Day from hell--but with sunshine

Does anyone know what is wrong with this picture? He is on the wrong side of the fence. This is kinda what I woke up to this morning-well actually it was to an orange streak running past the window way too close. Turns out Sly was in the backyard. I do not know why, I do not know how he got there..I know nothing about it. I let the dogs in and grabbed my camera, and this is what he was doing when I got there--standing still looking pissed off at the world. I have no idea what he was mad about.

As soon as he saw me, though, he just lit up-
and came to mama like the good boy he is. I suggested that he take his tail back to the pasture where he belonged, and I untied the walk gate that we never use and thus is overgrown with weeds....he gave me some loving and off he went like he had been gone from home for years. He was bucking and farting and squealing and kicking--it was a fun start to the day.


How could I stay mad at that face for long? I can't. Or so I thought. I am concerned about him going through the fence, which must be what happened, since he has never done any such thing in the almost 8 years he has lived here. He is an obedient young man.
Over my mandatory lunch hour, I went to the farm to water and eyeball everyone--it was about 50 degrees, so a nice chance to take some pics while I filled up 9 jillion water tanks. It is so cold at nite now that I have to do it when the sun is out or the hoses freeze up on me--it is too dang early in the year for that crap.
This is young Hammer. Is he handsome or what? Here he reminds me of his daddy. Not when his daddy is walking through fences, with that pissy look on his face, but when he is posing for the camera.
This is Haida Girl--she is a little round huh? And no, she is not pregnant, she is just fat--like me.
This is Cricket, one of the yearlings. She is Snap's oldest. Check out those curly little ears--those are all Sly.
This is Ammo, Diablo's foal from this year--way too washed out in this picture. The sun was so bright, it never occurred to me they would be off this much. Oh well.
Ammo has decided that Nita is her mother, she refuses to stay in the baby pasture with everyone else, and instead follows Nita everywhere. It is pretty cute and I think Nita likes it--Lord, Nita has great great grandchildren by now, but she is enjoying pretending she has a baby, I think.
This is Phoenix-Xan's yearling filly. She is a trip--such a busy body, always wants to be up in your bidness.
I like her.
This is Squiggy--Diablo's yearling. She has some presence that just does not come through in her photos. And she must have been squinting into the sun.
This is her too--and the difference in color of the pics is just based on where I was standing, as I did not change any settings. Check out that massive belly---isn't that hideous?
It looks even worse here--but you can see why she is so rotund, she is carrying a weed in her mouth with her to check me out. Some girls never can back away from the snack foods, can we? She will be fine though, I suspect she has a growth spurt coming on based on how she looks here--I can usually tell when one is coming by the way their bodies seem to get wider and squattier, then the next time you look, they have shot up and leaned out. She will too.
This is Squeaklet, who I swear, I actually think I forget about for some time. She has been the topic of much discussion lately, so I was glad she showed up to change pastures and line up for the farrier this weekend. He is going to be sorry he scheduled an all day deal with me, I think, when he sees how many I have to do. Squeaklet is changing a lot too and is getting her mother's body shape--that is a good thing. Up until now, she has looked to me like she was made of spare parts--I cannot imagine what her dad looked like, but he could not have been that bad. Just a crazy mix of genes that is taking a while to line out, I guess. I could tell just by being around her today that she is growing up, mentally.

Now we get to the not so cool part of my day--at least on the farm front, the work stuff is a whole other deal. When I got to the farm after working out after work, Grandpa's stall was open and he was nowhere to be found. This nasty bastard was having his way with 10 bucks of dinner that Grandpa left when he went off into the good night. He had a friend too but he had waddled off by the time I got my camera.


I had NO idea where Grandpa was, and of course, it was pitch black--I was sure that I had left his gate unlocked when I fed him at lunch. I looked all over, turned on every lite in the place, and hollered all over--nothing. Not in the back barn, not in the grassy area, not in either of the small paddocks, he was nowhere

How could he be lost? He was wearing his short bus outfit--it is not like that bright yellow could blend into the nite.

I finally gave up and tried to leave (after all where is he going to go, there are gates shut everywhere)--and my headlights found him in the front pasture with the babies---I guess Madison put him out, although I do not know why or why she did not leave me a note and save me half a stroke. I was so glad to see him though that I went on about my business and went home.

Next stop was the house barn to feed Sly, Twist and Fonzie. I knew something was wrong when Sly was not only not waiting for me in the barn to feed him, but he did not come running when he saw my headlights. I thought perhaps he was in the back, so I came up to the house and came on in. For some reason, I was a little anxious--so I went back down to the barn to see if he had shown up.

By that time, Twister was eating Sly's food--which means he knew that Sly was no where to be found either, as he knows better than to take the man's dinner. He knows his place. I was starting to panic by then--I was thinking of that fence that he had walked through and how the back fenceline is still not good from the trees, etc...what if he had left? I was working right up into a full on panic attack and it did not get better when I came back to the house, and drove around in the yard to put my lights on the round bales in the back....nope not there either.

This sort of thing is not good for me. I was already getting shaky, and cussing Barry because that is what I do when I get scared, I think of a way that it is his fault (yeah I know that is not good, but it is what I do), and I distract myself with mad so that I can function instead of falling apart.

I let the dogs in and turned on all the lights in the back of the house and went outside to see what I was missing. And BAM, there he was again. Shitting up my back porch.

I could have killed him but I was so glad to find him, I think I cried. I gave him a big hug and a talk about his behavior and sent him on his way.

He better stop that crap, is what he had better do. And I guess we know what we will be doing this weekend--in addition to everything else, we will be fixing more fence.

What a day. And I did not even tell you about the stupid work issues. That is a whole other post. Which will have to wait until nite time as we cannot get on the internet at all and I cannot take my laptop to work any more either. I cannot figure out who the prisoners are in this deal anymore.

Cricket turns one

She has always been a little squirt, but when your mom is only 14 hands, what can we expect of her? She will get there in plenty of time.

I thought this was such a cute photo until I put it up here and saw that she is standing all crazy, with her weight out of whack so she looks cowhocked. She isn't. Typical.

I took these pics last nite because I have screwed around until the last day to register her for 50 bucks--she got lost in the pile last year. It is done now though.


This batch of pics is from the day before when I was TRYING to get pics. Here she is jumping over the creek ( or working up to I guess, since the creek is cut out of the photo)--is she cute or what? And the sweetest horse, just like her mother--she will make a great horse for a kid or teenager some day. But heck, I ride her mama, so no reason an adult could not ride Cricket when the time comes.



Meanwhile I realized that there was a screwup in Squiggys registration which was submitted on April 26, in order to get it in under the deadline. Well guess what? They did not get the damn thing, even though it was submitted online. Now they want me to pay $125. That burns my ass.

If I have to do that, I am going to do all new photos and raise hell when their photo submit does not let me change photos--which it always does. They will be sorry they could not be reasonable with someone who spends hundreds of bucks a year registering foals. Assholes.

Blasts from the past

I have no idea if I was blogging when these pics were taken, but they are so cute and I ran across them that I am just putting them up here again.

If you have already seen them, this won't be as much fun, but what the heck.



This is Vixen when she stole grain from a bucket in the back of the Gator. She got the whole bucket stuck on her head. She was not terribly upset about it--she backed around in circles for a while, but not frantically--and then realized it was going with her. She had to get it off herself, which she did within a few minutes.





This is Cricket when she was new. She had contracted tendons in front, so we had to keep her wrapped a couple of days and she came out perfect. She was not amused with the whole process, but took it well and this pic just cracks me up---it is so her, beingh appy even in the face of wierd things. She is such a good kid.

The last pair standing

We have one pair yet to wean, and I will probably do it when I get back from Congress. Cricket is the most loving of all the babies, and is Snap's first for us.



The funniest thing about Cricket is that she takes to other horses as if they are her mother, and she pics the strangest heroes. First, it was Rondee who is certainly not the warm and fuzzy type. The last month or so, it has been Radar, who she follows like he is the Dalai Lama. It is so precious to watch as they look a lot alike to me, and they look like a study in big and little (or little and littler as the case may be).

I would not normally have a nursing mother and foal in mixed company, but Snap is so submissive that she was not doing well with the other mamas, who were quick to take advantage of her. For that reason, they have been with the two year olds, and Aries (who also is pretty dang submissive). It has worked really well in that Snap has learned that she does not have to be the whipping boy, and Cricket has lots of aunts and uncles who are taking great care of her.

A very unlikely pair

One thing you can be sure of when you have this many horses, is that reality changes every day. That does keep things interesting for sure.

Today it is the dynamic between Snap and Rondee. Ever since Rondee came home from training two weeks ago, she has been in the front lot with Snap and baby Cricket. I am confident I had a reason for putting Snap through this, but it slips my mind at the moment. It has been particularly gratifying to see Snap put Rondee in her place, as she is very timid and the other mares run her around a lot. She is evidently not putting up with it from Rondee though, which cracks me up. Snap must not read the internet like everyone else, or she would surely have heard of Rondee's reputation as a bully and a little squirrelly. Snap sure does not look scared, the way her lip is hanging down, and the only thing that looks nuts on Rondee is the way she is studying me

Anyway, Snap's baby has taken up with Rondee, who is being very sweet to her. It is a little wierd that Snap allows it, I think, since she does not normally share her baby with anyone. Today I got a photo of the whole lovefest to prove it.

On that note, Barry has taken to calling Rondee "the crazy one" based on her training reports. Today, it is apparent that he is being sarcastic, as she is being so good. Two weeks of turnout has decompressed her faster than I ever could have imagined, and that is a huge relief. She actually is seeking us out for attention, and tolerating affection like she never did before. Let's hope the trend continues