Goat Banding Time

We are pretty much done kidding and it was time to round them all up and band the billies and deworm the nannies.  

 The hardest part is making the barn leak proof.  Those little ones can squeeze through about anywhere.

 J waded in and grabbed the kids.

 Sometimes one at a time,

 sometimes two.  I would band the billies then shoe them out the door.  E was the gate keeper.

But sometimes she would grab one too.  With all of the kids done it was time to move on to the nannies.  J thinks he hurt his back wrestling with a few of them.  Two got by and there was no getting them back.  We'll just have to watch and catch them with the goat hook if they look like they are having problems.  Now they just have to eat weeds, grow and get fat so we can sell them in the fall.

Good Fences #60

It's hard to play tennis without a good fence.

 There would be entirely too much ball chasing. 

 E handily won this match the other day.  Yesterday was Senior Day and she was presented with a gift and flowers, which I missed because I was at work.  J made it though so that was nice. 

One or two more matches then our high school career is over.

For more Good Fences click HERE.

Wangler, The Painting Horse

I probably made a huge mistake but a few weeks ago I turned down a very reasonable offer for Wrangler.  I didn't care much for the man and he seemed to be too aggressive in his riding.  He didn't want to do any arena work or get use to the horse.  He just wanted to go out to the field and see if Wrangler could chase cattle.  I told him multiple times that Wrangler was a western pleasure horse and I had never done that kind of riding with him.  It fell on deaf ears so out he went to chase cattle.   Wrangle did fine but I really feared for the man's safety if the took Wrangler home and did no prep work.   One of his comments was, "I like that you have already done all of the ground work on him."  I don't think he realized that ground work is an ongoing necessity.  So after much prayer and torment I turned down the offer.  Wrangler is still for sale but I have had no other interest lately. 

 So in the mean time, "What to paint?"

 This is the last of Wrangler's first water color series.

There were 30 sheets of paper in the pack and now we are out.  This paper was 11 x 15.  I'm thinking of maybe getting some smaller paper for his next series.  Any suggestions?
Our local saddle club is having a 3 day Horsefest in June and I think I will set up a booth to sell some paintings.  I am also trying to figure out how to attach a payment option to his Wrangler Can Paint facebook page and offering some for sale there.

Wonderful Weekend

A couple of years ago for Mother's Day V and E got me a blackberry bush.  It has since multiplied and was starting to get out of control. 

 So this year for Mother's Day, J set out to tame the blackberries.  While he was doing this, E was being a wonderful helper with other yard and farm stuff.  (sorry E, no pictures, we were too busy working)

 Even though this is a garden, the soil is not very deep and digging post holes is no picnic.

 But J's might prevailed and he managed to get 2 posts in and now I have a wonderful blackberry trellis.

Then on Sunday, V came for a visit and surprised me with a new grill. (I do have to share it with J for Father's day however.)  Our current grill was a wedding gift from 26 years ago.  I guess it was time for an upgrade.  Mike did a great job breaking it in by grilling some delicious porterhouse steaks. (home grown of course)  What a wonderful weekend.

Happy Mother's Day

Thanks for always being there for me, 

and with such great style!

Love you Mama.

Cattle, Horses and Goats

  We had no telephone service here for 3 days last week so no internet which meant no blog updates.  After a fixed broken wire in the phone company's box, we are now back in business.

 We were going to move cattle on horse back yesterday so J caught Brother.  His shoes had just been reset on Monday but by Friday one was bent.  He spends more time out of commission because of his shoes than any horse I've seen.  So J decided to give Hank a chance.

 I think they got along pretty well.  We got another group of cows and calves across the creek.

 And we got the 4 young bulls turned out on some better pasture.

 We are feeding 10 bottle goats and they are a pain.  They stay in the dog pen in the barn at night. Then in the morning after we feed them we turn them out with the other goats.  The problem is if they ever see us they come running.  It is really hard to get anything done with 10 goats running around your feet trying to suck on your pants.

We haven't had a chance to deworm all of the nannies yet so J has been catching the ones that look wormy and treating them individually until we can get the whole herd up.  The goat hook has really come in handy for this and J is a pro at using it. 

 And 2 of our previous bottle goats have kidded.  Frosty had a single,

and Chocolate had a set of twins.  Always something happening around here.  Maybe we're done with the triples for this year.
Kid count - 70.

More From A Busy Saturday

Here is a little more of what went on here last Saturday.

 V and her boyfriend Mike were visiting so of course we had to go feed the bottle goats to get in our allotment of cuteness.

 After much prying we finally got out of E that she was going to the prom.  This information came out on Friday night.  The prom was Saturday.  Long story but Saturday morning she decided to go shopping for a dress to wear to the cookout.  None of the 10 perfectly fitting dresses suited her.  She chose the 11th dress that needed alterations.  So, get home, fix dress.

 Now we need a dress for the prom.  Luckily, V still had her prom dresses and E picked this blue one.  However, E is 2 inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter that V was so, yes, more alterations.

 V consented to fix E's hair and did a wonderful job with the curling iron despite burning her hand in the process.

 This is V in front of her new apartment.  Yay for V being home to help.

 Don't forget, Saturday was the beehive day too.

 Then my sister A and her son M stopped by for a visit.  A had  not ridden a horse in 35 years but after losing 100+ pounds she was anxious to get back on.

 She rode Pep and even did some cantering.  Just like riding a bike, but maybe a little more sore the next day.

 Mike, back to V's boyfriend, had never ridden so he took a spin on Hank.

 Hank and Mike were content to just walk around in the barn for a bit.

 Then J got on Hank, me on Otoelene, and A on Pep and off we went for a ride around the farm.

 What a great experience to be able to share.

Then we ended up with nephew M down at the barn for the evening bottle goat feeding.
Whew, I need a nap.