Tango joins the family

Tango has not gotten to play with her siblings so far in her young life. Until weaning time, she had to be separated from them all as her mother had to be protected from the other mares.

Not only did Squeak's special needs result in Tango not being socialized with other babies, it kept Squeak from disciplining her as consistently as she probably needed.




I anticipated that this would result in a little hellion, and at times, it seemed like it did just that. Then the next day, Tango would be sweet again. It had to be hard for her to not have the regular social structures that are so important for babies, and not have a mother who could head her off at the pass when she was up to no good.

At weaning time, Tango was introduced to one of the others because she shared a stall with her. Surprisingly, there were never any issues, and they seemed to get along well. In fact, they got along so well that Tango was selected to stay in with Ammo when she was re-weaned.





I decided that Ammo was doing well enough with her weaning that it would be all right to let Tango out to finally meet the rest of the family.


I was surprised at how well behaved she was for her registration pics, which took just minutes, and Barry was her handler, which normally drags out photo shoot time. Not tonight, she was really good. She is super smart and just seems to soak up whatever we show her.

Finally it was time to cut her loose and see what happened.

And guess what it was? NOTHING. She introduced herself to a few of the other babies, who were finishing dinner. There was no disruption at all. She seems to have buddied up with Disco, which is a good partner for her--I think they may be frenemies so far, but you have to start somewhere. I watched for 20 minutes or so to see if there would be some misconduct, but nothing happened.

Let's hope this is not the quiet before the storm and that all will be well in the morning. I am happy for her to get to enjoy a normal baby life now, even though I realize she did not know what she was missing all this time.

Cross your fingers that she works her way into the herd as easily as possible

Disco's daily development

I saw that I screwed up something on my Disco pics last nite, so we brought her back out to try again tonight. She has that backing on command thing down, although I am not convinced that she knows why she is doing it. In any event, I may have overstated her capacity to learn how to lead like a lady in just one lesson. There was some general foolishness, but ultimately she came around pretty well.
Definitely she was tense though.
And eventually she decided to go with the flow.
And even calmed right down to act like she was comfortable with things. Considering that she has been stalled since weaning (although the stalls are huge so the babies can even lope around in them, it is not the same as being out in the fresh air), I thought she settled pretty well.
I still do not think she got it even at this point that she was doing to be turned out with her sisters to play, and get to stay there for a while.
Even after a good stop and be quiet time, she picked it right back up to go into her new section, and acted nice to have her lead removed.


And then she went on a holy terror against all the other babies.

When I left, none of them were speaking to her.

The full spectrum

Look at the rebellion in this one! Disco was to have her registration pics tonight. It was also her first leading lesson. I think it is safe to say that leading is not her favorite thing. Knowing these babies like I do, I know that tomorrow she will act like she has always done it. Then we will start tying lessons.

Meanwhile, this photo cracks me up. Barry is so good with teaching babies to lead, even though he cusses the whole time, usually calls them MF'ers, then calls me a MF'er, might even call Madison a MF'er and either threatens to go home or divorce me in the middle of it every single time. That he is good at it does not keep me from bossing him through it all, and Madison from throwing in her comments--which might be the impetus for the MF'er comments. No wonder I love him.

We also had Marvin here to put shoes on four horses for the trail ride next weekend. The man is amazing--he showed up around 20 til 4 and was done by 5:15, which let us do the rest of it and me to mow the yard.

By the time company showed up to play the sun was going down and I realize I keep taking this same photo, but the colors look different to me very single time.
This was just minutes later.

Sunsets make me happy, but that they come so early breaks my heart
The

This and that, and other weaning stories

In between the 946 other things I did today, I took every chance I could to take photos with the long lens, to see if it is in fact cracked up or I just suck as a photog. It appears to be bad news--the lens is okay and I need to get a new hobby. This is the neighbor's yard, as I went to work this morning...you can imagine that people with yards like this are strained by living next door to people who cannot keep their lawn mower out of the shop for more than a week at a time. Sometimes it is so hard on them that they even mow my house barn area for me, which is much appreciated. Anyway, they have a beautiful huge yard that they work on constantly.
This was an indoor shoot of the kitty who is chilling on the throw-away saddle after work. And after 8 appointments, as you already know. He was cute so I took about 6--5 were in focus. Surely if my lens was legitimately screwed, fewer would have been okay, don't you think?
This is the screw ball Tequila. This might be the only shot I have ever gotten that shows her ruptured eyeball--which sounds worse than it is. She has white scar tissue running through her iris on that left eye. Note as well, her half-an-ear, courtesy of Simba. Her movements are still getting better, which made my day a little better too. I hate when my animals are unwell, even if the particular unwellness is funny. I am demented like that.
Fat boy Sly--I took this shot on the way out of the driveway this morning--I did not even get out of the car, I am that lazy. See that stupid weed at his shoulder? Those things are going to be the death of me--I mow mow mow mow and I swear to you they grow back over nite. I am amazed that there is still grass out there, but they are getting fat on it and ignoring their round bales in the back that have been there since July.
This is my little piggy yard thing Rita gave me. It was the first thing I saw this morning when I left so I took a picture of it. I am tricky like that, so unpredictable.

Now here is the rundown of what happened wrong since I was last in here complaining a few hours ago. I got my hairs did, they are swell. But I did not want to sweat it up and let it get frizzy so I can wear it straight tomorrow--did that plan work out? No. And I dont know where my flat iron is..but who am I kidding, I would not use it anyway.

Also, supposedly the trailer sellers have the power of attorney in hand and will send it here to the credit union tomorrow. They friggin better, I am losing my good nature, for real.

Barry and Madison had three babies weaned and Squeak's baby on the run when I arrived at the farm. She is so independent, she would not follow Squeak to the stall to get separated. Squeak is a saint, and I sure hope that this period of taking her baby from her does not scare her or cause her to go looking for her such that she gets hurt. We put her back in her safe pen and left baby inside--as of 30 minutes ago, Squeak was quiet. I am not convinced that she might be seeing some shadows, as she sure is able to find things better than a blind horse should be able to. I find that hard to believe.

Anyway, those little ungrateful brats are put up. When Barry went back to check on them a while ago, all was well. I made him fix the first stall gate because it is basically like a reinforced cage--that and the middle one have no climb fence floor to ceiling in the front. The bottom half of that wall is solid oak, and the side walls are 10 feet high solid oak. The back is only about four and a half feet, but on the other side of it is another stall. Since we wean babies in pairs, four babies means two stalls, so that one was made ready amid much mumbling about how Barry can never remember to bring home the drill from work, even though I call him every day to remind him. Anyway. I won, and they are all in reinforced stalls.

Well as dad would say, "The best laid plans...." While Barry was standing there doing something, he heard a ruckus and Disco was trying to crawl over the back wall. The only one not reinforced., mind you. She had her front legs over the wall. He put his hand on her to get her up and back and instead of that working, it somehow gave her enough power to launch herself again. This time she ended up with herself impaled over the wall and her hind legs off the ground. Her front legs were NOT directly behind the stall as they should have been, but she had taken a right turn and had them out of that rear stall altogether. That put them between a short stall wall and a deep freeze where we store feed. As he was picturing her breaking both of her front legs and getting ready to yank that freezer out of position, she somehow launched herself AGAIN, and this time she ended up on top of the deep freeze.

This story was getting ridiculous, unless you actually live here, and then you know that we cannot make this stuff up. He said she was not upset at all, but rather was enjoying her adventure. She got herself all wriggled down from the freezer and off she went at a trot to check things out.

And THAT is why there are a jillion gates around here.

And good thing, as she then went on a tear. He saw her enter the back barn--which is 120 feet long, and has sliding doors on either end. Or it did, until the great wind shears of 05 blew the back one off and now there is a gate there, which works really well for ventilation. What it does not work well for is a little baby running at Mach 5 in the dark looking for her mama--next thing he knew, Barry heard the bang. Yep, she hit the stupid gate. The same gate that Shiloh vaulted like an Olympian when she too went on a walkabout her first day of weaning. Nope, this one hit it. Bounced off.

Totally uninjured through all that drama. Unphased, unmarked, un-beat up in any way--according to Barry that is, who is not the most reliable of reporters but surely looked in this case. He ended up putting her back in stall #3, the one that was not suitable for weaning because it is not as reinforced. Evidently I delude myself on what is sufficient reinforcement for weaning despite all these years of doing it. He ended up practically boxing her silly butt in there, adding temporary walls with corral panels and plywood.

I cannot wait to see that contraption, it sure sounds high end, doesn't it?

All right, back to the laundry. I think the paperwork will have to wait again.

Back on schedule

Since we had 40-60 mph winds today and it was gross out, we came home early and made it to the house by 10:30 am. The wind woke us up early, and it was kind of silly to try to sleep through it and wait for the trailer to tip over, so we just headed home. The trip took longer than usual--it seemed like since just as I would relax, the wind would shove us sideways. Once we got here, tt did not take us long to get back in bed...the whole family slept all afternoon.

That means I have no interesting photos to post. That also means I did not wean any babies today as I had intended to. There was just no incentive to do so, with the intermittent rain, and so much wind.

I am going to post some pics from last week instead--since that is what I have.


Baby Disco is next up on the hit parade to be weaned, if I do her with Uno and Shiloh, who are definitely next. We shall see. She is so sweet, I hope she stays that way through the weaning process.
I love this about Gyro's babies, they tend to be sweet. Her filly from last year is the sweetest one as well.
Clearly, Gyro is not suffering from nursing her, is she? She needs to drop 10o pounds, for sure.

Barry will be out of town this week, so I am going to get caught up on the mowing of the yards, maybe do the closing of the pool---that makes me sad. But mostly, I will be spending time working on Twister, and playing with babies. They are growing up so fast, I am missing their cute times and not getting enough photos of them.

Disco

When I start posting more photos, you will all see that it is VERY difficult to tell these babies apart. This is Disco, Gyro's child. She is one of the younger ones, but has some leg on her--she runs with Echo a lot, who is huge, and Disco is not a long way behind her although almost two months younger. If I can only see her face, I do not know who she is, as she has the exact same face as Uno and somebody else. Uno of course has a wiener, and Disco does not, so that helps---she also has a white foot and he does not. I will have to rack my brain harder than I feel like doing right now to determine who the other matching one is and figure out what their difference is.

If only those busy bodies behind here would have gone away, this would have been a great picture of disco. She is getting very brave and wants to play with us now. I am glad to see that since I have not done a thing with her--that is the downfall of being born later in the season-- I am worn out by then!

Pictures like these

Make me wish I could get proficient at Photoshop--they are both interesting pics to me, and I like them, but I know I could make them better if I knew what I was doing.

Which do you like better?

Disco thinks she is a dog

Introducing Disco, formerly known as Rio. Bree hated the name Rio, and suggested Disco, which fits with some of the names that we have used for Gyro's babies in the past, like Boogie and Haidas Lectric Slyde.



I catch her doing funny things, and it finally occurred to me that many of her things are dog -like. Here she is scratching her neck like a dog, and then sticking her tongue half out of her mouth like she is panting















Here she is getting ready to put something inappropriate in her mouth, just like a puppy--and with her tongue hanging out again.

Funny kid. At 6 days old, she is already taller than all the other babies---scrawny like she is on stilts, but tall. It is wierd