Breeding developments

So far so good!

We had our first preg- check yesterday morning--Diablo. She is now 21 days in foal to TR Dual Rey. YAYAYAYAYAY! I am so excited for this. Meanwhile, Diablo's son Young N High, who lives in Canada, became the father of his second child, out of Playboys Rondeevous, who is Melody's daughter and also lives in Canada. Big day in Diablo-world. For some reason, when we were ultrasounding her, she was shivering all over the whole time---then I realized it was only about 40 degrees and we were all shivering. This weather is weird.

Also yesterday, we checked up on Haida Girl and Cash, and oddly both had exactly the same 49 follicle, starting to lose shape, which means it is getting ready to let loose of the egg. I ordered some Kit Dual semen for HG and some Peppy Plays for Cash for Cash, and hoped they would hold on until this morning.

Off I went at 7:30 this morning, praying HG would not give me any trouble about getting in the trailer, but leaving her son at home. I should not have worried about her--she was perfect. I was very pleased with her.

We made it to the vet on time, and our first hangup was a missing can of semen. The shipping stallion station had failed to have the can held at the Fed Ex warehouse, so it was jaunting all over southern Illinois in a delivery truck. Usually that means it can be hours before it gets where we need it and it can mess up a whole. Fortunately, Fed Ex was on the ball and got it to the office in record time. It was there by 9:15.

The Kit Dual semen was good stuff---not all the way warm when we checked it, but still pretty active stuff. HG had a 51 follicle, so now we hold our breath that all these good circumstances result in a conception.

The Peppy Plays for Cash semen was excellent as always. Those little fellers were practically jumping off the microscope slide. Cash was down to a 46 follicle, but that is okay--it had changed shape so much that ovulation had to be imminent. Cross your fingers on that one too.

And on top of all that, I get to take the rest of the week off from the vet--I don't have to go back until Monday morning to see if Squeak is ready to be bred.

Meanwhile, Aries is getting pretty close to foaling. She has been waxed up for a while, but is not tonight. It could be any time. I sure hope it is by Thursday morning, since I have to leave town that late afternoon for work, etc, and won't be back until Saturday evening.

I love foaling season, but it sure is a lot more fun when it is not raining non-stop like it has been lately. Tomorrow is supposed to clear up and get close to 80 degrees--now that is prime baby watching weather.

She is here!

I will have much more to say later, but I wanted to get these pics up before my nite gets away from me.

This is Cash's baby girl born around 4:30 this morning. At first I was sure she was sorrel, but now that she is all dry, it is clear she is red dun after all. I was kind of hoping for a regular dun, but I cannot criticize how cute she is. She is so dainty and girly. And feisty has she can be.

I will have more pics tonight when I get a chance to settle in and edit some.

What I really want for my birthday

is for Cash to quit jacking me around and have this damn baby. This is what she looked like a week ago today, as she watched Xan foal--which of course, really pissed Xan off. Cash did not move from this area for more than 12 hours as she watched through the cracks in the wall.

My friend Jackie, who is pregnant, says it is not that Cash was that interested so that she could not tear herself away--it is that she was paralyzed in fear, because she finally realized just HOW those babies get here.

She might have something there, as Cash is at day 346, and I am kinda wanting to sleep in my own bed.

Barry is headed to Crested Butte with the boys early in the morning, and will be gone until Monday nite. I am really hoping Cash delivers today so that I will have his help if we need it.

Plus, it would be nice to get a birthday baby.

Big belly update

And this time I am not talking about mine. We already did that, didn't we?

This is Miss Melody. She is due on March 14, but last year she was a tricker and went two weeks early. If she does that again this year, she will spit forth her spawn this weekend. Of course, since I am expecting that, she will do no such thing. I am trying to trick her to hang on til it is a little warmer around here. I stopped over to feed her and check all the soon-to-be mamas this afternoon, and while she is not bagged up far enough for me to think she is going to foal soon, she is uncomfortable, so who knows.

I won't be finding out if something happens via the living room though as Barry did not get the foalcam set up yet and he is leaving in the morning. Nor did he get the horse trailer moved over there--for the first time ever, I am looking forward to staying there on the nights when I am watching multiple mares, because I will get to stay in the new fancy horse trailer!~

But it aint there yet, so that is not going to happen either. He swears he will do it this weekend---

That is a lot of karma running into each other for one situation, isnt it? Me sick and unable to be at the top of my game, Mel not showing signs, so not stalled, foalcam not up anyway, trailer not there for me to be on standby, but Barry leaving town for three days.....that ought to make the universe work extra hard to get things lined out.
Big Xan is due at the same time as Mel. She too went early last year--12 or 13 days, I cannot remember which. I am watching her ass too--but she is not even starting to bag up. I am not having her slide by me this year like she did last year though, no sirree Bob.

If those two trickers are not enough, Hotrod is also due at the same time as them! Sly was wearing himself flat out on these girls last year, knocking up four of them in the space of 24 hours (and no, he did not breed all four of them the same day--but they managed to ovulate within 24 hours of each other or so--I could not make that happen had I tried to).

These top three mares are my biggest girls size wise--and not just height, but girth as well. They are all also about the same age, and I know what to expect from them when they deliver. Absent any mal-positioned foal or other unforeseen complications, I do not worry about them very much. I do want to be there for them though, as I have seen so many births that it has become normal for me to see them rather than abnormal. I know how wonderful it is, and now that I have the good camera, I want to be on top of things.


This one gives me some pause. Baby Cash--I guess we should stop calling her that now that she is about to become a mother--is due on March 13. Since she is a maiden, there is no telling when she will go. And while I say she is "due" then, there is really no such thing as a due date for mares--let that be todays horse trivia. They are considered full term after 32o days, and normal terms are from then until 360. It is habit for me to fix their due date at 340 days, which is what a lot of people do, and to expect a baby around that time. Some never do that, for example Playmate who always foaled at 326 days even if she had to back up to you and birth it in your lap to get it done on time. She was like magic. Other horses are not so reliable, although many will make a pattern of going around a certain number of days. With mares who have never foaled, though, it is a crap shoot.

Cash conceived on April 8 last year. That is how I picked March 13 for her day. However, we have passed the 320 day mark, so if she foals anytime, it will likely be okay for the baby as far as being developed enough--some just do not have to cook as long as others. She is started to bag up, which is cute on her, since she is such a roly poly.

I wonder if she knows what is going on? Is she scared? Or excited? Last year, she stole Gypsy's baby from her right after it was born (another surprise a couple of days early with no warning), and was trying to take care of it--so I hope that carries over to her own baby. Horses are so weird, a maiden can do any fool thing like not have any interest in the baby, or hate it or be scared of it, or try to hurt it--so I dont want to miss this one under any circumstances. I have only had that happen once in all these years and that was one of our first babies, and I pray to God it never happens again, as we had to put the little baby down. I hate that.

On to other medical matters of interest besides the birthing of babies, Tequila is making it het job to lick herself into a bald oozing sore. She currently has these nice two lick granulomas or hot spots she is working on like it is her damn job. They are not nice. They ooze. I am not a fan of that. So she is back on prednisone and an abx for any infection it allows in. The pred makes her pee, which makes me glad I dont have the kind of illness that makes me queasy for sure.

She is a piece of work, but her back end was working pretty good today--enough that I saw her playing with Ratty boy and peeg today
Then I have the eye injury of unknown origin in Aries. She has somehow caused her right eye to swell shut--the lower lid is swollen pretty good, and it is almost all the way shut. She started eye with an ulcer treatment yesterday, just in case, but that takes a while. Eye injuries are weird. A little bute got the swelling down some tonight, enough that she fought the eye meds due to pain. Poor girl, I hate that for her. She is due in April, and I hate using a bute on one that close but it is not good to let her hurt either, so maybe a couple days of that will help her out.

I love that horse.
Yeah this is a pic of nothing--one that I focused on funny when trying to take shots of babies that will not get out of my way--it kind of turned out a little artsy though with the focus in the background rather than the fore.

I think my fever is making me loopy.

Holiday is over-back to business

It had to end eventually. After a family breakfast Saturday morning at a local cafe, we had to do serious business at the farm. The farrier and his assistant were there, and we had more than enough horses to trim. We may have set a land speed record for getting things done--we trimmed 18 horses in less than 4 hours, with both of them working. All of those horses got groomed really well, cockleburrs pulled from their manes and tails until my hands bled, they were dewormed, and trimmed, and got whatever other sort of maintenance they needed. It was actually pretty fun, but even when I am just the step-and-fetch-it girl, that is hard work. You have to catch them and put them in stalls, and keep them moving so that there are always a few in line and ready to be trimmed when it is their turn. Add in all that other stuff, and my incessant chart-making about what happened to whom, it was a very busy day!

But of course, you know I was also taking a bunch of pics.
Marvin was being particularly handsome. Marvin the ass, not Marvin the farrier, but I am sure he was lovely too. I just do not think about things like that. At least not about the farrier.
He is however, exceptionally good at his job. This is where non-horse people might tune out for a bit--I have to document this stuff somewhere so I can track recoveries etc, so feel free to scroll down to more interesting stuff. We found some issues--Squeaklet had a blowout of some sort. There must have been an abcess and it busted out through a crack in her hoof. I am sure this is my fault, at least the crack itself was, since she was entirely too long as she had slipped through the cracks on the farrier schedule (look, I made a pun. I am such a wit). This will grow out over time, but since the crack is all the way through the hairline, there will likely always be a scar on her foot, but she is not the least but sore, which is what matters.

This is Midget's front right--who knows what she did here, it looks like a hole an alien might have burst through. Who knows. She may have just clipped herself in some sort of freak manner, but it is odd. She too is perfectly comfortable, but has some hoof issues in that her heels are growing funky. Corrective action is being taken.
This is Hammer's foot rear right, I think. Earlier this year, he damn near cut his foot off. I mean OFF. The only thing we can figure is that he kicked through some metal, which is the only reasonable explanation--except we cannot find where, and all the metal on the place that is in kicking range is lined with wood to make sure these things do not happen. That is a horse for you though. From looking at the scar, you can see where he did the damage--his heel bulb was sliced really deeply and ugly. He also cut it high up where you can see the hair doing something goofy. It is amazing to me how it healed so well, and now there just has to be some remodeling of the hoof to get it back in normal condition. He too is sound as a dollar, and thank goodness this happened when he was just a year old, as young ones heal so well and go on to be perfectly normal. In his case, it may have been the best thing that ever happened to him, as he had to put up with treatment every day and he turned into such a sweetheart over it.

That is the end of injury pics for the day--aren't you glad?
This is Vixen, who has been hiding in the hay field behind the ponds. I have not spent any time with lately. If she has not grown up, I do not know what has happened. I did not recognize her at first, which is not uncommon as she and Riot look just alike. She is a year and a half old here. I really liked her when I was playing with her Saturday and I am going to focus on her some more in the near future. Her mother, Foxy, pictured below, has an unattractive head, and we prayed Sly would trump it--he did on Voodoo, the 2 year old, and clearly he did an even better job on this one. Now if these babies are half the horse their brother Chief (who lives in Arkansas) is, we will have hit the jackpot.


Foxy brings a lot to the table to make up for that head though--brains, athletic ability, she is ate up with cow, and pedigree to name a few. She has earned her spot in this herd. After all, pretty is as pretty does.Xan had her hair in one big sheet of cockleburred mess--it took forever to get them all out, and the efforts of three people. She was glad to get away from us--look how frizzy her hair is from being aggravated by us.

I realize Gypsy was just featured on here, but she looked so pretty after her work got done, and she just kept posing for me. Besides, I was trying to pretend that I did not see Barry working on fence repairs--we are in a constant state of standoff over fence boards, and I was afraid that if I called attention to the fact that he was working on it, he would either stop or make me help. I sure did not want to be a part of that. So I just kept taking pics and looking busy.

That scheme worked--he replaced boards that were ugly or broken, or that had just been slapped up in a quick fix situation that never seemed to get revisited. Quite often his fix for a broken section of board fence (which really is the bane of my existence, the wood fence) is to put a corral panel in front of it. I say that is no fix and we need panels for other things. Finally, several of those were liberated from their too-long-to-be-temporary homes, and put to use in other more appropriate places. Not only did the bull shed area have repairs done, so did Squeak's sand pit---she even got a new section added to it so she can travel more.

We attempted to move horses from the middle pasture to the back pasture and hay field where they should live for a while, but they were not particularly cooperative. That is how I got away with taking all these pics, I was trying to do the transition.

Barry also moved hay all over so they will be set for the week while he is gone again. He even brought a round bale over to the house (which is about 2.5 miles from the farm) for the boys, who have not moved since--they like it much better than the round bale they had. They are more than a little spoiled, and it keeps me from having an asthma attack by handling square bales every day.

And guess what I did? I took a nap! Surprise, surprise, I took a nap. It is my favorite thing, and I needed it. He went on a boy outing with Mike, Rusty and Hutch, and after my nap, I took him to dinner and a movie because I was so grateful he did all that work. The craziest thing happened there- we were close to on time, and the movie was sold out! In a town with 8 theateres for 17,000 people--explain that to me. To spend time for a bit before going to dinner and a later movie, we went to TSC and got a new battery for the Gator who has been kaput for two weeks--that makes things a lot harder than you would think. We then had good steaks and swordfish for dinner, and still had time left over, so we picked up a few gifts at WalMart and went to the movies. We were too early for what we wanted to see, so we saw Twilight. It was okay. We forgot the groceries in the car though--as well as his credit card at the bar where he had the boy outing, and of course, they are not open on Sundays so he will be out of town without it. Oops.

I stayed up until 4 am, reading and doing laundry. No wonder my nights and days are mixed up.

Today, we got up and he went to fix the Gator, got the horses moved around and Squeak moved to her new paddock, while I worked on house stuff. It was gross weather, so we went to ANOTHER movie--Four Christmases, which was very cute. Then guess what I did? I took ANOTHER nap. It was swell. While I did that, he tracked down straw for the pig and dogs, and now they are happy, too.

So here it is Sunday nite, and Mandy, Edward and Gabi are now back in Houston, so these are the last of the pics there will be of her for a while. I love these pigtails.



It is so nice to be caught up on things for the week to start. It is even better that he did all the work! Most of the world thinks he does it all anyway, but since he is gone during the week, I do everything then. The weekends are for catch up--and since we are booked solid until the New Year, it is vital that all this get done this weekend.


I am ready to start the week. I am hoping that everything at work will relax a little so we can get back to the business of representing people instead of defending ourselves. I am going back to the gym as I missed every day last week due to everything else that was going on, and I feel kind of gross as a result. I have to order some Christmas presents or no one will be getting anything.

It is supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow, but I will believe that when I see it--it is mostly just sprinkling enough to make things icky.

In some good news though, the NCHA futurity is spinning along and the second round of open competition has ended. Justa Lil Scoot, the son of Justa Swinging Jane, made the semi-finals! He has the highest score of any horse in the limited open as well, which is also very cool. Jane is my Snap's maternal sister, so yay for the family. We will get to see him show when we get there in 12 days, I am excited about that.

There is a lot to look forward to around here in the near future, I just hope nothing disastrous interferes with it. I always feel like I get a little bit ahead and then slammed backwards a few more steps, and I am bound and determined to get through all this to a more secure frame of mind.

Hang in there and surely tomorrow, I will me more interesting in my posts. I hope!

All this knocked-uped-ness is starting to show

No not me, that is crazy talk.

This is Cash, who is 6 years old now. She is the daughter of big fat Rock, who I bought many so many years ago--and, unbeknownst to me at the time of purchase, she came with a rebreed to Miss N Cash. Rock was no spring chicken at the time, so we were so lucky that she took the first time we shipped semen to her. I remember the day Cash was born, it was a Tuesday mid-morning during a rain storm. I found her during a lunch time check, right before a surprise visit from a client's family, who probably wondered what in the hell I had been doing to be covered in mess during our meeting. Ooops. They should have made an appointment

People who do not have horses ask me all the time if they really have personalities. Man do they! Cash is a prime example. Her quirks are what make her so much fun though.

Cash showed her personality from the get-go. She was always the first baby to make friends with new people, and would snuggle up to anyone she could catch. She also had a temper. She hurt herself at 6 days old, and had to have water therapy daily for a while. The first day she had to be hosed, she got so angry she threw herself down on the ground and refused to participate. The longer I hosed her, the more the water pooled under her--I began to think that she was stubborn enough that she would lay there and drown before she would quit throwing her fit. That is our Cash. When she is committed to something, there is no changing her mind.

Telling that story makes me realize that Cash has a thing for water--she always has had, and maybe that is when it started. She cannot be kept out of the water troughs, so I can no longer use the water floats to keep water troughs full. She paws in the trough so much that she breaks them, and then water blows all over the pasture until someone has reason to check on it. I have had more than one water bill over $300 thanks to her antics in the water trough. She will even put all four legs in the trough and put her head under water, if she gets hot enough. She and Haida Girl play in the troughs together to splash each other--they are like kindergardeners sometimes. If it was not so expensive, it would be cuter, but she gets so much joy out of it, it is worth changing the floats all the time to let her have her fun.


Anyway, Cash is going to have her first baby next year. She is due in March, with a Slybaby.
She is the one that stole Gypsy's baby from her this year as well, so I think she wants a baby. She better, as she is going to have one, and I bet it will be a beauty.

I love how round she is getting, and it is cracks me up to see her running around with that belly in her way.
She still can get around way better than you would think, even with all that in her way.
I hope that the baby comes out healthy and straight, and if I could have things my way, it would also be a dun filly. Cash is only a hair over 14 hands, so I would like to get an inch or two more out of the baby, but I have learned my lesson about making specific requests of Mother Nature. No more tempting that.
If all goes well, this will be the third set of mother/daughter pairs that have foaled for me. Lucky and Fuzzy were the first, then Nita and Gypsy, and then this pair. Since Rock is my most special girl, this will be a treat for me, to make her a grandma while she is still with us. If she can pass some of her good attributes to her grandbaby, I will be grateful, since we never got to find out how she would cross on Sly--her only foal by him passed when it was almost time to wean her, but she was gorgeous as well.

I have a lot to look forward to in the spring, as there are four mares due mid-March. The others are old pros, so Cash will get most of my attention.
If the baby has half of her athleticism, we will have a winner on our hands.


It won't be much longer before we know how this all works out for us. Cross your fingers that things go well, that she makes a good mom and stays safe.

Family affair

This should have been a good one, but I was screwing with my camera settings and Cash moved. It is still the first time I have ever really noticed how much alike Rock and Cash look alike---which of course, they should since they are mother and daughter, but it is not something I have noticed in the past.

In this shot, you would not even know that Rock is 26---20 years older than her daughter, would you?
I love Rock's nose--she looks like she dipped it in milk.

The mystery is solved

Well, here he is, caught in the act! Hawkeye is always beat up--marked up, hairless, scuffed up--he looks like a two dollar whore on Sunday afternoon. I know he plays hard and plays with everyone, and I could not figure out who was laying it to him. Now we know--it is RADAR!

First he tried to get him to play with this move, and when that did not work, he had to resort to biting him on the butt a few different times. It was a hoot to see him take bites out of different parts of his butt, and Hawk to whack him for doing it . Then he did it again, until Hawk would finally play. (please ignore the tractor ruts in the pasture there--you have to move hay even when water is standing on the fields and this is the aftermath)

Finally, Radar got Hawk to play with him. He was a happy boy. Those two really love each other and are always up to something, but they are so much fun that you forgive them pretty quick. Their antics never get serious either, so it is cool to watch them interact with each other.

Next he took up with Cash, and they had a nice moment loving on each other. Cash is not a sweet horse---a thug, yes, but no one would call her a delicate flower.

Silly Radar was just asking for it.

He should have known that she could only take it so long before she turned on him.

Now that is the Cash we all know! Looks just like her mama the Rock, doesn't it with the ears pinned and her teeth undoubtedly out.

Radar comes by it honestly. Growing up here is not for wussies!

The after math of a monsoon

Now isnt this absurd? Cash looks like the Phantom of the Opera.

I took this picture from inside the round pen in the barn, hanging out the back door to stay dry, and set it on portrait mode. It was taken from about 250 feet, I think.

The one that is excommunicated

This demonstration of Cash liking water way too much explains why I had a $300 water bill last month. She destroys every single automatic float on the place, which causes a flood, and before you know it, entire fields are flooded. You would think that would have resulted in some green grass or pasture but it has not, of course. I guess it does not work that way at my house.

I love her, but at least half the time, I want to choke her.