Out riding Kruiser on a nice fall day

I have been having a great fall riding Blue and Kruiser almost every day. Blue is just back from the trainers and doing great but I have only been riding him in the round pen. Kruiser and I head out to enjoy the fields and great weather.

Taking Photos and Videos of the horses

WE have been taking a ton of photos and video of the horses. I am working on updating the web page and posting the video on You tube. The sun has not been around much and when it does come out it is way to hot! Oh well I am about half done with the raw footage, now to finish up the rest of the herd while they are nice and shinny.
Here is a shot of a couple of the yearlings racing around, Zebra and Lizzie

The first cut Hay is done!

Well how lucky I am, our hay is up and baled with no rain and today is starting to rain! We got 103 big round bales so I will have lots of feed for the morgans this year and finally a year with good feed.
The cost of food is skyrocketing around here on account of the drought so it is a very good feeling to have all our haying done.
The 2 horses out for training are doing good and I hope to go and ride them this week.
I might take Kruiser into a parade in August. I had a phone call from the organizer to come and bring a horse. It has been many years since I rode Boogie in a parade and I might be ready to go back and do it again.. We will see.
The yearlings are filling out nicely and I have been doing up videos and photos of all the horses to update the web page.

Walk the Line

The weanlings are looking for the mamma's but are willing to follow Maddy instead. My daughter took this cute picture while we were going from one pen to the other and the foals just started following behind Maddy.

A boy and his colt

A boy and his colt. This is my son Maddy and his new horse. This colt is so friendly and easy going he will be a bit of a challenge to keep him thinking he is a horse and not a human. Maddy has been haltering him and we are going to start leading him around soon, although he already has been led a bit.
He is calling him Zebra since he wore a zebra stripped coat for the first couple weeks after he was born. He was foaled in April and it was really cold out so he needed a bit extra to keep warm.
Zebra sees a person and leaves mom to come and check them out. He loves scratches and petting and is learning not to be nippy. He brings along a couple of his buddies at the same time so Maddy had been working with them slipping the halter on and off them as well.

Morgan Filly in Bathtub

This is Pirate, a black morgan filly who had a bit of an adventure a couple of weeks ago.
I have a small creep pen for my weanlings and the yearlings are usually able to squeeze into for quite some time so I continue to feed them in it as long as they are in the pen by the barn.
I have an old bathtub in the pen that I use for feed so that it stays off the ground. The straw had built up over the winter and it sloped down quite a bit so the yearlings were standing in the tub to eat. I was thinking in the back of my mind I should remove the tub until all the snow had melted and the ground was not so sloped down.
I was of course to late and Pirate somehow slipped into the tub and was laying with her feet sticking out! It would have been funny if I knew in advance how to get her out! I tried pushing and pulling, no luck. I slipped a big soft rope around her front feet and tried pulling but of course I was pulling uphill and good luck trying to shift a 6oo pound yearling!
I had to go and find hubby, he was out working on a farm nearby, and bring him home. We tried the rope thing again but it was no good, we still couldn't pull her up and out. I was getting a bit worried as she had been in this position for at least two hours now if not more.
I finally decided that if we couldn't get her up and out we needed to take the fence down behind her and tip the tub that way. It worked like a charm! The tub was already tilted up and with hubby pulling her front legs with the rope we gently pulled her over and I pushed the tub and she just slid out the bottom side. She got to her feet and was a bit shaky but allowed me to halter her and then she followed me back to the pen. What a good girl.

Mare steals Foal, another mare this time

Is there something in the water up here? Indy foaled early and out in the field a couple of days ago. She was not due for at least 3 weeks. She had no signs she was going to be early, no bag or anything.
I found them at breakfast on Thursday(maybe it is just Thursdays?) and Sam was standing over the new foal but I could see Indy hanging around so I checked both of them and saw that Indy was the mom.
I got the baby up and started walking her back to another pen and Sam was determined to keep Indy away. She went right after her and the two of them had a kick fest! I pushed the baby as fast as I could out of the way, but I was already far enough away from them that we were out of range anyway, or at least I hoped we were!
Sam chased Indy off so I picked up a big stick and threatened her with it and yelled at her and she circled around me trying to get at the baby. I hit her on the chest with the stick and she backed off a bit but then tried to circle around me again so I yelled some more and tossed the stick at her as hard as I could, and she finally gave way and trotted off. I had fed the other mares so she figured she would go check out the food. Indy came over and started sniffing the baby and trying to shove me a bit, she probably figured I was now trying to steal her baby. This is of course a maiden mare and my biggest mare at 15.3HH. I switched sides on the baby so she was between us and just kept shoving baby forward. Indy followed me for about 100 feet and then Sam came back with a friend, her sister. What was it a double team effort now??

I hollered some more and tried tossing manure clumps while hanging onto the foal(no way was I letting go of baby to get back into more trouble) all the while pushing her forward and hoping that I wouldn't get accidentally kicked by either mare! Indy stayed in front I was right behind and then Sam and Jasper behind me! We made it to the open gate and Indy stopped and didn't want to go in. I didn't want to walk up beside her as she could have ducked around the back of the building and gone back to the field. I stood there for a while tyring to figure it out while waving and yelling at Sam and Jasper and finally just let go of the baby and when she stepped up to mom I swatted mom on the butt to make her go. She took a couple of steps into the pen and so I turned and tossed another stick at the other girls to hold them off. Mom went into the pen and Sam almost ran me over trying to get past me but that wasn't happening! I got the gate slammed in her face and she stopped.
What a morning. Both mom and foal are doing great now.
What a bizarre year so far.

Sandy