Where the Fun Begins!

We brought the horses home from pasture this past Monday. We are fortunate to be able to run them on about 40 acres of grass for about 3 months out of the year. The pasture is north of us about 30 miles and they enjoy being out in the quiet, open hills for awhile. We usually take them to pasture around the first of August after our breeding season is completely done & then bring them home around the first of November. I think they are glad to be back home & I love looking out my kitchen window and seeing horses in the pasture here. It’s just a soothing sight for me. The horses get along great while on pasture and since they are on my dad’s place, he checks in on them from time to time. This year we did have a scare. We are in very dry conditions right now since we have not had any measurable rain since May 30th. The fall was warm with some windy conditions and one day when the neighbor was picking corn just to the northeast of the pasture where the horses were, the combine sent a spark and a fire started extremely quick and in these conditions, spread extremely fast. My dad happened to be in town at the time & when he heard the fire whistle, he checked on the origin of the fire & when he heard, he immediately knew what had happened & what a threat it was. He headed out to the place & as soon as he got there he checked on the horses & they had moved to the very west side of the pasture away from the fire. The fire went across the eastern edge of their pasture and none were hurt, nor was any buildings, home sites, livestock, or humans harmed that day but the fire did cover roughly about 8 miles in length & 4 miles in width. I recognize it as a blessing when you look at the big picture and realize how much worse it could have been, that’s when a person realizes that God was in the midst of all of it and averting tragedy. The fence around the pasture was in bad shape so we moved the horses to another small pasture that hadn’t been used all summer and they enjoyed another 3 weeks in the hills before we brought them home. Yes, you could say they are a little bit spoiled. 🙂

Wow, I can’t believe I am so behind in posting any news! It seems like the summer flew by & now we are well into fall! And with the way the wind blew the last couple of days I thought maybe we would get blown right into next year!

Outlaw’s Derby Tradition, our 3 Year old AMHR mare, qualified for AMHR Nationals, and was expertly handled and cared for by ShowTime Training Center. We are delighted with Derby’s placings at Nationals. We want to give a big Thank You to Robby & Marcia Barth & Andrea Severson, ShowTime Training Center for their care and presentation of Derby at AMHR Nationals. We did not attend this year so had to watch her accomplishments via webcam but we thought she looked great and we are very proud of her!

We have all 3 of this year’s foals halter broke and each one has been spending their time in the barn getting to used to a stall and getting ‘people’ time. I just love the personality on each one of them! They have really been fun to work with and I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds in store for each of them!

We are very dry here, unfortunately going on almost 150 days with no rain. Too long and at this point, I would be glad to even see some snow! Fortunately we have enough hay for the winter but do need moisture for next year.

Until next time…………

It seems like we rolled right into spring, foaling season, show season, breeding season, and haying season all at the same time! It’s been a busy 6 weeks around here with trying to keep up with all the things warmer weather can bring, visits from our grandchildren (and children) and then starting our photography show season with two shows and all the preparation required to get set up for a new year.  Our foaling season is now done and hopefully our breeding season as well. We are only breeding 4 mares for next year and with any luck, they will all foal in April and early May. Our year of 2013 is all ready filling up with commitments and our oldest son announced his engagement and upcoming marriage for June 8 of next year. So since spring will be busy again, we decided to plan for foaling early and be done. Right now we are also trying to get haying done and fencing done to keep the sheep in which we are summering for weed control. It’s been an interesting experiment but I think it’s working. We also attended our first AMHR sanctioned show last week-end in Broken Bow, NE with our 3 year old AMHR Under Mare, Outlaw’s Derby Tradition. She did us proud by bringing home 2 Grand Championships and 1 Reserve Grand Championship. We are thrilled her show season is off to a great start! Our calendar for the next few weeks has some local commitments but no traveling so I am hopeful that we can get caught up!

Today is one of my favorite days – the day of the Kentucky Derby! I just love to watch the horses run and all the history, information, and excitement that builds up to the Kentucky Derby is fascinating to me.  Since our oldest son lives in Louisville, we’ve had the privilege of touring Churchill Downs and seeing the museum.  The museum itself is awesome and can keep a person fascinated for hours with all the facts and information displayed. Someday I want to attend the Kentucky Derby too – it is definately on my ‘to-do’ list! I keep telling my son that would be an awesome Mother’s Day gift. 🙂  I’m not much of a gambler so I don’t usually bet on the horse race & I don’t understand all the lingo that goes with picking a favorite for the race but I do find the articles and the information they compile on why they handicap a certain horse the way they do very interesting. But when it all comes down to it, I’m sure there are several factors that just can’t be decided by how the horse looks on paper. I also love the names they pick for these horses – I like to write down my favorite ones and those names may end up someday with an ‘Outlaw’ in front of them. IF I do decide to bet then my betting is usually based on a name I like. A few years ago I think that paid off in a 2nd place finish although I can’t remember the name now. It sounds like this year’s Kentucky Derby is gearing up to be an interesting one for the record books and you can bet that I will be geared to the TV watching it!

It is an absolutely beautiful day here! Wow, amazing for March to enjoy temperatures in the ’70’s. I am loving it!

Nothing too newsy here this week. Ethan took a job away from home so now I am riding the shetland gelding on a regular basis. It has been 35 plus years since I have done any training from the saddle! I forgot how much an inexperienced horse will do the stop/start, stop/start dance and how they don’t like (or want) to walk in a straight line. But overall Bucko is actually doing really well and I am enjoying the riding especially in such beautiful weather. Ethan has done a good job at getting him started. I’m grateful that I didn’t have to do the ‘hard’ work of getting him used to the saddle and rider.  🙂

Wow! Today is a warm, breezy day! Feels good to be outside without a coat on & the promise of spring is just around the corner. We’ve had an easy winter this past year so nothing to complain about but still there is something about the thought of spring that just gives a person energy & creates an excitement of it’s own.

Our training continues with the gelding under saddle and he is coming along nicely. Ethan has been riding him outside of the round pen & he is getting used to noises and things away from the barn. He is also improving with his reining and stop and go. So now it is just ride, ride, ride. Our little neighbor boy who is 2 1/2 years old was visiting yesterday afternoon so we gave him a ride on Bucko. He loved it and Bucko acted like it was an everyday occurrence so I think he’ll be ready for his young riders. 🙂

The brood mares are looking fat and sassy. It’s time this week-end to move the first mare due into the barn. She is still about a month off but I like to have them acclimated especially since it’s her first foal.

Hope you are enjoying a beautiful day in your corner of the world!

We are continuing to work on breaking the classic shetland gelding to ride. This past week we introduced a rider in the saddle to him. Ummm, not too crazy about that idea at first! After some time he became accustomed to the rider and no catastrophes happened. But the gelding is confused about what is expected of him, naturally. So now it is just going to be repetition day after day for awhile. Need to contemplate a bit to decide the best way to go about teaching him to rein. He’s a smart pony and has a great personality so I want to make sure we do the training correctly. After all, he is going to be carrying around very important cargo!

We got our first taste of winter over the last couple of days. Not too bad considering it is the 1st of February and we only got about 2″ of snow preceded by rain. It is welcome moisture and will help make spring greener.

Finally, after talking about it for the past 4 years we have started our classic shetland gelding, Outlaw’s Just Wanna Lil ‘MO, (known to us as Bucko) under saddle. It’s time he had some designated work to do and since we have a grandson who loves horses and wants to ride, it’s time Bucko was broke for that purpose. He has been a quick learner and has taken to the saddle with no problems at all. We’ll see how the next step goes. Our son Ethan has been doing the training with guidance from Ray.

Our plans are to start bringing show horses in later this month and actually get some conditioning started this year. We have a 3 year old AMHR mare and possibly 3 shetlands that we would like to show this year. We’ll get them started and then see as we get closer to spring how it looks like our schedule is going to work out for horse shows. I’m looking forward to show season already! We have some awesome yearling AMHR fillies that deserve to be shown so if you are looking for a show prospect, be sure to check them out!

Wow! It’s hard to believe that we are almost at the end of January! I hope

everyone is enjoying the start of a New Year and looking forward to many

fun and exciting things in 2012. I have just finished doing quite a few updates

to our website so look around and check out what’s new on the ‘For Sale’ page and

who we are expecting foals from in 2012.

We ended the year by gelding our 14 year old Senior Stallion, Sami’s Pipe N Hot.

We loved the foals he produced for us but felt we wanted to take our breeding

program stronger in the direction of ASPC and ASPC/AMHR. Pipe N’s personality

has always been busy and 100% active no matter what time of year it is! So we

decided to geld him and see if that calmed his attitude some. He has always had

the fullest mane and tail and since I love Fresians I think I am going to let him

grow his mane and tail out and then I’ll have my own little Miniature Fresian. I

can see how fancy he would look pulling a cart with all that hair flowing and

his prancing steps. So far his prancing is still there!

We’ve had a very mild winter so far so this might actually be the year that I

really do get show horses into the barn in February and get conditioning started.

My intentions are always good but then I wimp out in the cold weather. 😕 I have

some ideas on who we would like to show this year but we shall see what actually

happens by spring when we know our summer schedule better.

Until next time I wish you a cheerful winter!

Wow! It just seems like we have sailed through the past couple of months & have been busy staying on top of things for most of it! Our foaling season ended the end of May & we are very excited about the foals from this year’s foal crop. We hope to get photos done within the next month so you can see why we are so excited! We had a wet spring & the weeds overtook us so there has been alot of time spent trying to get the mowing done & making it look like someone does live here, & yes, they do take care of things! The flowers are finally planted & I am enjoying sitting on the front porch occassionally & just admiring the view of horses, flowers, & green! We are now into haying season & it looks like the next few days forecast sun & no rain so hopefully we can get alot of the hay put up. We try to put up at least 500 square bales of prairie hay every year & then do a few big round bales too.  I want to remind everyone that the ASPC Shetland Congress is going on this week in Des Moines, Iowa & they have live video streaming. So if you get a chance go to this link   ??????http://www.flandersvideoproductions.com/LiveStreaming.htm  You will see some beautiful ponies and see how hard the owners & trainers work to present them. The schedule usually has halter classes in the morning & some afternoons and evening sessions are almost always performance classes. So take a moment to sit & relax, put your feet up & enjoy the 65th Annual Shetland Pony Congress!