Skunked!!

So yesterday I missed the eagles visit, if there was one...but today I was prepared.

The land lord needed someone to ride with him on Mave's first ride of the spring...  So Tari and I did him a favor and went along.  It was a nice easy ride for me... Tari is a saint.  Although she shied a couple of times she held steady for Maves...well antics.  It was probably a good thing we went along for the ride, he wouldn't have gotten a whole lot done without us holding her hoof as it were.

So back at the farm, I fed and waited.  I waited and waited some more.  The eagle didn't show up, but those nastey geese did.  I waited some more after they landed, then it got dark...  Never fear, I will try again tomorrow!!  ( :

Here are a few pictures of my waiting!  Just a few though. (I some how enede up taking a whopping 167 of them...most of which I will probably show you this week! )

Oh, the joy!!

Its too bad I wasn't able to get theses foul fowl landing...it is fun to see them ski on to the pond!!

Update For Karen....

February 11, 2010.  7lbs, 4 oz. and 21 inches long!  These were taken last week, just before his 2 week birthday!!

To rope, cut, or rein...that is the question!

His Uncle Chad and I are trying to get up there next weekend!  Then I can get a few pictures with all of us!!  These are courtesy of him PROUD mom and dad!

Have I Mentioned....

I hate birds?  Well live birds...  If they are served up to me on a plate, I promise I will enjoy them to pieces!!  ( :

We live in an area that is full of the wild kind...  We have litterally hundereds of Wild Turkeys that wander around the place.  We have soo many turkeys here soo often, that my dogs know the phrase, "Get the turkeys".  They don't go after the horses, mules, cats, or each other.  They start hunting the turkeys!  If you are sitting in the living room and call someone a turkey...the dogs go nuts.  Its our passion, hating turkeys. 

I have also developed a conspiracey theory about the turkey and goose poop making the horses ill!  ( :

Yeah, we have geese too.  Those black and brown geese.  We call them Canadian Honkers, but who knows why or if thats correct.  But they honk like loudly and poop everywhere...poisoning my horses.  I can' sick the dogs on them though.  I have tried...they actually attack back...bastards!  My dogs just aren't tough enough to take a floggin', not that I want them to either....  But between you and me....the b.b. gun gets those nasty things off of the pond in a hurry!  ( ;

So yesterday while feeding and chatting with Mindy I hear the geese raising hell on the pond.  Then suddenly they are all in flight scattering almost like when me and Daisey go out and mess with them.  They don't take their regular V flight pattern they are all going in different directions almost like they are trying to keep a preditor from getting them.  But I wonder...what could possible be over there?  I am the only one home... I am of course giving my sister the play by play...(she hates birds too!)

And then the answer flies overhead in hot persuit of one of the geese.  It is a Bald Eagle.  This kind of bird I do LIKE!  For the last year and a half or so, we have had sightings in the area of these big birds, but I was suprised and happy to get an afternoon visit from one!  And even happier to discover that she/he likes to eat or harass geese!  Yay!  I start doing the Happy Dance!!

Imagine my surprise today when I am again feeding and chatting, and hear the geese go beserk again.  I ask Mindy, do you think that eagle would be back again to disturb the geese?  She says if I am lucky it is!  Guess I should have bought a lottery ticket, because low and behold theres the eagle!

I am at the barn with the tractor bucket full of hay freaking out as the damn thing lands at the far end of the pasture by the stream and takes a drink.  I decide I should try and get to the house and get a picture of the bird...and again, I am lucky and get to get all the way to the house and back down toward the barn without the bird moving at all!

Although it wasn't really spooky and seemed happy enough to tollerate me from a distance, it did take off before I got too close to it...

But for your viewing pleasure, I give you the best of the pictures I got this evening!!

I have taken a few things into consideration for next time... 1.) get off the tractor or at least turn it off...the rattling of the engine is not condusive to taking pictures.  2.) start taking the camera to the barn everyday...that way I will have more opportunities to get that ONE good shot. 3.) start saving my pennies to get a bigger badder lense for my camera!  ( :

Sadly I won't be home tomorrow at the time that I have been for the last two days, that have afforded me the chance to see Baldy...I will be looking at property with Chad and our realestate agent...trying to get our own home!  But you'd better believe that I will have myself to the barn Sunday between 4 and 5 p.m. ready to give it my best shot!  ( :

Now for a bowl of ice cream!!  Hahahaaaa!!  I love ice cream!!

Oh and please forgive my spelling errors, I am having computer problems and can't get myself edited...oh, well!  Guess its like going to town without combing your hair...hey, wait I do that too!!  Oooops!  ( :

Collision

Last week was busy, yet I have accomplished very little.  Go figure!

Many, many thoughts tumbling around inside the crowded space that I call my mind, yet I have been basically unable to get anything posted.  Ahh, another Go figure!  ( :

As I was feeding the horses and mules tonight I was thinking about the spring to do list I needed to get compiled and then get started on...its always long and I am sure that its been....well, since NEVER that I have completed it.   So tonight I am thinking my way through my list and flaking out a couple of bales of hay for everyone.  Since I have to make multiple piles on the ground to make sure everyone gets all they need from the top to the bottom of the pecking order, I am walking and dropping two bales of hay per feeding.  Walking and dropping, then returning to my Danger to get more hay and walking and dropping.  During my dropping in this crazy little cycle of mine, I dropped a hay string....so I stopped bent over to pick up the string and was rear-ended by Fiona.

Now Fi follows me a lot, and begs a lot...yes she is spoiled, but I do try and keep her within her own space and out of mine.  Apparently in my feeding and list making I didn't realize she had gotten close...too close.  In fact she was sooo close that she couldn't stop in time and smacked into my back with her head.  Not her nose, but her entire head. 

I figure that the one time contact would be enough for her to take a step back and maintain her space...  Then again, I think maybe she won't because I didn't give her any consequence of her action.  Hmmm, what to do, what to do...

Oh, I have it!!  I'll take random steps and then stop short!  Damn I'm a genius!!  So I did, 7 times.  Guess how many times my sweet little filly hit me in the back with her head?  Six times!!  The single time she didn't hit me, she had stopped to grab a bite to eat...so she wasn't anywhere near me.  Brat!!

This was funny to me, but I also realize that I need to do something about her crowding...so I am thinking on that.  She also seems to be pushing the "big horses" boundaries lately as well...  She is currently sporting several seriously bald and sore spots from being reprimanded by those older and wiser than she.

Just one of those baby things I guess!  This evenings events made me ponder for a minute or two on her mental maturity and riding her.  Now its been debated over and over again on the blogs I read and even more in the magazines I read at what age is it appropriate to start your colts/fillies.  I have always thought each answer lies within that particular horse.  Fiona is a big filly, and I had planned on starting her last summer which would have been her two year old year.  I have done it before...no serious riding, just the basics at a walk and trot.  Lots of flexing and just getting comfortable then as a three year old, we put in a lot more wet blankets... 

Thanks to Fi's accident last year, she wasn't started; she was doctored.  Handled a lot, also confined a lot.  I have no idea if her being somewhat immature had anything to do with being stalled and separated from the others for so long or if she is just a pea brain...but I wonder.  Although she definately can be taught...Missy taught her how to try and open gates...and I am sure she has succeeded at least once, little butt!  ( :

Sooo long of the short of my ramblings for today is....  I sure as hell hope that  Fiona "growing up" until her three year old year makes her REALLY ready to be started, because tonight she was acting a lot like a yearling rather than a three year old!!  ( :

Is It Just Me?

Venting....

Went to WalMart do day to get a few things... saw lots of freaky people...but that is besides the point....check out lady was O.K.  Well that is until she started bagging our goods....

Now I am not sure if they give these people bonuses based on how many things they can stuff into a bag or not, but if they do...this broad was totally bucking for number one!  As she sent stuff around the turn table,  I was re-bagging like items together and keeping the bags from weight 75lbs.

I admit to working at a grocery store in the past and having to learn how to bag grocieries... I was in the customer service dept. (which in and of itself is laughable), and if it were busy at the check stands and we were slow we had to go and lend a hand.  I didn't mind it at all...it was fine with me, and easy too!  So why these people think that the deoderant should be boxed with the cheese and poptarts is beyond me....

Sadly this is not the first time that this kind of stuff has happened to me, but today I caught her watching me...and NOT stopping her insanity or asking me if there was a problem...  If she had asked, I would have been more than happy to share.  Chad may have wanted to die, but hey...maybe she just doesn't really know how to bag someone's stuff correctly... 

I am guessing that she just doesn't give a shit...but then again thats just me!!  ( :

Just In Case Anyone's Interested...

I am doing a little house cleaning/packing out stuff I haven't seen in years and came across some magazines that I want to offer to anyone that may want them...  I have John Lyon's Perfect Horse 1998-2001...they are in pretty good shape near as I can tell...I have no idea how complete these years are, but am guessing that 1999 and 2000 are with the other years being partials.  But its hard to tell and I am too lazy to find out for you!  ( : 

I am certain that there is good info in them, but I am not good at looking back over reference material...so why I even held onto all of them is sort of a mystery to me...

So if you want them please leave a comment in the comments with your e-mail address and I will mail them to you...probably in a large flat rate box...although it may take two...my gift to whoever would like them!!

Have a great Monday!!

Copy This Peppy

AKA Mustang Sally!

Mindy and I are not to be trusted when let loose on "vacation", you should know that now...we are prone to doing things that others wouldn't...saying things others wish we didn't...and dragging home things we don't need!  ( :   So it only stands to reason that we would attend a horse clinic and come home with an unhandled two year old filly.

Sally meeting Tari for the first time!

As with most things that happen with Mindy and I, it all started quite innocently.  We ended up with our trailer parked next to Sally's pen and when we would set outside after the day was done, she would stand next to us and listen to our endless blabber.  So on the third day we asked the host about the little red filly.

Sally in Agust right before she goes home with Mindy.

He said, "Oh, her...she doesn't have a name." 
"We said really?" 
He said, "Do you girls want her?" 
We of course started grinning like the cat that ate the cannery and nodded that we'd love to take her.  He said she hasn't been handled much and would need a lot of work...and we seemed pretty handy so he was sure we'd get along fine with her.  And she needed to be doing something here shortly...

Mindy offered to take her start her and bring her back to him the following spring going under saddle.  He said, that if we didn't want her once we got her going we could just find a teenage kid needing a good horse and pass her on.  She was just going to be too small for what he used his horses for.  Which is true...all of his horses were 15.1 or bigger.  They were also geldings....

Sally at Mindy's in Sept./Oct.

As we talked to him about his filly he told us that they had raised her momma and really wanted a colt out of her, but she had this filly instead.  He had pictures of the stallion, but not the mare....he shared everything he knew about both parents and then promised to catch her up that afternoon and get her in a halter.

He and his daughter went out and caught her using two saddle horses and he tied her in one of the pens that wasn't being used at the clinic.  That was after we horse whisperers, including a friend we conned into help us tried to catch her on our own.  It looked hopeful at first when Julie squatted down and stayed quiet and the filly approached and touched her...but when we tried to get a hand on her she bolted.  She ran straight over to a 4 strand wire fence and hopped it.  Not what we had anticipated at all...also odd about the whole occurrence was that she wasn't wild eyed when she went over the fence...she was in control of her emotions.  She just didn't want what we were selling.

Being unhandled she didn't eat grain or any treats we had with us...so we found a gate and opened it and lured her back into her pen using our horses.  We went directly to her current owner who had seen the whole thing and just laughed at us...said she jumps pretty good for a little horse, which was true enough.  She did drag a hind some, but didn't take down the fence or hurt herself!

She was loaded into the Mindy's trailer without much commotion and rode the 6 hours to my house without so much as a bad shift of her weight.  She was as quiet as a mouse!

Chad was good with us bringing home a new horse...Fred wasn't as OK with it, he wasn't mad, but he wasn't glad either if you know what I mean.  The land lord turned up his nose about it initially but was good with it when he found out she was going to Mindy's for the winter.  ( Some times he is weird about things...other times nothing bothers him....men...)

So in the first week, I had Sally leading pretty good.  She was stalled at night next to Fiona (who was still on stall rest after her wreck) and turned out during the day.  Not with the other horses as I wasn't sure  I could catch her in a large pasture, but she could see and touch everyone.  During this first week she also learned from Fi that the stuff poured into the bucket was good...and you should eat it before your hay.

Doesn't she have the cutest face?

In the following three weeks she learned to pick up her feet, stand tied with action going on around her, and eat grass hay.  She was from a place that grew their own alfalfa and she had never been asked to eat grass hay before...so it was a bit of a shock to her pallet at first, but she got over it quickly!  ( :  At the end of her first month with me she had a trim on those sad little feet that went really well.  I have one of the kindest and best shoers on the planet, he made certain that her first experience was a good one!  Jim rocks!!  ( :  She had also been wormer and had her yearly vaccinations.

Fronts...needing a good trim!!

Rears looking even worse than the fronts!

Chad and I named her Mustang Sally because when she is playing and runs, she holds her tail just right and looks like the horse on the Mustang Emblem.  Also, for some reason Sally just fits her.  Some animals just name themselves and she was one of them.  This filly knew her name in no time...I think she liked being "someone" to someone else.  Not just the sorrel filly.

Sally showing her mustang pose, racing Breeze Bomb.

When Fiona was ready to be turned out, Sally was turned out with her.  This gave Fi someone who didn't want to boss her around for company and also a play mate.  Fiona made sure that Sally knew that she should run to me when I arrived as there were probably a few treats waiting to be eaten.

Sally went to Mindy's house in September...and stole Fred's heart.  It took him a few days to remember her name...but he doesn't forget what is her favorite treat, and that's all that matters!!

Mindy's house is not all treats and being spoiled by Fred though.  She has been hauled all over with Mindy's barrel mare while they are working on conditioning.  Sally loads and unloads, ponies at three different gates, and will stand tied to the trailer for a long period of time.  She has been in the round pen in a saddle and took it like it was old news...  Starting her should be a snap!  ( :

Smart looking little pony!!

Even though I have every confidence she will take to riding like an old pro, and I am sure my sister or I could start her...we have decided to send her and Fiona to Mario in Southern Idaho to get a really good start on things.  As I mentioned before, he is the same guy who started Tari.  And although Tari is pretty special a good start makes it easier for everyone!

I will keep you posted on Sally and Fiona's big trip!!

The Hee Haws!

Hahahaaa!! 

I know that I have shown you these little dorks before, but I am going to chat about them for a minute anyway!

Jack Jack peeking over Patron's back.

Let me start out by saying that if it weren't for the fact that Chad saw Patron when he was about 4 hours old and begged me to get him one, I would have missed out on some of the best comedic relief on the planet.  I never really had any inclination to own a long eared equine, but now I am certain that I will never be without one or two. I love my horses...but I love these donkeys too!

Patron chasing Jack Jack through the carport. '08

Of course we couldn't get just one donkey...we are like Noah's ark here, only its Nikki's ark I guess.  ( I won't accept any animal that I don't like though...as I am the one that carries 99% of the burden or care around here....so when he wanted to get chickens a few years back, I told him hell no.  Not unless you are accepting full responsibility for their well being.  Period.  The End.  We remain bird-less to this day!  Go figure.)  Anyway I think everyone should have a "like" friend to play with.  So when Patron was about a year old Jack Jack was born, and they both came up for sale.  We rushed right in with our wallet open and took the little boogers home!  

Making sure they got every last bite...'08

Jack Jack is Patron's maternal brother.  We have no idea who Patron's pa is, but Jack Jacks dad was a donkey that my friend Marie got at a yard sale for $75.  His name was Dinky Donkey.  The momma donkey was bought in foal from a breeder...well actually they traded 3 ton of hay for 3 donkey mares in foal.

I have never seen an animal enjoy rolling the way these two do! '09

Jack Jack has much better conformation than Patron and is a bit smaller and more refined.  He is also the less trusting of new people of the two.  Patron pretty much likes everyone, although he shows less emotion all the way around...he hasn't met a person he hasn't liked.  Jack Jack has, and has no problem letting that person know.  Funny little brat!  But other than their "people" likes and dislikes, these guys are like peas and carrots (thank you Forrest Gump) you can't have one without the other!  At times, I think that they share the same brain!

M-Kitty is about to be in trouble!!  These two chase EVERYTHING! '10

I admit that neither of these guys leads worth a darn.  They will stand tied for hours, but I think that's just more of the donkey way than anything else.  These little nerds will wait out just about anything, its amazing the patients the exhibit at times!  The also don't ride, drive, or earn their keep in any fashion....other than making me laugh when I really don't want to.  Man are they funny!  Even when they are crawling under the fence and terrorizing the neighbor lady's dog as they try and walk up the road....they make me smile!

Patron and his BIG woman! ( :  '08

Oh, and the donkey's love me!  Hahaaa!!  Actually they really think that Tari is the hottest horse to be foaled.  They also seem to really like Fiona.  But as far as the rest of the girls go, they are just horses...  Patron did have a crush on Scarlett for a while, but that seems to have faded...although they did keep the big mules company when they were in the "sick bay" the other day...I think it was just so that they could get out of the rain and into the barn...but I could be wrong!  ( :

Patron and Tari...he is sniffing her ankles...still does it! '08

Donkey's rule!!

Jack Jack attack! '09

M-Kitty and Jack Jack...they both look soo happy!! '10

Mud Hens

And a few cocks....