Filling holes

It's funny how things happen. One minute all is the same and the next thing you know it isn't.
On Wednesday last week I was messing with the colts in the main pen, and Tay was hanging out watching  as she usually does. Next thing I knew she made a rapid dash into the pen and went for Eli's back legs- she didn't grip but she scared him. She has been doing this business of thinking she is helping even though she knows she is NOT allowed in the horse pens. A bit of a back story, last time Shayla was here, we were looking at the colts and her little dog Goose came into the pen and Eli reflexively kicked out and nailed her- you can be sure this is because of what Tay had been doing behind my back.
So... I had enough and decided then and there that Tay needed to move on to someone who doesn't have livestock. (or cats!)
Ted has a friend in Alberta who lost a border collie to cancer during the summer, and they were heartbroke about it and  looking for a replacement but not a puppy. So he called them and they were very interested and said they would take her, providing she got along with their other border collie who just happens to be Tess's littermate , and Tess and Luke are turning 13 at the end of this month. So a dog like Tay was perfect for them. They spent the weekend here and got along great!

She is going to get all the love her li'l heart desires! And in doing so she will fill the hole in Keith's heart left by the passing of his other dog. 

But wait....

That's not all.....

The day after I decided to rehome Tay I get a knock on my door and it's the guy who owns Tillie's dad. I was happy to see him because I had just been thinking of taking her down to see him that coming weekend after I had her to the vet's for her puppy shots. I wanted to show off my beautiful smart puppy. 

He just stood there and looked at her as I brought her out. We made a little small talk, then he said.... "I want her". Well, my jaw dropped and I must have had a deer in the headlights look! Then he told me the rest of the story: her sire had been hit and killed by a car, and he was heartbroken at his loss. So of course, I told him he could have Tillie, the only pup from the bloodline; we agreed that he would pay for her shots and I'd deliver her the next day. 

I am sure going to miss this little ankle biter! But once again, she was needed to fill the hole in someone's heart, and I know she will have a good life as he needs a dog to help with his sheep and cattle. He said she has a lot of her daddy's mannerisms.

So both Tay and her daughter are part of a bigger plan than what I had for them and I think they are both where they need to be.

As for me, I have my beautiful Tess who has always had all of my heart. No holes there!

End of summer

Summer is winding down....

As Eli's departure date comes closer, I have to say I am really happy with him. I can now hop him in the trailer and close the door while he eats his ration, and he is very good about it. He eats a bit then looks out the window openings to check on the herd and goes back to eating. He is standing tied very well, and picks up his feet easily- I do still need to file his back feet, but need someone to hold him for me, perhaps later this week. He is easy to catch and lead. He also doesn't mind fly spray.

Booncat is also making progress. He's easy to catch and is leading fairly well. I haven't tried standing tied with him yet, but that will come. Some of his training will wait until weaning time in October. I have been loading him in the trailer and taking him into the barn, so perhaps I will use the stall in the barn for teaching him to stand tied and get him eating ration, which so far he has no interest in.  Doing his feet is in the works for later this week too, as my friend Dave will be coming over to hold colts for me. Dave is 80 now, but you'd never know it. He is an old horseman and very good with the young ones.

My riding this year has really been sporadic. Partly because my trailer needs tires, but that should be remedied by the end of the month. Gussie is enjoying the time off!
We have mosquitoes now, for the first time this year. The recent wet weather is to blame for that, I'm sure! Poor Drifter got hit the worst, the skeeters must love his colour.

Yesterday was the first time for firing up the wood stove, it was just too darn damp and cold (74 degrees) in the house for me. I do so enjoy a good fire on a dreary day!

My flower gardens are hanging in there. The roses are on their final blooms as I am letting them develop their rose hips. Everything else is still happy though especially the zinnias and blue salvia. 

Tillie is getting very independent and active (read: into everything!) She comes to the barn with me every day, but I have to carry her past the neighbour's fence as their dog has a very loud scary bark that sends her hiding. I put her in the barn while I do chores and she is so good, sits near the back of the barn and just watches.

She is mostly house broke too, as long as I pay attention to getting her outside when she first wakes up. Her favourite way to pester her mama is to hang on to her tail as mama walks by and I sure hope that does not translate into horses tails! 

She will be 6 weeks old September 20th. She is very smart and already shows that she wants to work... poor Merle.... he's the only one small enough for her to work! She does leave the cats alone which is a good thing.

Finally a ride!

We'll start this post off with a family photo for National Dog Day.

The pup is getting quite mobile, and as soon as she wakes up I take her outside to pee, which works quite well. Hopefully she will be easy to train to not go in the house. 

I finally got to ride again. I put one of those Equine Streamz bands on my ankle and within 24 hours I had so much relief! Not 100% but good enough to go riding today. 

Come for a little ride with me! Gussie was a little lazy going out, she has had it pretty easy this summer so I decided to challenge her a bit. We rode down to the river at a spot that has an easy crossing.

Picture me with my camera in one hand and my split reins and a willow switch in the other hand trying to urge Gussie across! We got it done with much urging, she was reluctant to cross that rocky bottom river.

On the other side is a very steep hill, with spectacular views half way up and at the top. The half way up video wasn't worth sharing, too shaky, but here is the view from the top:

I think Gussie enjoyed the view as much as I did.

Or maybe she was just drooling over the equine buffet spread out before her......

At the top of the hill there are a couple of apple trees growing wild, so I grabbed a snack for me and Gussie.

On the way back I figured she would be a little more inclined to cross the river; sure enough!

We wound our way through the cool and welcome shade of the trees on the way back.

I love this horse so much! It's always a joy to ride her and I feel so at home on her. 

Riding day 57

Updates on Mesa and the pup

For those who are interested in following Mesa's story, here is Shannon's latest blog post.

And ... ummmm.... I am guilty of not checking properly when I looked at the puppy, apparently "he" is a "she" and no she does not have gender confusion! The owner of her daddy stopped by yesterday and I showed him the puppy. Apparently his daughter can't take her so..... I may just keep her! ***Big silly grin*** My husband rolled his eyes when I said that....  but really, Tess will be 13 in 2 months, Tay is not a good dog to take when I trail ride as she constantly harasses the horses so this pup could be my next riding companion. (See how I justified that). And I have been wanting another female pup for years now. I consider this a gift from God who always knows best.

Wordless Wednesday

The pup

The last two days have been rather trying. Tay was quite agitated and didn't want me out of her sight, so I spent all of yesterday sitting with her.

 She was super restless, and was ruffling up all the dog beds, a sure sign of imminent whelping. At 11 pm she had her first pup... sadly, it was stillborn. A large pup. I stayed with her all night, making myself a makeshift bed out of cushions and she snuggled right next to me laying her head on me. In the morning I had Ted keep an eye on her as I rushed down to feed the horses. At 11 am this morning, she had her second pup, again a large stillborn pup. It was a real struggle for her. There was a foul smell with the sack that was attached to it, it was quite black too. I called the vet to ask about that and if he thought there would be any live pups in there. I had barely hung up and she gave birth to the third pup- this one smaller and very much alive! I quickly checked him out and dried him off- Tay wasn't quite sure what to do with him but started licking him, and her maternal instincts really kicked in when I got him suckling. Now she is quite possessive of him!

 In fact to get her to go do her business I have to carry him - she keeps a close eye on him but gets it done. I'm hoping in a couple of days she will chill out a bit.
Since this is the only pup, I have offered him to the owner of the pup's dad as we had a deal that he would either take a pup or the price of a pup, and his daughter wanted a pup. I will wait to see if she wants him before I make any other plans, and she will get to name him.

Spring training

ENTER THE FOALING CONTEST BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK

Spring starts tomorrow! Yippee! The snow is melting, the river is rising, the songbirds are back for their early morning serenade....  

I decided it's time for Tay to learn to be a trail riding companion. She has really progressed over the winter in her bidability; easier to call off when she is doing something I don't want her to. So I took Gussie and Tay and went for a river ride.

 

The trick with Tay is to have a command that sends her out front, as when she is behind a horse the temptation to go for the tail or the heels is probably still strong. She actually did really well.

The water is rising and getting muddy now that the warmer days are here.It was wonderful to just sit on my horse, listen to the river run, my dog just sitting there waiting for my next move- and even a hawk in the tree that flew away once we invaded it's space. Can you see it in the next video?

Another lovely day today and another river ride coming up- but this time it will be me on Gussie and Shayla on Ice for Ice's first trail ride, and we will be going down the gravel road to the river down where I used to live. I wonder if Gussie will remember it, last time she was down there was 2013.

Riding day 23

Home

The trip to Alberta was uneventful. (Thank you to those who said a li'l prayer!)The roads were pretty good, a bit of compact snow in shaded areas but with bare wheel paths through them. Left here at 5 a.m. and had Gussie loaded and on the way home by 11:45, got home at 5:20 p.m. Had to stop and pick up the surprise... more on that in a minute....

The meet and greet over the fence was the photo I posted last night. Rosalee tried to bite her, but Belle was very interested.

Due to only having one heated water trough, I kicked Gussie directly into the herd upon arrival. Rosalee took on the role of herd protector, keeping this new intruder away from "her" Mesa and Belle.



Gussie has been blanketed in Alberta, not sure it did her any favours, but since she had a nervous sweat going on in the trailer, I put her in a fresh blanket of mine for now, I'll wean her off that as she has a pretty good hair coat.

There are a couple of issues I'll have to deal with, one is nutritional and the other is getting her feet back to a good place. More on all that in the next post.

Meanwhile..... remember I said it was easier to ask for forgiveness than to seek permission...

meet Tay.

She is a 6 yr. old female border collie who didn't want to work, despite 3 months with a really good trainer. I saw her posting on Facebook looking to rehome her, so I responded and ended up bringing her home- she was only a mile from where I was picking Gussie up, so the timing and location were perfect! Meant to be, I'd say. Since I don't need a working dog here, she is a good fit, and it should help with the issues Tess is having about being the only dog here (Merle doesn't count! Border collies are snobs!). Tess was quite delighted to meet her. I think they will get along well.
Oh- and forgiveness was given! Especially since she sucked up to Ted !

Time to head to the barn, more photos will be forthcoming!

Busy in a good way

Got a few things going on here. Mesa has foal scours so she has been getting bum washings twice a day and I have been giving her yogurt and peptobismal, she is starting to get over it.

She actually seems to like the pepto and yogurt although she didn't like the feel of the syringe tube at first.

She has big toofers now! All the better for grazing! 

I really enjoy watching her zoom around, although with all the hot weather lately, she spends more time napping than zooming.

I took photos for Shayla working on starting her 2 year old- some of you may remember the buckskin colt Fuse who was here for a few months last fall.

Working him in a local arena, the sun streaming in the entrance made for a cool photo.

He is coming along nicely with his groundwork, this is his second time being saddled.

I have been taking the dogs swimming down at the pond nearly every day; Thea finally learned to swim, and even Merle enjoyed getting wet.

I also got started on my Cowgirl Hideout - got the tar paper up and then decided that I want a window put in so that means I have to stop until Ted can help me with that.

This too shall pass.

The weather certainly has been a big issue all over the country this year. Major snowstorms in this country and the devastating fires in the USA that still have 3 or 4 states reeling from the horror of losing their livestock, horse, homes and even their lives- and no mention of it on mainstream media that I know of.
I mentioned in January that I thought this was going to be a really tough year, and so far it is rather nasty.
We are in the middle of spring run off here, and all the problems with drainage on this place that we have moved to are rearing their ugly heads. There is a little creek across the road from us that comes down a very steep embankment. It is a roaring little creek now and comes through the culvert under the road and out onto the flat property between us and the neighbours.

View from the road.

It's flowing into our woodshed, where we keep the deep freeze- good thing it's on a pallet.

My attempt to divert the water from the woodshed and our septic tank area, using the materials at hand: cement blocks, sand and gravel scooped from the driveway; even a couple of blocks of firewood. It ain't pretty but it worked!

Remember I was whining about maybe having to wear hip waders to get to the barn? Well, not that deep, but I do have to wear good gumboots! It's so flat that it's only about 4 inches deep.

Ideally, the water is supposed to flow into the ditch to the left of the trees, but it is flowing on either side of it before trickling down into the ditch. That is Ted's shop on the right

and this is the other side of the ditch- the water is backing up into the other neighbours yard. That ditch is where it's supposed to be, it flows through a channel in the farmer next door's field

I foresee some drainage landscaping this summer, because I can't see putting up with this every year when it is a simple fix with an excavator to build a channel for the water to flow- the only problem is that all this flows over 3 septic fields, so digging may not be an option for certain areas.

Meanwhile, it's still raining and not much we can do outside so the dogs are getting really bored.

Pathetic things!

As for the horses, they are hanging out under their shelter; Coulee has her own pen and tarp shelter for now, so I can feed the mares under the shelter to encourage them to stay out of the rain as much as possible ( it only fits 3). It is getting so mucky in there  I can't wait to be able to get a little tractor in there to scrape it clean! The girls decided to have a little frolic when I fed them last night.

Silly mama Belle! Thea was wanting to get in there and work them.

 Today is more of the same, waiting out the weather, which is more of the same for a couple of days then a sunny break (yay) before the next bout of rain. Welcome to March madness! 

Silly horses

If I ever breed Rosalee to Beamer (maybe in a year or two!) the foal will be quite entertaining, because both Beamer and Rosalee are such characters and are constantly making faces or being in my pocket and being extra helpful, as these photos show.

It would be an interesting foal too, because just about any colour  is possible- she is a dun with the dilute gene (makes a sorrel a palomino) and he  isn't homozygous for black so he can throw any colour off her including any shade of dun including grullo, a dilute colour such as palomino, or smokey black; or even a sorrel or black. I'd have to get their agouti tested to see if they can throw bay or buckskin. Future fun!

Meanwhile back at the barn, we have a new feline visitor- a beautiful flame point long haired cat with a 6 inch tail. He has been hanging around quite a bit and I really hope he stays.

I'm going to have to name him- any ideas? Nothing too foo-foo, he is quite a masculine looking cat.

I think he might be a Persian cross, someone suggested Himilayan or Ragdoll.

I have seen Coulee's baby moving a couple of times now. Yesterday when I was brushing them all, she was pretty cranky and tried to bite me (more of a threat, she could have connected if she really wanted to) when I brushed over her baby bump- then ran away and kicked out just as I was throwing the brush at her butt for trying to bite- she connected with the brush and sent it flying 30 feet! Silly mare. I penned her and got her to allow me to brush her, that's when I saw the baby move, so baby was probably what was making her all cranky and sensitive.

2 more months to go! Baby is due around the first week of May.

Thea and Rosalee have a thing going. Thea stalks her, and I have got her to stay out of the pen pretty much, but this happens:

Rosalee taunts Thea. Thea knows she isn't allowed to grip the horses, but she does a really good job of the Border Collie Stare.
Rosalee is such a character, the friendliest horse ever- and quite helpful too.....

Walkabout

The snow turned to rain a couple of days ago- not a lot of rain, thank goodness. But it made the snow really heavy. I went for a walk down to the river to check on it. Tess and Thea came with.... at least, until we got even with the horse pen and then Tess hightailed it back to the house... sigh. But miss Thea was really happy to get out for a walk with me.

C'mon, lets go!

I saw a lot of deer tracks and then a set of single deer tracks that looked like it would be a big buck. There were coyote tracks right on top of the deer tracks, but they were fresher than the deer so I'm thinking it was tracking the deer but didn't catch up with it.

Those coyote tracks are twice the size of Thea's tracks.

I really enjoyed this walk, it was a beautiful day, sun poking out, and nice and mild. It felt good to get out and get some exercise after being cooped up and sick since January 6th; I'm finally almost better.

The river was gurgling and burbling through this hole in the ice. It looks pretty good, I think all the flood danger is past for now. The government sent in heavy equipment to open up a channel along the banks, and it worked pretty good, the level dropped at least a couple of feet in one day.

Looking upstream from where I was on the dyke.

I sure hope the worst of the winter is past us now. I'm sure we'll still get lots of snow storms, but I hope that it stays fairly mild. 

I love walking in the woods, this is something I really missed at the last place we lived. (7 years!!!)

Here are some of the things that captured my attention.

Not too sure what these red berries are but they looked outstanding against the cedar tree....

and on their own. I'll have to check it in the spring and see what the bush looks like- it was at least 10 ft. tall. Tara, any ideas? It's not mountain ash.

I love the pop of colour on this tree, and I saw lots of Oregon Grape too- it's green leaves are always delightful against the snow.

Thea and I made our way back, sometimes I would have her wait up for me if she got too far ahead.

We walked back along the bottom of the horse pen so we could collect Reba at the barn on our way back to the house. Rosalee had to investigate why we were coming from that direction.

Had to have a horse photo of course! Well, maybe two, because Beamer was being silly...

Two good dogs.....

and one traitor.
Thea and Reba always accompany me down to the barn to do chores, twice a day. They will even mosey down their on their own if I'm not watching them.

Tess, on the other hand, is a traitor. She absolutely refuses to come do chores and will hide in her "house" when I ask her to come.

I'm pretty sure the reason is that she is super sensitive and when I have to get after Thea (not so much, anymore) for working the horses, she takes it personal as if I am scolding her. Poor thing, can't abide being scolded.
Oh well, it's a good thing that she is just perfect other than that! Love my Tess.

Change is coming

We officially gave notice that we are moving a couple of days ago. As of October 1st I'll be busy fencing to set up corrals and paddocks for the horses, as well as painting and helping with installing flooring  in the house. I actually love painting. All these years I have always chosen earth tones based on greens and I'm tired of that so this time I'm going with soft greys and blue tones. I have about 40 swatches so far.... (grin....)

Since my sister and her husband will be the landlords, we will pretty much have free run on design and set up of the place as well as building a shop for Ted and an overhang off the barn for hay storage.

Meanwhile, I'm packing and sorting through stuff and making trips to the thrift store with donations. I have a lot of paper files to go through and most of it will go in the burn pile.  It's been 7 years since we moved last, I've gotten out of practice! It used to be every 3 years. We set a record this time. (Bigger grin.)

Move? Did you say move? Can I move the horse for you?

Thea! Leave the dang horse alone!

THEA! NO BITE!

Good thing Rosalee is a good natured horse.

As you can see Thea is really wanting to work. There are cattle right next to the horses but she leaves them alone because she knows they are not my concern. But if I do anything with the horses she is right there trying to help. My sister said I could get some sheep, as we know a shearer so I'll look for some dog broke sheep to start her on, sometime this winter. Ahhhhggghh I said that W word.... It will be upon us too soon.

Tonight was the harvest moon and of course I had to take about 50 pics, a couple of them turned out. I like this one.