Whew! Lots happening here since our last update. Sorry for the wait, but we sure have been kept on our toes J

You probably have heard already, but we have two new babies here and are waiting for Fanny’s. We kept our eyes on Roxy, sure that she would go first with the enormous udder she had. Then, just like that, Spice cam on strong and foaled a beautiful loud-colored colt around 2am on March 18. For her first foal, all went pretty well. We stayed up all night watching the two of them to see if he would nurse but you could tell that Spice was not crazy about that idea. She wasn’t ever trying to hurt him, just pinned her ears a lot, but we wanted to make sure nothing bad happened. At 6am he still hadn’t nursed so we called the vet to get some help. He arrived about 6:30 and together we tried and tried to have the colt nurse without any success. Finally about 7:45am we decided to take them both into the vet clinic where they had more people and tools to get them together. Once we got there they milked all the colostrum from Spice and gave him a good drink. In addition they had some colostrum in storage that they gave him. His Igg test after that was 1400, a very good score. Finally at about 3pm we got a call that he had started nursing on his own. though Spice was not taking an interest in him. We decided to keep her there until the morning so that they could continue to bond, hopefully.

Over the last week things have not progressed very well in that department. We have tried numerous things to get Spice to let “Finnegan” nurse, including building a chute for Spice with an opening near her teats for the foal to stick his head in and nurse without getting kicked. We also looked into getting a nurse mare but, for several reasons, we don’t think it’s the best option. So Bill will be hand feeding the little guy several times each day for the next four months with a replacement formula and we will socialize him as much as possible with the other horses. There’s nothing more we can do to convince Spice to do what’s needed. Many have told us that this is sometimes a one-time, maiden mare deal and she could be her normal sweet, loving self next time.  We may decide to breed her once more, to find that out.  Then if she does not take good care of her baby a second time we’d not breed her after that.  We still have to talk more about that though.

In the meantime, Roxy had a beautiful, colored colt as well! And on the same day as Spice, so she became a mom AND a grandma on the same day!! Roxy is an old hand at this baby thing, and has done a remarkable job with her little one. All is above normal and the little guy is thriving. He is very spunky and reminds us a lot of Bips. We can tell Roxy will have her hands full for sure!

The other exciting thing that happened was that Cookie and Chief went on their trip down to Texas. They will be living at Destiny Ranch outside of Tyler, Texas, about an hour from Dallas/Fort Worth. We will miss them terribly! They loaded up like champs, Chief into a box stall and Cookie into her space. It was a big 18 wheeler. The driver had a little hard time getting turned around near the barn, but luckily the ground was nice and frozen so he was able to turn around the big old tree.

Thanks for watching.

We have done a couple of exciting things since our last update. The biggest thing we did was to get a new dog and a new horse.

The dog's name is Moses. He is a great dane mix. He is about 5 years old and is pretty much all trained. We got him from a shelter in Illinois as a former stray. He is doing great other than he is a little too excited about cats in general. Bobcat is now 13 years old, slowing down a bit and is in the house 24/7 so we have had to keep them separate. We are working through this and I think we will get past it and arrive at a reliable, calm place with a little more work and supervision.  Moses is very eager to please and is a great listener, so he is easy to teach and correct. 

Checkers is our new broodmare. She is a quarter horse that Andy Chvala knew about. She is very stocky and should be a nice broodmare for us. She has a cataract in one of her eyes, but it doesn't seem to bother her.  She has settled in fast and made herself right at home.

The other thing we have been doing is trying to deal with the weather. We have had a ton of snow. Then it melted and rained and then froze again. There is ice everywhere and it makes it hard to move the horses in and out and get work done safely. So far I haven't fallen, but sorry to say, Susan has.  She is just sore, and I am sure I will sooner or later. It is supposed to rain this weekend so maybe finally it will melt again and we can do some heavy-duty tractoring clean-up.

Thanks fot watching,

S/B

I talked to the nicest lady. She had called interested in Chief. She said she had finally come to the point where she could get another horse. Her last horse she adopted when it was born. She was only 16 years old, and a nearby farm had had this colt, but the mother died shortly after foaling. The farmer was going t pt the foal down as he had no way to feed it. She offered to take it and after convincing her parents the horse was hers. She would bike around to other nearby farms, milking their goats and then feeding the little guy. She had that horse for 34 years and it had just died last November. He had a great life thanks to her and now she is ready for another. She is a fascinating woman. She had been a carpenter for the last 25 years and is now retired. She also shoots professionally and has been asked to try out for the Olympic team. I really hope she decides to buy him. She wanted some new pictures, and though he is dirty, I took a couple. She really liked the pictures I posted. She says she is going to work on her husband and then get back to us.
We had another woman contact us about a mare she wants to trade plus some money for a well broke gelding. It is worth a look. You can see her here. She seems pretty nice. She doesn't ride the greatest yet, but she is still young and as a broodmare that wouldn't matter. She came out today to "test drive" all the geldings, and everything went pretty well. She really likes Luke. Her mare Annie will be coming here on Monday to spend a week with us so we can decide if we want to keep her as part of the deal. It would be nice to have another good broodmare.

Holy COW, has it been cold here! Below zero for many a night. Now it has warmed up a little, but we have lots of snow again. Last time we had a cold snap we had a little incident here at the house. I opened Mabel's door to the garage and before I knew it Bobble darted inside to get away from me!. She has been going into the garage and then into Mabel's heated room. I startled her and in she came. She has only once before gotten into the house by accident and is still wild. We got her into the sunroom and then back out the sunroom door. I was worried that she would never go out and hide under the couch or something, but it turned out to be no problem at all.

The big news this week is that it looks like we are going to be getting another dog. He is located in Illinois and we will go there Friday after we are done riding. The dogs name is Moses and I am so excited about this. I thought we had talked about him in an earlier update but I can't seem to find it. He is soo cute. Greyhound and Great Dane Mix. He is huge. We of course will need to make sure he is totally gentle with the dogs, cats, and other critters we have around here.

Thanks for watching.

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyBuddy!!! Yes, it has been a while. Lots going on! We’ll bring you up to speed…

The biggest news is that Erika, our renter/boarder/helper/trainer, was in a very bad car accident last week. Thankfully, she is fine for the most part. Her truck was hit by another car and rolled over several times. All in all, Erika was VERY lucky. She is also a tough lady; most other people would likely have been hurt much worse. Erika was released from the hospital after a few days and we wish her a speedy recovery.

In Erika’s absence, Joe and Sarah have stepped up their chores, helping Susan out with laundry, cleaning, dishes and such in the house, as well as pitching in at the barn to cover chores there with Dad.  They are such good kids.
The horses are all doing well. Everyone has their thick, wooly winter coats, which came in handy with the all the cold, windy, snowy weather we’ve been having. Cookie and Frosty are now under lights every night.  Won’t be long and it will be breeding time, and then foaling time. Tomorrow I will be riding the geldings as we are having someone come look at them and ride them this week and we want to make sure they are ready. It is an 11 year old girl so the horses should be perfect for her.
The second biggest news is that we sold Moxy and Matilda. A very nice couple bought them together so she would have a horse to ride (Mattie) and he would have one to train (Moxy.) We met with them several times and are confident the two ladies are in excellent hands.
I’ve been working on several BarnCam installations at local farms, and last Friday was able to get the last Dairy Cam installed. It is in Watertown, a city near where Buddy Gail lives and so not too far away from here. It went well and the owner seems very happy with it. All of the snow started coming about half way though the day and so it was a tricky ride home. The snow was really heavy and it seemed like more than 6 inches when I was plowing last night. Heavy, wet, snow and in the morning all of the chains on the gaits were frozen. That is always a pain as it is a little more time consuming moving everyone around.
We’ve taken in some additional new boarders, so we are now up to nine in all. With our own 14 horses plus the cows, we decided to add some outside space. So we opened up the smaller enclosure in the back paddock and made two larger halves. Then we put a shelter in the middle. Now we could have as many as four horses sharing the back. We also put a new shelter in the bee pasture, so horses can stay out all the time there too.

We also have been tracking down Dixie. We got the cell phone number of the last owner who bought her at the World Show a few years ago and have been trying to get a return call.  I really hope we can find her and make sure she is in a good home. We will keep you posted.

Looking out at the colts in the backyard pasture it is startling to see how big Chief is getting.  He almost could pass for Frosty from a distance!  Not as big as Rudy was at this age, I think, but big. If we still have them both next Spring it will be hard to choose one to maybe work with as a longe liner.

We ordered two new shelters for the west paddocks by the new barn and the bee pasture.  We have had more inquiries about boarding than we can handle, so if we convert a couple more turnouts to year-round pastures we could take on a few more *well-behaved* horses.  We built our own shelters the first time around and they are still serviceable, but we just don't have time to do that right now so we are going the commercial route.  When we penciled it all out it was not that much more money for the ready-made, steel-clad ones, and they deliver. Can't beat that!  They should be ready in about three more weeks.

Erika has started working more hours now that the weather is cooling off and fewer sprinkler systems are needed. (That is what she does in the nicer months - her dad owns the business.) Most of those additional hours will be riding our your horses to get them riding really well. Practice makes perfect and they are all pretty young.
Last week Bill went to Verona, Italy for the ApHC at the big Italian Horse Festival. It is huge. Much bigger than any he's seen in the US and it seems as big as Equitana in Germany which is for all of Europe. The big problem was that he had a booth, but no stuff. The ApHC had a little problem with the shipment (to put it nicely) and the materials arrived the day after he left! Luckily he was sharing the booth with the POA National club so the booth is not a total waste. The Italian Appaloosa Club was also there, but in a different booth. He spent a lot of time there also, but since Bill doesn't speak Italian, he couldn't really help much. In Germany many Germans speak English, but at this show very few Italians spoke English at all. One highlight was the Appaloosa Italian president took Bill over to a booth to show him something. Behind the booth was what looked like a bowl. He told Bill in broken English that he was from Parma. Bill didn't understand at first, and then the guy took a small shovel and chucked out a section of the inside of the bowl. It really wasn't a bowl at all, but a round of cheese, parmesan cheese. Get it, from Parma? It suddenly dawned on him that that is where that cheese comes from. It looked like a bowl because the middle had all been dug out. It was not grated as we normally have, but in nice chunks. Bill said it was the best cheese of any kind he had ever, ever had. It tasted like ours, only smoother almost like milk. He could have eaten there all day. The guy was so proud of it, and we don't blame him.

Thanks for watching.
S/B