65 Degrees

Today was a beautiful 65 degrees.  A perfect day for a ride around the farm.

 Hank walked along at a pleasantly brisk pace.  Nothing ever seems to phase him.

 It's hard to believe that is section was so thick with rose bushes pre goat herd that we couldn't even see our cattle when they were in here.

 There are still a few remnants of the multiflora roses.

Looks like I might have a little cleaning up to do later.

Maybe I could add it to some of J's wood piles.

Gearing Up

J has been anticipating the next big ride.  I've looked it up and there are at least 7 rides within 5 hours of us this spring and summer. 

 Jessica hasn't been ridden much in the last 4 months and this was her first time in the new barn.  After a little looking around and warm up lunging J got on and she did fine.  The wind was gusting to 35 mph outside and there were a few snow squalls.

 She did check out Kit.

 He had a prime viewing spot.

Jessica can't quite work up as much speed in here as she does in the outdoor arena but all in all it was a good workout.

Kit's First Snow

The snow is all gone now.  It melted in just 2 days.  This was Kit's first snow experience. 

 "It looks kind of wet.  Cat's don't like wet feet."

 "And that looks wet and cold."

"And you think I'm going to walk on that!"

Lights, Camera, Action

They've been working on the barn for a week and a half.  Look what we finally got. 

 A circuit breaker and....

 LIGHTS.  12 high bay lights.

 And shop lights.

J didn't think his shed lights were in the same class as my lights though.

Horse Judging

V and E competed in the B&B Horse Judging Contest this past weekend.  They had a 3rd girl from another county lined up to be on their team but 5 minuets before the contest started her FFA coach (whom she had already checked with and said it was ok) said she couldn't be on the 4-H team.  I went to the office and asked if there were any individuals judging that could be added to our team and there were 2 girls from Maryland.  So now we had a full team of 4. 

 There were over 200 4-H and FFA kids there.

 Team mates were not suppose to be standing next to each other

 but you can see there was no love loss there.

 The classes were pretty good this year, Saddlebreds, huters, quarter horses, reining,  pleasure and equitation.

V was the only one to get an individual ribbon, 5th  in reasons.  The "team" placed 5th in halter, 5th in performance, and 5th overall.  The Maryland coach was a little surprised but pleased her girls got to go home with some ribbons.   I hope to have an actual county team for the next contest.  We'll see.

Black Eye

I managed to give myself a black eye 2 nights ago.  I was going to include a picture but decided I didn't really want to post a close up of my face like that so you will just have to do with the description.
As I said 2 days ago during the snow storm the lights flickered a couple of times before we went to bed.  Then at 1 AM we were rudely awakened by all of the smoke detectors going off simultaneously.  I usually leave our bedroom door open but V was staying up later so I closed it halfway to keep the light out.  I forgot about that at 1 AM while I was trying to put on my robe in the dark because the power was now out and my head was ringing with 6 smoke detectors going at full pitch.  So with that I ran my face directly into the edge of the door which abruptly stopped my smoke detector progress.  J, still in bed, did ask, "what did you hurt?'  He use to just say, "what now?' whenever I let out a painful noise so I guess he has learned that if I yell something is usually wrong.  Anyway, after I picked myself up off the floor I had to disconnect all of the smoke detectors to stop the beeping and now I have a black eye.

This was different than J's smoke detector problem he had while the rest of us were off to California for the Rose Parade.  When I called home the first day he said one of the smoke detectors was beeping.  I told him where the spare batteries were and thought that would be the end of it.  The next day he said it was still beeping.  I said to press the test button to reset it.  The next day it was still beeping.  I said to check the breakers that maybe they were all wired together and he could just flip the breaker to shut it off.  When we got home it was so late I didn't even try to check on where the beeping was coming from but the next morning on my way to work there it was, in my purse.  I had left my pager at home and it had gone off and was sending a reminder beep every 2 minutes.  J had put up with it for a week.

Bit Day

I decided to try Otoelene in a bit today.  I had this new pinchless snaffle that I wanted to use. 

 But her head was too small for the headstall that I had handy.  I did lunge her for a few minuets and despite some minor chewing she did fine.

 I went ahead and just used the halter that I had been riding her in even though it is too big and sits too high on her nose.  The bucket is still a big help in getting on.  I've got to get a less slippery saddle pad.

 Lots of rubbing and moving around in the saddle.

 Flexing to the left,

 and to the right.  Notice she hasn't taken a step since I got on.

Then off we go.  Still just walk and trot for now until she gets a little bigger and older.  Thanks J for taking the pictures.  I think it's the first time he's seen me ride her.

Snow Storm

It seemed like we had nothing but snow last year.  We are finally getting our first snow of the winter today. 

 It's a very wet and heavy snow.  The power has flickered off twice so far.

 The weather has been so mild the daffodils were starting to bloom.

 They were promising to be very pretty this year.

Looks like we'll end up with about 8 inches.

Hauling Heifers

It was time to move our bred heifers from our rented land 20 minutes away back to the house. 

J swooked them in with a bat of hay.

We had sold 6 of them last month.  That left a pretty uniform group of 14.

Nothing is ever set up right to start with so there are always preparations before the trailer can be backed in. 

They are unloaded under the watchful eye of Emma. 

Now they are close to the house were J can keep a close check on them when they start to calve next month. 

Happy Valentine's Day

Chickens, Maybe

J has been talking about getting some chickens for quite some time now.  He raised them growing up and loves free range eggs over store bought. 

 This pitiful chicken house is on our other farm,

 but contains this nesting box which we might be able to use.   That is if we can get to it without the building falling on us.

 Another building has some old windows

and this gable end.  Maybe we can come up with a plan to reuse some of these parts this spring.

Rabid

I was catching a horse when Emma ran toward the trees and I heard an odd noise.  When I look there was a raccoon running around in circles.  I called Emma away I got J when he came in for lunch. 

 The raccoon had only moved about 20 yards during the hour before J got in.

Emma, Bumble, Bea, Kit, the horses and me, are all vaccinated against rabies because you never know what will show up.

Circus Training?

We had this big orange ball one of the girls won in elementary school.  I thought I would use it to help desensitize Otoelene.

Kit seemed to have other plans.  It looked like I was training a miniature circus lion.

Otoelene wasn't very concerned about the ball.

She was curious.

And she let me bounce in all around and over her.  She did flinch a time or two when it bumped her leg but that was about the only reaction.

I had been using the fence to climb on to get on her but I thought I would start using the stirrups.  The pad I have been using is to slick and her withers aren't very high so the saddle slid pretty bad so I used a mounting bucket.

It's hard to take a picture of myself riding.  We are up to walking and trotting, one rein stops and neck flexing.  Her trot is soooo smooth.

"Kit, will you please let go."