The hay is starting to come up. Our hay farmer stopped by to look in at the crop and told us that it’s doing great. We planted at just the right time; there was enough rain to wet the seeds but not enough to drown them. Little alfalfa sprouts and grass tufts are appearing all over the field. The first cutting should be ready in 60 days.

We got a call down at the barn from Bill’s mom who was watching the kids up at the house. She said “are the horses supposed to be in the backyard?” and we said, “um…NO!” Fanny and Spice had managed to break down an entire section of fence and get through to the other side. There is barely anything growing on their side of the fence, so the nice long backyard grass was just way too tempting. They were a little excited, but mostly wanted to get as many mouthfuls in as they could before they got busted! So fortunately they stayed put for the most part until we could round them up. The funny thing was that our printer had stopped in to drop something off earlier, and we were telling him about the day that Zippy got out. Not sure how the subject came up, but it was a strange coinky-dink!

We moved Roxy and Java over to the in/out part of the church barn. Kate doesn’t have any horses over there, and it has a bigger group shelter and running room.  We couldn’t keep them out very long though as there is grass growing in that pasture and we didn’t want to take any chances. Eventually they will be out all the time there, and on that cam.

We have decided to send Luke to Jim and Sandy Jirkovsky for training in Nebraska.  He will be picked up in about a week.  We really went round about what to do with Luke and want to give him the best shot at the big time.  Jim and Sandy showed Zippy to his Worlds Best title and really like Zippy’s workmanlike attitude, but more importantly, they are flexible and natural and their philosophy matches ours….that Appaloosas should be more versatile instead of specialists and that we’d like to show Luke in a variety of events once he is at a show.  Of course, all that depends on what Luke can do well and has a good attitude about and stays healthy, but the real cost is getting a horse to a show, not necessarily the show itself.