Black Friday Weaning

I didn't go shopping today.  Instead, I got the ride Otoelene for 4 hours while we worked with the cattle.  That's better than shopping any day.  

 The cattle were in the boundary that can be a little challenging to move them out of.  But today they were ready to go on their own.

 J had to put up the temporary electric fence so they would go on into the barn lot.

 And I got to ride Otoelene up to the top of the hill to bring the rest of the cattle down.

At least the view is nice from up there.  After we got these all in the lot J took off on the 4 wheeler one way and I went on Otoelene the other to make sure none were left in the nooks and crannies.   

 This is usually the part where I put Otoelene up and do the sorting on foot.  But today, J wanting me to sort them on horseback.  There is no way I can say enough about how wonderful Otoelene did.  We would bring the cows out one at a time so J could deworm them as they went past him into the other lot.  The cows moved out better and the calves didn't get as worked up as when I am on foot.  Then when we had to run the calves through the gate one at a time to deworm them.   I had Otoelene ground tie near the gate to block them from cutting out.  She was like having a third person standing there.

There was a wild steer from a neighbor that we had to sort out and they came and picked up.  Then more temporary fence to move the calves to another field.  Then we moved the cows through the horse field into a different field that borders where we put the calves so they will be fence lined weaned.
I never dreamed I would ever have a horse this good.

Happy Thanksgiving

All packed up and heading out.

And a table full of food.

Our numbers were a little down this year so more leftovers for super.

Hope everyone had a blessed day.

Wrangler Is Still At It

I have a wonderful buyer lined up for Wrangler but she is waiting 6 weeks to make sure he recovers completely from his abscesses.  So what better to do than some more paintings.

 Some of the bolder colored ones sold well at the craft fair so we did one of those.

 I think it turned out pretty nice.

Also, the 2 black and white ones sold so we did another one of those too.  Looks like we'll have a portfolio in case he actual leaves here.  We have until Christmas to have him totally sound.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Another Pinterest Success (In my opinion anyway)

I've been a busy little bee lately.  We have an old shed getting ready to fall down so I've been trying to clean it out while it is still standing.  We, along with the previous owners, have been storing lots of scrap wood in it.  So it is a treasure trove of projects waiting to happen.  

 This time I made some imitation tobacco stick stars.  I say imitation because I had to make my own sticks from some 1 x 2 boards.

 This was my inspiration piece I found on Pinterest.  It is on Etsy for $25.  It is 18 inches where as mine is 30 inches.

 I had to go on a little hike with some fencing pliers to get the rusty barbwire.

V helped me with the sanding and I gave her one for her apartment.  She said she thought tinsel would look good on it.   I'm thinking of taking one to the Saddle Club Christmas Dinner gift exchange.  What do you think, barbwire or no barbwire?

The Goat and the Steer

Pretty self explanatory.

Pinterest Success!

I'm always on the lookout for a good Christmas project.  Some years I succeed and actually follow through with the project.  This year I found someone on Pinterest that I copied. 

 They had taken a Crate and Barrel store tree, (above)

and made their own copy.  I thought that it looked pretty doable so I gave it a try.

Of course I had to scale it up a bit, can't do anything small around here.  I ripped down some scrap 1x1 and used coat hangers for the bars.  The top angle is 75 degrees which leaves the bottom ones at 15.  The heights from tallest are 33", 27" and 17".  You'll have to wait until Christmas to see them decorated and where I decide to put them.

Good Fences #87

I have a different sort of animal in front of my fence today.   Any Guesses? 

Yes, it's a llama.  You can find him at the entrance to the "Garden for All" at the Smith-Gilbert Gardens.

For more Good Fences click HERE.

Wrangler's First Sale

I spent the weekend visiting one of my sisters.  It was a great opportunity to see her new house and the garden where she works.  I also showed Wrangler's paintings at a local art festival.  They close off one block of a street in A's neighborhood and vendors associated with the area are invited to attend.  When one of the head people found out the A had a sister with a painting horse he insisted that she get Wrangler's artwork there.  

I sold the first one to one of the other vendors before I was even finished setting up.  But things slowed down considerably.

The weather was a little nippy but the wind wasn't bad so things didn't blow over.  I did have to contend with the neighborhood kids playing basketball in the driveway behind me, rollerblading and running around on scooters.

As you can see the street was crowded with vendors.  Then, when they opened the gate, it was crowded with lots of people, strollers, kids and dogs all day.

I had to look across at this table all day.  She was selling those noisy door hangers for $25.  She had a very good day.  I'm estimating she sold at least 15.

The women that bought this was very excited and she bought a shoe too. I was selling those for $5 each and ended up selling $25 worth of old shoes.

Santa was there too, getting his picture made with everyone.  There were also bands playing all day which added to the festivities.  

• I tried to dress the part with by cowboy hat which I think drew some attention.  People would walk by and sort of look at the art the look up at me and see the hat then look over to the "Wrangle the painting horse" sign.  There would be a moment of confusion then they would look back at the paintings.  I would usually then say, "yes, the horse does the paintings."  Then the conversations would began.  Sometimes the one that recognized it was a horse artist would grab the person in front that had walked by unrecognizing and say "a horse did this."  Kids usually caught on before their parents.  I could always tell when someone understood because a smile would suddenly cross their face.  One person said she had a ranch with 5 horses and she was sure one would do this.  Good luck with that is all I'm saying.  Someone asked if I was paying my way through college with his art.  I guess he couldn't see my gray hair with my hat on.  Someone picked up a horse shoe, laying right next to the paint brushes I had on display,  and asked "is this what he paints with?'  Several people thought I should have the horse there.   I should have said, "do you want the people selling honey to have their bees here?"  The honey by the way was selling for $20 a 1/2 pint and they sold out of the 90 jars they had.  I think I'm selling that next year.  All in all an interesting day.  Sold 7 paintings for a total for $220 plus the $25 for the shoes.  So I sort of got paid to go visit my sister. At least I'm breaking even with the art supplies now.  I might have to figure out how to sell the paintings from Wrangler's  facebook page next. 

Cherokee Heights Art Festival

Wrangler has been invited to sell his works at an art festival this weekend.  

 My sister L wanted to come down and try her hand and painting with Wrangler so we could have more paintings to offer.

 L mixed the colors while I handed Wrangler the brushes.

 I think L's color choices were more bold than what I have done.  Can you see the blue horse above?

 I normaly only do one or two paintings with Wrangler at a time.  But since L made a special trip here and was having such fun, we did a record 4 at one time.

 L also did some rotating of the paper which I haven't done before.

For this last one L wanted to help Wrangler while I mixed the paints.  I'm not to thrilled with the colors but I think it is interesting to see how Wrangler's technique changed with a different handler.  Anyone interested in purchasing an original painting by a horse come see us at The Cherokee Heights Art Festival.

The Big Goat Roundup

We got a call yesterday that they were taking the goats up at the market today.  We didn't have an opportunity to round them up until this morning, in the pouring rain.  

 They were split into two groups and it took 1 1/2 hours to round them all up and get them to the barn.

 They were about as far from the barn as they could get but headed that direction without any trouble.

 Spray Paint, one of the bottle goats, was with the rest of the herd.  This probably saved her seeing as J had already marked her for sale.  He thought she was ugly and didn't want to keep her.  But since she was keeping up with the herd and not causing any trouble (remember Sissy), it looks like she'll stay.

 Once we got them all in, we sorted out the nannies we were keeping.

Then we went through the bottle goats and got out all the males to sell.  We culled 5 nannies and lost a couple more during the year so we ended up keeping 7 bottle females and 6 others.  That makes a total for 44 females.  

That left 61 to sell.  It was pretty much a trailer load.  Now the billy is in with them and we will be looking for some little ones in about 5 months.

Just Kit Sunday #92

I caught Kit Kat in the window with the sky reflecting on it.

 I think in made for an interesting special effect.

 Sort of makes him look ghostly

or ethereal. (extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world) 
I really liked that definition.

Good Fences # 85

J picked up our new billy goat last week.  We found him on Craig's List for $100 less than the breeder we've been getting one from.

 This one is a 2 year old boer billy goat.  Our last few have been kikos.

 This one is quite the pet.

 Every time I tried to get his picture he just tried crawling through the fence too me.

 This was the best I could do.

I did manage a bonus Kit Kat picture.
For more Good Fences click HERE.