Garden's End

The garden has gone mostly to tommy toes and weeds so it was time to say goodbye to it. 

 V and E helped me clear it off this weekend.  I always have such grand  plans in the spring to keep it nice but somehow it never works out.

E helped pick out some of the nice green tomatoes to ripen later.  And believe it or not, I still have peppers and broccoli, but with high temps expected in the 30's next week, those won't last long.  Now I can start thinking about what a good garden next year's will be.

Training, Day 4

Well, we know his registered name now, Just An Otoe.  I'm not sure that helps us much in trying to figure out what to call him though.  

 His seems to be a fast learner and retains the lessons from one day to the next.  The other horses are still very interested in trying to see him.

 We've started working on picking up his feet and he's pretty accepting so far with that.

 His is lunging at the walk and trot,

 and yielding his hindquarters.  I've taken him to the ring to let him graze a couple of times.  So far his acts so starved for grass that there is no working him there, just eating.

I know he's been worked some with a plastic bag so we tried that today.  I don't think he was scared of it just angry with it and trying to bite it.

Fall Calves and the Last Two Pears

The fall calving cows are almost done calving.

 I don't get out to the farm where they are near as much as J.  But I had to go today to help J with a cow who's horn was growing in the wrong direction and getting ready to do some damage to her head.   We had to cut it back away from her face so it wouldn't puncture the skin.

 I didn't think anyone would want to see pictures of that so I took pretty calf pictures instead.

 There is also an old pear tree on the farm with one last pear hanging on.

Then there is this pear sorry -pregnant cow, one of the last still hanging on

Lesson One

What's His Name, had his first lesson yesterday, sensitizing and desensitizing.  Things went pretty well.  We actually had 2 short sessions, morning and afternoon.  There were a  lot of distractions in the morning with the horses at the gate whinnying and the cattle at the feed troughs making a ruckus and of course the wind blowing. 

 But still, we were able to send him off,

 walk and trot small circles, yield the hindquarters, push the shoulder over and flex the neck both ways.

 Then, standing still desensitizing with the whip and even picking up the front feet.  Then a big lesson on backing up out of my space.

I keep looking back at the pictures of Otoelene at this age and see how much we had already done.  Good progress for one day though and we have all winter to catch up.
Thanks for all of the positive comments about his purchase!

Call Us Crazy

I can't believe we went and got another one.  But as I said before, J is so impressed with Otoelene's attitude that he wanted one of his own.  (I'm not reminding him that Otoelene was his to start with and I was just going to help him train her.)

 I got momentarily distracted by the weanlings.  They are all so cute.

 But we were after the brown yearling gelding.  He had never been on a trailer before so I was ready to spend some time here but he ended up getting on so fast that I only got the one picture.

 The next picture was him inside.

 When we got home with him there was immediate interest from the other horses.

 They were all very excited in hopes of seeing the new comer.

 He came off as well as he went on.

 And was very relaxed in the barn lot.

 V was home from college for the weekend and got in on the inspection.

I haven't seen his papers yet so I don't even know his name but he is a registered solid Paint.  He is out of the same Quarter Horse stud as Otoelene and the paint mares are closely related.  No white hairs at all.  I think with the stallion being a creamello and the mare being a black/white paint that his color is officially a smokey black.  J however, is just a little worried about the wildness of his mane.

Guess What I Have

Looky what came in the mail today.  Our very own Vaulting Surcingle!!!!

At our last Saddle Club Horse Show the 4-H Club was able to sell 50/50 raffle tickets.  Unfortunately, we didn't sell enough for our half to buy the saddle.  But guess what.  One of the tickets I bought WON.  So, I donated the money back to the club and then there was enough.  After a little more online searching I found one even less expensive than the one on Ebay I was originally looking at.  Now maybe I can find some side reins and see if Pep might like to be a vaulting horse.  Hank is great but he is so tall and a bit rough (understatement of the year) at the trot.  Pep is only 14.2 and has a very smooth western pleasure trot and goes nowhere at the lope.  Can't wait to get down to the barn at try it out.

Fall Colors

The last couple of days have been gorgeous!  Blue sky and temps in the 60's. 

 And looking out of my front door I see this beautiful red maple.  The only problem is I'm looking out of the door because I'm cleaning windows.  Yes, time to take out the screens and clean the windows.  One of my least favorite house work chores.

 But I also get to see this.

 A magnificent hickory tree on the hill in front of the house.

And yes, I get to ride the horses in all of this wonder.