Fall Festival

V's real estate agent invited us to his Fall Festival.  A sort of friends and family and customer appreciation event at his farm. 

 We went to a wedding there this summer which was beautiful, so we already knew how to get there.

 Lots of pumpkins everywhere.

 V and M were good enough to pose for their picture.  We had BBQ with sides and lots of desert choices, yum. 

M and V had a couple visiting with them for the weekend, and they came too.  A very nice time, plus we got to take a pumpkin home.

Crossing The Creek

Draper has been doing so good lately that I thought I might try her across the creek.

 With the drought we are in, the creek is pretty low right now.

 There were some ducks to contend with.  Is it a raft of ducks because they are in the water or a brace of ducks since some are on land?  Anyway, it turned into a flock of ducks when they all took to the air.  But no spook from Draper!

 And we went calmly across, after a little splashing.

 Some of the horses get a little antsy when faced with the wide open space.  But Draper took it all in stride and calmly and curiously walked around the field.

 You can see how brown our hill behind the house is.  Since it lays to the south, it is burnt to a crisp. 

 Then it was time to head back across the creek.  But only after a little more splashing. 

It is really beautiful and peaceful down at the creek. 

Dewormer Change Up

We are still having problems with worms in our kid goats. 

 They fall into 3 groups, 25% look great, 25% look puny, and 50% are average.

 Since the ivermectin doesn't seem to be helping much, I decided to change things up and switch to levamisole.  It comes as a powder, mix it with water and drench orally. 

 I made up a chart of how many cc's per 5 pound increments. 

 J captured the kids, on at a time.  We weighed a few to get an idea of the weight range.  Good = 45+ pounds, average = 35 pounds and puny = 25 pounds. 

J held, I drenched them, the puny ones got a vitamin drench too and then a green mark on everyone so we could tell which ones had been done.  We hope this will give them the boost they need so we can get a growth spurt before market time.

Tangled Mess

We had 4400 feet of fence replaced this summer.  That means there is 4400 feet of old fence to get rid of. 

 We got started on the first pile this week.  The fence builders had rolled up the old wire.  We just had to mash it flat with the front end loader,

 wrangle it onto the truck, 

and unload it at the dump.  Two truck loads down, umpteen to go.  I think this definitely counts as Farmercising.

Finally, Draper's Second Trail Ride

I can't believe it has been over a year since I rode Draper on her first trail ride.  Always big plans but it is hard to follow through.

 J decided it would be a good day to head to the mountain.  He picked Hank, once again wanting his calmness to rub off on Draper. 

 She was a little excited at the beginning because we parked next to a trailer that had 3 other horses tied up.  She was very interested it trying to see them.  So at first, we stuck pretty close Hank. 

 But that didn't last long and Draper was waaaay out in front.

 She would still alert to rocks and logs, but she was very brave and went past pretty much everything on her own.

 We are in the midst of a drought.  You can see how stressed the rhododendron is.

I was really pleased with how calm Draper was for the entire ride.

 Now I just need to get her to a couple of horse shows to get her use to that sort of stuff. 

Another successful ride, thanks J.

Coupon Saturday #33

V has now gotten into couponing too.  She managed to get in on a deal with Airwick that I missed out on. 

 She had one more account that she had clipped the coupon on.  It was B1G1 free, plus there was a sale, B1G1 free, which made 2 totally free.  By the time I realized this, they had pulled the coupon off the site.  Anyway, I think V got them on 3 accounts but was saving one for her $5 off $25 Saturday.  You will notice, there is no Airwick in the picture.

 And her total is pretty high.  She said the store was out of lots of stuff so she had to improvise.  Her problem was, she grabbed the wrong Airwick, so the coupon didn't work.  She ended up returning those so her real total was about $4.

 This was the deal I came up with.  Finally found a store with the free plug, plus the $1 Finish tabs and I had one account with a $2 off Finish, so $1 overage, YAY.

Not too bad, -0.05 made it $1.06 with tax.  I love getting paid to go shopping.  Plus, V let me use her receipt for my Ibotta app, which gave me 50 cents back on the Suave deodorant.  Another score!

Button's New Mom

We had our first calving problem, backwards calf and cow never went into labor.  When J got her up, the calf was dead.

 Button is almost a month old now and growing like a weed.  But it was time to adopt her out to a new mom.

 We had to haul her back over to the farm where the fall cows are.  J didn't want to hook up the trailer,

 so we just tied her in the bed of the pickup.

 She didn't get any breakfast, so she was a bit hungry.  She was sucking on everything while J was putting the calf hide on her.

I don't think she understood why we weren't giving her any milk.

 Once everything was situated, J made the introductions. 

 Button really had no idea what to do, so we got the cow in the chute and helped Button out.

It didn't take her long to figure things out. 

Mom was thrilled to death with her.  J went back this evening to check on things.  He took the hide off and the cow cleaned Button right up.  He said she looked full and acted satisfied.  Hope this makes a successful pair.

Better Than Otoelene?

I may not go that far just yet, but things are looking promising for Draper.  So far her feet are holding up better anyway. 

 At 3 years old, and for the fact that I usually only ride her a couple of times a week, I still lounge her for a little bit before I get on.  Plus, I am old and don't like surprises.  Some days this just consists of w/t/c both ways then done.   Next, I ride her in the barn, usually w/t/c both ways, work on leg yields, side passing, pivoting (not very good yet) and backing.  Then it's outside for a ride around the farm.  So far we have covered about 3/4 of the property. 

 Who needs to go to a Cowboy Challenge with this stuff to pick our way through.

 And instead of being spooked by the uprooted tree,

 she just wanted to see if there was anything edible on it.

 She had been getting a lot better at going down steep hills with more control.

 Some of the horses get really nervous through here.  But not Draper, at least not yet.  Our side is clear, but off to the right...

you can never tell what is on the other side of the line fence.  Cattle could be moving around in there or deer might jump out.

 We did some water and mud crossings today, very calm, never tried to rush or jump over anything.

 Draper seems much  more curious than Otoelene.   She has been very brave and eager to go new places.

 I even let her play in the water for a bit, it was pretty hot.

She loves the cattle.  I'm pretty sure she would love to chase them around, but I am holding her to just walking and standing calmly around them.  Maybe when the weather cools off, we can do some official trail riding.