August has arrived cool and breezy with very little humidity.  Just about perfect and weather you can only find in WI.  Almost time to head back to school…

We have found a horse helper and can’t wait until she settles in.  Nicole is studying animal science and has great experience.  She comes highly recommended and we are excited to welcome her to the farm. 

We finally got all the hay off the field a few days ago.  It is currently on the wagons in the arena, but tomorrow the boys will be back to put it all away.  It is always such a relief to get it off the field. It looks pretty good even though it took forever to dry. The new barn will be totally full with these wagons, and the mare barn will also be full. Good thing we have the big barn as we might need to put some of the third cutting there when we get it.

The horses are all growing up. They each have certain things I like about them. Elvis is the biggest. I can’t believe how much bigger he is than Finnegan. Born on the same day, with the same sized parents. Finnegan is the friendliest still you can’t blame him since I handled him so much.  Trace is the cutest and with his mom but enjoying some socialization with other horses. 

We had a nice surprise recently in the Milwaukee Journal. They called me last week as they were doing an article about new hi tech devices farmers are using. They mentioned the barncams on the side column of the front page of the business section which was pretty nice. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=781774

Susan and Moses are continuing to recover.   Both are moving well and Susan will start PT very soon.  Both have been great patients and complain very little.  J 

Three news “bigs” around here. The first big news is that Java won the Heading and Healing Championship at the National Show this past week. Andy & Elizabeth Chwala have been training him. Java got a nice trophy and of course the recognition is great. He was in excellent form, all fired up and ready to work. Here are the video clips of him at the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj-0jAE5RIc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8AI6UNzdVc

In other big news, Susan got a great report from the doctor on her foot. She now has a “boot” instead of a cast which only stays on for another month. The best part is she got the all-clear to walk and drive. Oh, wait….well, at least that part is OFFICIALLY sanctioned now, lol!

The third big news is that the internet finally got fixed. We have been having terrible trouble lately and it got fixed just in time. I had to leave for a board of directors meeting in Mississippi last week, and Time Warner got here and fixed everything the night before I left. I gave Joe a crash course in internet recovery just in case we had any problems while I was gone.

The horses are managing very well. We are starting Checkers and Annie on the little grass pasture next to them. We figured we might as well use it since we have it there. The moms and “babies” (they are getting so big!) are still in the big west pasture and little Finnegan is beside them in the backyard paddock. We moved the big boys, Sport and Scoops, out to the back paddock next to Haley. Haley is the boarder with a cyst on her navicular bone, and last week the farrier put special shoes on her to relieve the pressure caused by this. The hope is that, with time, conditioning and the right shoes, she can be ridden again. We are crossing our fingers for Haley and her owner.

Thanks for watching J

We are still trying to find a replacement for Erika. We have had some good candidates that we have interviewed, but their availability is not what we need. We did have one interesting horse call. I got a call today from a lady in Germany. She had purchased some breedings to Zippy, but her vet put the semen in a container that leaked so all the semen thawed and died. She needed some more and was wanted to find out what we would charge. Lucky for her, there is another woman in Germany that had bought some semen she could no longer use so she just sold them to the other lady and we were all set.

The horses are all doing great. I have to keep making the halters bigger as the foals continue to grow. We had a visitor come try out Cash and Luke. She does fox hunting (using a scent drag, not real) and is looking for a real steady, sane horse, and we just happen to have lots of them. I think that is mostly because we have sane mares and a sane stallion. We also had Sport and boarder Scoops, the two colts, gelded - all went well. They seem no worse for it (but don’t ask them!)

Frosty is having a filly, per Dr. Andy, who is batting 1000 as to the sex of future Saddlebrook foals.  Frosty also got her 4 month vaccinations, and Roxy was preg checked.  Dr. Andy *thinks* she is in foal, showing us a tell-tale shadow but unfortunately that shadow is coupled up with what looks to be a small cyst, so he will check again in a few weeks to be sure. 

The big red barn got a new coat of paint just in time for the Buddy Bash. The painters power washed it one day then came back another day to spray paint the walls and hand paint the trim. It sure looks nice.

Speaking of the Bash, a good time was had by all. We escaped the rain for most of Saturday – in fact, until late afternoon it was a beautiful day. With all the rain we’d had until then, it seemed a miracle to have dry weather. Many buddies had a hard time getting here as all of the east west roads were closed due to flooding. Finally they all made it. Thanks to buddy Gail, we had a bonfire. The saddle fitting was great. Comedy Sports was very funny. The hail held off until the end of the day, and Luke Warm was rockin’ with the Karaoke. Fun Fun Fun.

Thanks for watching J

And the winners are….

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