Let the wailing begin

and it has----weaning of all three foals happened at about 6:30 tonight.

Weaning is never what you expect it to be. I thought the Wonk would not care-not only will he be six months old tomorrow, he is pretty independent from his mother. He has raised three times the hell anyone else has over this situation. And boy is he loud. Taz does not seem bothered at all, and Bambi is kind of the middle one. I threw them all in a monster stall together, after their shots and the great separation, so they can distract each other and not be totally in shock.

I do that most of the time, although normally I do it in pairs. I did not want to leave one alone this time--esp since I had planned for it to be Wonkers, but he was so upset, I could not do it--so they are all together. The stalls are massive, so I do not worry about that. Or I did not until I saw Taz lay one on Wonkers for no reason at all. I will not keep them together for long, but to get them through the first few days, I will let them be together.

So I did it, reinforced the barn aisleway in case we have any climbers (you think they cannot do it, but hell hath no fury like a newly weaned baby, and they can surprise you with their wilyness and craftiness), and went back to work. Two hours later I returned. It was pretty dark out, and QUIET.

That is either great or terrible. Its hard to say about things like that. I parked outside the front gate-barrier number four to the big wide world, just in case-- and started moseying in. The first thing I saw was all three mothers standing at a gate staring at the barn. That just breaks my heart, especially for Haida Girl as this is her first baby and she probably does not understand. As I walked to the barn, the mamas let loose--one starts and the others start falling like dominos. Ugh, that makes me feel awful. I think they were trying to tell me something was bad wrong--did they already forget that I am the one that did it? Maybe so.

The babies stayed quiet until they knew I was there, then they started crying. Its awful. Kind of cute though that I had to drag Playmate out of her dinner stall to go out to play--she was supervising the babies over the stall divider. I guess I know what her job will be this fall and winter--babysitting. I also remember why I used to go out of town when we did this, leaving hard hearted and partially deaf Barry to deal with it.

The worst part of weaning? going to check on them every few hours to make sure they are okay. I want them to stay in their stall, uninjured, un-colicy, un-hysterical, and eating and drinking well. If the mamas are still hanging out up front after work tomorrow, I will have to move them to another pasture, which is not a huge deal, but makes my life harder. From there though, there is way less hollering and crying because they 15 acres apart....that is what we normally do, but it was not convenient tonight. Lets hope it does not matter.

I hope I get through this without crying myself.

Boys will be boys--and more school

Today started out a typical way for me--we had a nice brunch at a friend's restaurant, and I made sure to make a fool of myself on the way out. I got through the whole meal, and after I paid, I knocked over the specials board. Leave it to me--it made a huge clatter and evidently, I said "oh shit". Imagine that. So Billy, the owner tells me--"hey, this is a f%$&n family restaurant". Which of course made me laugh even harder, so anyone who missed it that I had knocked everything over knew then.


Oy. Next step was to get some odds and ends done at the farm. While Barry was teaching Mojo how to get in the BIG trailer, instead of the three horse which is much lower to the ground than the Mack Daddy trailer, I watched the 3 year old geldings play. Note: It was doing some sort of weird precipitation thing out there that I will not call snow, because that is blasphemous, but there was a certain dampness that could not be ignored. Especially by me, in tshirt and Crocs like every other day.

This is my precious Radar aggravating Boogie--Radar is almost always the instigator of Playtime. Biting, nipping, rearing and kicking and striking are how colts play, and how they provoke each other to play back--no damage is done in these episodes, but it is a miracle sometimes, as they can get really rough with each other.

Young horses like this, especially geldings, play hard but have short memories--they are kind of like a pack of first graders. They can have it out in a game, and be cuddled up together the next minute. I do not know if that is because of short attention span, or just an unwillingness to hold a grudge.

However, there is always one in the pack who is more sensitive, and here it is Boogie--he is more timid, and gets his feelings hurt---I know he would rather be pounded on than ignored, so I know he enjoyed this. It cracks me up to realize how much I liked watching him get in the fray with the others

Boogie was quick to jump in and play hard with Radar. I have not seen that a lot as he is normally standing off the side like a wall flower, hoping to get picked.
He played awhile but he was also quick to call it off--after he got his licks in, of course. Lest you feel sorry for Radar in that he got popped early on, don't--he starts it and Boogie was not his first victim of the day. Most of the time, they do not even make contact when playing like this.
And see, they made up. Ignore that doofy line of fence--we were moving horses all over and did not put it back correctly until we were done.


This is what first got my attention---Radar and Hawk, who are two peas in a pod and best friends, were circling each other. I know were that leads, so I just kept clicking away.


Round and round they went for a while, like boxers waiting for the other to take the first poke.


I do not know if Hawk did not really want to play, or what his deal was, but he threw a kick in early.
Which did not even slow Radar down--he upped the ante by popping up on him and the game was on.
They crack me up how they carry on.
After this, I started wondering about Radar's sexual orientation, so I will stop this line of photos right here. Note how Hawk's ears are forward like he is fine with this behavior. He is an odd one as well.
Poor Target tried to get in the game and BAM--see what he got for his trouble? Poor fool. I think he feels left out sometimes too, since Hawk and Radar are attached at the hip. He did not play much in this game today, but instead stood around and posed for me. Everyone knows someone like that, don't they? He is the one that would rather look pretty than get dirty in the game.


Much more went on after the games were over. Hawk was on the schedule to be one with the trailer this week. He was going to get the 24/7 trailer experience this week, as he knows full well how to get in the trailer, but may not choose to do so on any given day. And when Hawk decides he is not going to do something, he is NOT going to do it.

But as you see, he ruined my plan by getting in and out of the trailer four or five times so easily that it seemed kind of silly. I wondered in the back of my mind whether something had scared him on a trip and lead him to his refusals to load--but evidently not. He did so well loading and unloading repeatedly, he got to go back to the pasture.As I said, Mojo learned how to get in the big trailer. He was so cute. It really is a much bigger step than he is used to. No problem though---look at his big effort trying to get out. Isn't that funny?
He had some other milestones today--he HATES having his mane brushed and I had not messed with his tail much. Today he got a good grooming, and his tail braided just because I could not think of anything more we could be doing with him, and he leaves on Friday. He also got his vaccines and more loading practice. He did so well, he too was chucked back out in the pasture.
Next, we did baby booster shots and gave them all a hit of ivermectin---and I noticed that Tango's hind fetlocks are goofy looking. They are much bigger than anyone else's. There is no heat, she is not off. It does not feel squishy like it is swollen, but it is also not just hair making them look puffy. They feel like normal joints, but are clearly larger than everyone else's.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what in the world might be going on there?


All in all, a productive day. Trailers are all moved around so that the transport company can get in and out at the farm on Friday. That means that there are SIX trailers of some sort in my yard at my house--two horse trailers, the boat on its trailer, the red flatbed trailer, the small trailer for the lawnmower, etc, and Barry's work trailer. We look like hillbilly heaven.

News not about me--thank God

My friend Jackie just had her official checkup for surprise pregnancy 2008--and she had no idea how far along she is. Nine weeks and 1 day--she is due May 28, but her son came two and a half weeks early, so she is shooting for her birthday of May 20 for this one.

I say if she keeps threatening her doctor about making old people cracks (he keeps saying "at yoru age"), he may make her go longer than her due date!

Congrats Jackie and Batman! I have my fingers crossed for a little Batgirl!

Hi Jim!

I am rehashing this photo of the first baby of the year as my friend Jim just asked me about pics of the babies. I directed him here and then realized there were not many of babies posted recently--this is Echo, when she was a couple of weeks old, so in mid-March.

Unbeknownst to baby Echo, she will be weaned on July 29----she better be enjoying her mama until then!

I better get back on it with the baby pics--they are growing so fast

A teaser.

I guess this will not come as news to anyone, but I evidently have a problem when I get a new hobby. Today, I took 271 photos--which is not really that many for a nice day with a great subject like new babies, but for once, a HUGE number of them came out usable. Like 200 of them

This means I have to narrow them down to a manageable number---until then, I wanted to post this one, because it is so sweet. I cannot believe that Gypsy would let her baby go anywhere near the other horses, even across a fence line, after the fiasco surrounding her birth. But she did and here is the very cool photo to prove it---

Don't they look so swell all lined up for their intro---baby Shiloh is more than brave enough to meet them, but it looks like Gypsy is nudging her forward to encourage her.

I am such a wiener, it almost makes me cry.

Race to dinner

You would think from the speed they are moving that they do not each get more than a reasonable share of dinner, wouldn't you?

Look at the beef on these little babies!

Peas in a Pod

Is this a great photo or what? That is Squiggy's face in there, but I have no idea who the others are---- it is neat how there are 4 different horse parts in there and I do not know where one starts and another begins. This was taken at dinner time yesterday

Filthy babies

And people wonder why it takes me a minute to tell you which horses is which around here. Isn't this ridiculous how they look so much alike? This was taken Sunday afternoon, while Madison and I were playing, and Carrie was on the phone.





Someone please tell me that their horses are just as filthy as these children?








As for this monkey on the right, how would you describe this move? Note the peanut gallery watching from a distance, I wonder if they know what she is up to?

They think it is an amusement park

A few weeks ago, we moved the babies and yearlings to the hay field so they could get out of the pasture they had destroyed and turned into a mud field. It took them a little time to realize they could have the entire 25 acres to play in, but they have figured it out now. Sometimes, I cannot even see them in the pasture at all.

This morning, they were hanging out near the ponds, and the apple orchard. I took this photo with the 12X zoom all the way out, and still cannot see much.

There is so much for them to explore there---the two ponds, one of which was dry all year but is probably filling up now and one they are fenced off from--there is a creek running through the back, a few acres of woods and pretty steep terrain, you name it, they have it to play in this field. We have had a ball watching them run and play lately.

When that gets boring, they can always play with things that make noise---like banging in this empty water trough that we put hay in. Midget was raising so much hell yesterday, I thought someone would call the police. And please ignore that fence--they have beat it down trying to get to grass, and we are working on that now--starting with the top line of hotwire that is helping.

I cannot believe they count as yearlings and two year olds now

The lineup

Isnt this a strange sight? Five babies in a row, all lined up in approximately the same position. dun, sorrel, sorrel, dun and dun...almost organized by color!

What this does not show is that they walked away from dishes of Strategy to have this hay. That is how much they like it. Which I guess I should be grateful for at 211 bucks per ton, so yay for that. I just do not think I have ever had that happen in all these years, nor have I ever had them clean up every single scrap of hay that is served. This is hardly the only time we have had excellent hay, I assure you, but this stuff is like crack to them. I have not had to mourn the loss of hay from being peed on once.

They did finally hit the stage this morning where they wanted their own feed dishes. I knew this day was coming and it makes me sad. Hemi is the ringleader of that, but it was just a matter of time.

The rest of this does my heart good. Now if the baling twine fairy would get all that picked up, I would think I was at the wrong house.

She is getting cuter by the day!

It has taken a good week, but short stuff is cute now! Her little baby legs are over their contraction problem and she is growing in to her head--I knew she would have to since neither parent has a bad noggin even if mama's is a tad long. Still nice to see though.

She is a funny little monkey--she adores Barry and follows him all over the place. Me not so much, but she will tolerate me some.