Horses

Our Newest Edition

Blondie sprouted! haha!

Blondie is our momma mare. In fact, she’s the momma of our my Bucky! This year, we had it calculated when she was to foal, but she had other plans I guess. Two weeks after we thought she’d sprout, she finally did!

One thing I did realize in all of this waiting… this little colt’s (yes I said colt, more on that in a minute) granddaddy stayed in his momma 13 months. I’m not kidding. Now if you know anything about horses, they carry for 11 months. Way back in the 90’s when granddaddy was born, we hauled our mare Lena down to Texas to get bred. We knew the date we brought her home. We know the date they bred her. All those dates were accounted for and when her due date came and passed, by like 2 months, I kid you not, we figured she just didn’t conceive.

Now my dad had been sick and in the hospital. He was released the day before Munchkin was born. My mom got up at 6 am to go out and do chores so that my dad wouldn’t worry about the animals. She went out to find this little heap of what she thought was a big pile of poop. In fact, it turned out to be Munchkin. So, when Blondie came and passed her due date, I giggled remembering Munchkin. Wondering if those were genetic traits and she’d have to carry for 13 months as well. You never know… (more…)

The Bucky Files… His First Year

Normally I post photos and stories of our newest babies on the farm. Those babies typically are horses of course. This morning I went back through to see about Bucky’s post and… I guess I screwed up and didn’t post his. Shame on me. I posted the colt we sold earlier this year and I posted Little Brother 2 Spot‘s post, but not Bucky’s. Shame on me! He was born April 7, 2016. Just a couple days after Little Brother 2 Spot. If you’ll remember, I was swamped with trying to finish up my Master’s, graduating, and leaving for Cozumel. Maybe that’s how I brushed over this post?

Bucky is out of our mare we call Blondie, for obvious reasons… she’s a Palomino… aka Blonde. In the beginning, we thought we might have had him sold so I didn’t mess with him too much. I didn’t want to fall in love with him and then be heartbroken when he went bye bye. It happens. A lot!

Like I said, since I thought we had him sold, I really didn’t mess with him much. One night though I decided I was going to go play with the colts. We had three that year. I opened up the pen where they were and though, I’ll see which one comes out first. Lo and behold, it was Bucky.

Up to this point, none of the colts had really been messed with. It was only less than 5 minutes and he was loving on me and nuzzling me for attention. I decided to go to the barn and get a halter and see if I could get it on him. Now, remember, at this point, I hadn’t had a halter on any of them. The only messing with they really had was when we did chores and fed them. By this time it was early fall, just for a frame of reference in timing. (more…)

The Duck Race

If you’ve been paying attention to the weather around the country any this week, then you’ll know the Midwest was supposed to get hit with a HUGE potential of Severe Thunderstorms/Tornadic weather. I woke up this morning to a HUGE bang of thunder. I always say that all we need is a good thunderstorm and all trees just blossom BAM! Yup, I was right.

The other thing to note is we’re on baby watch 2018. No… not me. The horse’s sillies. One mare is 1 week overdue and the other is about 2 weeks out. With crappy weather like this, I halfway expected to walk out and find 2 babies on the ground. So far, notta.

But there is a light rain going on and by the time I was done feeding critters, I’m kind of soggy. Which reminds me of a day not too long ago that I got soggy. Let me explain…

Jared carrying me to shore on his back. Tori walking along side.

The Duck Race

A couple weekends ago we were helping out with Trails for Kids. One of the events to raise money is the Duck Race. We sell little toy ducks that float for $2/each or 3 for $5. Then we go to Sugar Creek, the creek that runs right alongside the campground. We dump them in, and the winner wins half the pot of money collected. Easy enough, right? Sure… (more…)

Update

  1. So if you read yesterday’s post… I was pouting. I think maybe every once in a while if things don’t go your way, it’s okay to pout? Someone, please tell me it’s okay, even at whatever age I am. My husband asked me who made that rule up and I told him I did.
  2. Last weekend was Abug’s Dance Recital photos. They were to wear Bright Red Lipstick. Now first off, I haven’t worn lipstick since I was in my early 20’s and then I wore more natural/darker colors. So I went and bought bright red. After I had my pouting moment, I put on the bright red lipstick. First off, it matched my shirt. I laughed. Second off, I looked WEIRD! I don’t think I’ll be wearing bright red lipstick any time soon. Not sure what the appeal is.
  3. It’s 16-hour lipstick. I woke up this morning and it’s still there. I laughed again. Maybe that’s just what I needed!
  4. Two weekends ago we were helping raise money for our local CP Center. More details to come on that… But I either have a cold from that or I have allergies. I’m not sure how to know the difference. But either way, I have my sexy voice on. Go me.
  5. I woke up today in a better mood than yesterday. While I’m still frustrated, I’m not pouting anymore. I swear, maybe it was the lipstick… if nothing else, making fun of myself.
  6. No, I didn’t take a picture.
  7. So if you’ve been watching the weather, there are potential storms to hit the midwest. Ours is supposed to hit here tomorrow. Fun stuff. My mom was in North Carolina when we had a Microburst hit here back in 2008 (I think it was). She was in Germany when the Tornado hit here in 2011. She’s out of town again. I’m worried…
  8. We have a mare that is supposed to be foaling… well last week actually. She’s still plugging along. We had a mare back in the late ’90s who held on for 13 months. Mares carry for 11. This mare (technically foal) we’re waiting on has the genes from that foal back in the late ’90s. (Grandpa on the paternal side.)

And that’s all she wrote today!

Ft. Worth 2017

The real start of the Christmas season for me tends to be our trip to Ft. Worth. There have been a few years I haven’t been able to go, but I try to make it down there every year. Sadly, for me this year was a little lackluster. It was fun, don’t get me wrong, but it just didn’t scream Christmas season to me.

Hubby had to go to San Francisco for work the whole week leading up to Ft. Worth. He flew into DFW on Thursday night. We left home Thursday night and drove as far as Denton, Texas. Then from there, Friday morning we drove to the hotel that hubby was at and picked him up.

It seems like every year they change up the schedule for the NCHA Futurity. This year the NonPro and Amateur finals happened Friday night, the Open Semi-finals happened on Saturday, and the finals for the Open happened Sunday evening. Truthfully, that’s how it used to be, then they started changing it. We’re back to basics now.

Ft. Worth Stockyards

No trip to Ft. Worth is complete without a trip to the Stockyards. I have to say, this is probably my favorite place on earth… or at least one of. Hubby though wasn’t in the Holiday spirit so I felt like I was “dragging” him and he pretty well refused to go into the stores with me. One of my favorite things to do is window shop at the stores and I couldn’t hardly budge him into a store with me. I was getting frustrated.

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Horses are related to Skunks and other musings

Horse on one side of the fence from a group of horses

Horses are related to skunks. If that title doesn’t make you giggle or seriously question my sanity, I’m not sure what does or will.

Why on earth would I compare a horse to a skunk? Well if you haven’t been around horses much, you’re in for quite a surprise. My mornings consist of the same things… wake up, answer emails/read blogs, go outside and turn horses out, start the rest of my day. Not always in the same order and sometimes not for very long on any of the above, but one thing is always certain… I’m going to turn the horses out.

Why not? I mean, they enjoy the great outdoors, right? So… I still haven’t answered that question… why am I comparing the horses to skunks? My horses are trained. I walk in the barn, open the back door, open each individual stall door, and they walk themselves out the back of the barn. Then I close the back gate, get the stud and throw a rope around his neck (because most days I’m too lazy to put the halter on him), and walk him out to his pen.

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Life Lately

So what have we been up to around here? Good question. Life is never the same from day to day or even minute to minute. Last week we worked with trying to trailer break Little Pi. What on earth does that mean?

Well it means, we were spending time trying to get her in the trailer. Why? Well, because we finally found someone to break her to ride. Unfortunately she’s a little behind in the training aspect for Cutting horses. Sad but true and that’s our fault. Usually a colt is broke late  (I’m talking late fall) of their yearling year or the very first part of spring in their 2 year old year. Shortly after (no real given time frame) they start cutting training. A lot of colts are trained and shown for the first time their 3 year old year in what is known as a Futurity. There’s a huge one in Ft. Worth the end of November/First of December, otherwise a lot of associations have smaller futurities in the fall every year.

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Southern Oklahoma – Part 2

And we’re finally back for the rest of the story… aka AC & UB’s part 2. Let’s just start off by saying we had so much fun that I kind of hated to leave. But, let’s look more in depth at the fun we had…

Wednesday

Aloha (that’s the horse) is one of the best, kid friendliest horses but she had one flaw… she’s a PITA (pain in the @$$) when it comes to saddling her. She’s extremely frustrating. UB & Tbug worked on that all week to the point that by mid week Tbug was saddling Aloha by herself. Now that may not sound like much, but that’s HUGE!

AC had Wednesday off. She had a hair appointment while we were working horses. When she was done, we were just finishing up with riding. Remember, southern Oklahoma in July=try to beat the heat working horses. When it gets hot, the horses and cows get tired, hey do you blame them? The summer I spent with AC & UB, we worked horses at midnight so that it wasn’t so darn hot. At least 6am is better than midnight… I think….

Anyway, as we were getting done riding for the day, AC pulled into the driveway. UB decided we needed to run in to town and eat at Scout. This restaurant was interesting, but the food was excellent. This early morning stuff got to Abug and she slept all through lunch.

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A Week in Southern Oklahoma – Part 1

Over a year ago, my aunt and uncle made Tbug a deal that she could come down and spend a week with them at their house, riding horses. Last summer, hubby and I couldn’t get her there. At Thanksgiving they made the offer again. Hubby and I knew we were going to get her there this year, No. Matter. What.

They extended this offer to me when I was a teenager and I actually got to spend a couple different weeks with them. I’m telling you, other than it’s hot in Southern Oklahoma in July, it was an excellent experience and when I told hubby, we knew it would be a good thing for Tbug. Spending an entire week with UB and working on her horsemanship skills. What better way to spend a week than riding horses…

Earlier this spring Tbug’s mom said that she had 3 weeks this entire summer that she had nothing going on. The first was the week of the 4th of July, the other 2 were the first 2 weeks of August. I finally got it worked out between all of our schedules that we were going down the week of 4th of July. Tbug got home from Cheer camp Friday June 30th at 11something at night and we made arrangements to meet up with her mom around 4 something July 1st to head to AC & UB’s.

Friday Night

Friday evening after hubby got off work, we spent the evening checking the running lights/break lights on the trailer. We figured if we were going to be driving at 4 something in the morning and beating the sun awake, we better have lights on and working. Out of like 30 lights, at least half were burned out (or so we thought). We ran to Walmart to buy new light bulbs, when we got home hubby went to replacing lights. Out of all those lightbulbs that “didn’t work” only 2 had to be replaced. The rest were just a loose connection that hubby tightened up. Not bad for a 23 year old trailer.

Saturday

I wasn’t kidding when I said we got up and left before the sun even rose. Who knew 3 something existed? Hubby and I had a pile of stuff to load up first thing, then we loaded horses, ourselves, and headed out to meet up with Tbug and her mom. They were on their way to North Carolina. I guess we’re all crazy… getting up early to drive somewhere, right? Serious, crazy… lol.

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