gave us permission to use the photo. Larry cut him out and put him on a new background for the card.



Elliot called yesterday evening to tell us that when he went to give the mares their grain he saw the one mare with a baby. She stayed up on the ridge but he could see it is yellow and possibly has a bald (white) face, so we could very possibly have a palomino paint horse (one with spots on it too). This mare is very protective of her babies so it is probably going to be a few days before she brings the baby down to get the grain they get each evening and Elliot can hopefully get some pics of it!!!



There is one other mare who is still expecting any day there too. I just want to jump in my truck and drive there, but with gas prices and the fact that he is in northwestern Iowa (about a 9 hour drive), puts a bit of a damper on that idea LOL.



Lots of other little things happening, I am still black and Blue from our battle with Blaze on Sunday and loading into the horse trailer. Darlene, the lady who purchased him is very very happy with him, says he has exactly the temperment that she was wanting. He would climb in your pocket if he could and is normally as quiet as a mouse and very clever.

Drew who bought Dosie is very happy with him too so maybe we will see him at some of the shows later in the year. The Indiana Pinto Assoc. has their next show in August and then one a month later in September.

Hope you all had a great weekend. ((((((Hugs)))))))

Lori
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I Have Been Slacking

Not a horse today again guys, havent had much time to pick up the camera, I have been taking advantage of the good weather and gettting the barn tidied up. It becomes a dumping ground if you give it half the chance and that is how it looks now LOL.

So here is a yellow jacket (hornet/wasp like insect that hurts like heck if it stings you). It was on the flyscreen of the kitchen window. Nice splash of color, but I let him go on his way after taking a number of shots.

We are having clients coming over tomorrow to see Blaze (the foal that is in my profile picture with me but he is two years old now). I have always had a special feeling about this colt, he has the mildest, calmest most loving disposition out of any of the babies I have bred. Take for instance, I have not done very much with him other than to teach him to lead from the barn to the field so he is as stiff as a board LOL but when I took out the electric clippers to clip all his excess hair off around his hooves and legs and make a bridle path behind his ears, he just stood there like he had done it all his life!!!!! I was amazed, any other horse would have been climbing the walls just at the sound of them let alone the feeling they make when they are clipping. He wasnt too sure about the shaving the long hair in his ears but he did that too without too much resistance.

I will get a nice photo of him tomorrow as he has nearly shed all his winter hair out and is filling out nicely, but I need someone to hold him so I can take the picture. If he is sold, I will take a goodbye picture of him too. I really hope that they like him he is so gentle.

I went to look at the pasture down the road that we had the 4 mares at last year and the grass is long. I moved them there at the beginning of May last year but have held off this year. It needs to be cut so we are going to try to see if we can get it baled and then move the mares onto it. If we keep up the good rains it will sustain all of them adequately all summer.

Well that is about it, muddling through each day, keep losing my to do list and then having to start another one!!!! The weather has been lovely, actually on the cool side, but mostly sunny, we seem to have avoided the bad weather again east and west of us.

Hope you are all having a good weekend. (((Hugs))))

Lori

6 December 2007

Once again I am behind on everything. In typical Indiana fashion we have gone from heat to cold in record time again. We had 4-5 inches of snow yesterday and I put the horses out which they really enjoyed. I had managed with the help of my helper to get the stables all sorted out on Tuesday so everything was clean and dry. Here are some of the mares out in the field yesterday.

I put the 3 stud colts out too in their new enclosure, and here is a pic of Dream breathing steam and of him and Blaze playing in the snow also shot yesterday.

(Click on pics to enlarge)

We woke up to 4F (for those of you in celcius, that is about -12C) this morning!!!! No wind thank heavens and beautiful blue skies and sunshine but just too cold to be out there. It is lunch time now and it is about 24F right now, expecting a high of 32 (right at freezing), but I havent been able to bring myself to do anything other than feed the horses and come back in because even with two layers of gloves my fingers are freezing by the time I get back in. I so want to get some pics in the snow with the lovely light but may wait until this afternoon sometime first. We are expecting another 3-4 inches or thereabouts tonight but it is not going to be as cold (when I say not so cold, I mean just below freezing but not like this morning).

I started with a sore throat yesterday and it is still feeling blaaah so I am not a happy camper today. Thought I would get this in early. I am hoping to have some pics of Taxes in the snow later, the last time it snowed was the day he was born and then it was wet slushy snow that turned into mud before he even got his first outing.

I am going to end for now. If I do get more I will post again later. (((Hugs)))

Lori
xxx

14 November 2007

I have missed a few days again so I am going to post a bunch of photos I took yesterday. It has been raining here and we had one and a half inches over the past two days which was very welcome. The first two pictures are again dedicated to Mike who was doing a series on porches which were fabulous. I saw this yesterday, it is one of the houses on our lane and the red bush looked wonderful and I thought it would make a good addition to this normally mundane porch.



This is a photo of Girl Sonny, she is the mother of Taxes, Lori, Cookie and Dudette. She will be 18 years old in January and has given us some of our best foals, not a lot of spots on them other than Lori, but great minded, well put together foals nonetheless.
I snapped this a few evenings ago, it was pretty dark already so it is not a great picture, but it shows the four girls down the road, all nice and muddy from rolling after the rain. They were waiting for me at the gate to get their grain and I have started giving them a bit of alfalfa hay too as the grazing is not that great now. I am hoping to get the temporary winter stalls built tomorrow and then we will be bringing them home. I am not relishing the thought of 17 stables to keep clean, I have got off lightly this summer because I have been able to have most of the horses out 24 7 because of the lack of rain which meant no mud to deal with.
Abraham commented on the last picture I posted on the blue background. That is a bit that you can see, I am not sure what type it is because there are so many LOL. Here in the USA the western style of riding can be really ornate, not in the working type horses but in the western pleasure, trail and halter classes. They have a lot of silver and bling on their clothing, bridles and saddles. The bridle on this horse has only one loop over the one ear if I remember correctly, very unusual I was quite fascinated when I first got over there and saw all the different tack. Just visit a website like http://www.smithbrothers.com/ and you will see the variety of tack and clothing (I hope that link works, will check it after I publish this).

Taxes is doing really well, he is absolutely huge and still a brat of note!!!! I still havent had him in the great outdoors, he exercises in the bottom half of the barn and bounces around like a ball, jumping on his jolly ball and playing with the three yearlings outside on the other side of the gate. He is a beautiful colt, I adore him, just needs to be gelded so he loses that mouthy stuff which makes it hard to handle him sometimes. He is happy when he is holding the end of the lead rope in his mouth but until he has hold of it he is impossible LOL. I will try to get more pics of him soon. When I build the new stalls I wont have the bottom of the barn for Gee and Taxes to exercise in so I will have to get them used to the new enclosure outside, and pray that they will be sensible and not go crazy and run through something.

Other than that it has been a pretty dull few days. I have had a few more photos to edit and print and spent quite a few hours on doing that, my motivation is still not great but I am in good health and that is the main thing. ((((Hugs))))) to you all.

Lori
xx

10 September 2007

I took this shot of the girls down the road today. I have converted it to B&W because it just looks better that way. I am still really worried about the sunburn look on the three mares. I searched the field today and found nothing out of the ordinary other than two other plants which I am going to research and see if they are a problem if I can identify them. I went over this morning and sprayed her down with a baby oil, betadine and water solution which kept the flies and mosquitos at bay but you could just see that she is dreadfully sore. I am going to have to fetch her home I think, I will make that decision tomorrow morning

I got some more of the fence built today, am about a third of the way done. It has been hot and humid but I dont think the hot flushes are helping and I am really exhausted and down tonight so this will be short.

Hope everyone is well ((((Hugs))))) I will try to answer the questions asked soon I promise. Thanks for all your visits and messages I appreciate them.

Lori
xx

9 July 2007

I took these when I went to feed the girls this evening. You can see how dry it is, the grass is mostly brown but there are some green shoots from the last little bit of rain we had last week. We are supposed to be getting some rain over the next two days, I hope it happens, we still need a whole lot more than we have had.

Wiggle just wanted to play with me, unfortunately she is a bit big so I have to put a cap on it quickly before she gets too rough. She is one of the few horses I have that actually loves me back, probably because I hand raised her. She looks so cute with her fly mask. She and BB are fine with them and their eyes are looking a whole bunch better.
I went to fetch hay again today and they have cattle there so I took my camera to try to get some shots of them. They are in a barn with a small area fenced outside so it was difficult to get good shots because of the black background and most of them are black. This was one of the odd ones out, cute little face.
Boy you gotta see it to believe it LOL. Their tongues sure get all over the place!!!
We had another day in the low 90s and tomorrow will be the same then expecting it to cool down to the upper 70s low 80s. Thank heavens. I still havent got the lumber for the fence as they didnt get their delivery last night. I phoned before I went fortunately. I will check with them tomorrow again and as soon as they have them in I will go over and collect them.

I am really wanting to ride but it is unbearable from 7.30 in the morning until 9pm at night. I suppose I will have to be patient and wait for this heat to pass.

Well that is about it. The barn swallows are all flying around along with various other families from other nests and the ones that I was worried about in the other barn seem to be fine. I have seen the parents in and out and going up to the nest and they are doing their thing trying to entice them to fly.

((((Hugs))))) for everyone.

Lori
xx