Where the Fun Begins!

It’s hard to believe that the end of summer is fast approaching but it really is! Fair is over with, school is back in swing, shows are winding down, many exhibitors are preparing to head for the AMHR National show, and weaning time has arrived. We always wean by the sign of the moon so we find the date that fits closest to when we think the foals are ready to be weaned and that is when we wean. This year that meant this past week, August 19th, to be exact. We find it is less stressful for both moms and babies if we wean by the sign of the moon. Our foals are always eating grain good by the time we wean and they rarely go completely off grain when we wean by the sign of the moon. They may back off eating as much for a few days (while they pout) but for the most part, they stay eating. We notice less whinnying or talking on both the part of mom’s and baby’s. We generally put the foals in one pen and the moms in another pen, not next to each other but still where they can see each other. Then after just a few days we take moms to pasture for the remainder of the summer and the foals are kept here in a smaller pen where we can be in and out every day and they get used to seeing and smelling us. We also prefer to wean in pairs or at least all foals together. Everyone, foals included, handle new situations better when they don’t have to go through it alone. 🙂

We are having unusually nice weather for this early in the year & everything, including the trees and the grass, seem to be enjoying it & perhaps getting a little ahead of time. I have finally had time to start to work with the yearlings and they are a challenge. 🙂 But I love to see how their personalities react to being asked to lead, mind, have their ears scratched, etc. I also find it interesting that some bloodlines are more prone to have certain personality traits as well as there being a difference in personality traits between miniatures and shetlands. I know that I find the shetlands to be the most curious and very sharp when it comes to interacting with the human counterpart. The warmer weather definitely makes it more fun to spend time with them and work on their social skills. Last year’s foals were sired by D&S Tom Collins, AE Bey Star, and Outlaw’s Thyme for a Surprise so there are 3 ASPC yearlings and one ASPC/AMHR yearling that are currently in kindergarten. I hope to be able to do some updated pictures of them before spring arrives on the calendar. In the meantime, enjoy the day in your part of the world!

Hi! I have finally updated the website with some additional horses listed for sale and updated prices. I know I keep repeating myself but it’s been a busy summer around here! We enjoyed 3 of our grandchildren for about 10 days the beginning of August and then our 4th grandchild joined us at the end of those 10 days so we had all 4 of them here for the Loup County Fair. It was a fun time and I think they all enjoyed the treats of a small town fair. But the best part for us was that all 4 of them rode our shetland gelding, Bucko, and wanted to ride more! We have been working on that accomplishment for quite awhile!  Our 3 year old granddaughter, Phoebe, has been a little skittish until this year, and our newest granddaughter, 5 month old Piper, was excited as soon as Papa put her on the saddle! Our 5 year old grandson, Lincoln, has always enjoyed riding Bucko and he tells us that he wants to ride now all by himself. Yeah! That means that almost 4 year old Denton needs to get ready for a lot of riding because it’s going to be up to him to put the polishing touches on Bucko so he is kid proof. We think Denton is ready and what’s even better is that his Dad agreed! We are looking ahead now and thinking maybe we better be holding back some geldings because at some point, only one pony to ride is not going to be enough! We are looking forward to more fun with the grandkids in the future!

We’ve been blessed with a very rainy, wet  spring! I’m thankful for the moisture as it makes the grass grow and the pastures green, always a beautiful sight. But it does have it’s drawbacks as well – more yard work for one as the grass needs mowed way more often! It also makes it harder to put hay up for the upcoming winter as we are not getting much of a break in-between rains to get the grass mowed and sunshine for it to cure. I’m hopeful the next couple of weeks are going to give us the break we need to get the first cutting of hay done. Then it will be on to other projects. Our new place is awesome but we have a lot of tree cutting and clearing to do. Some of the trees are cedar trees and some are elm and cottonwood trees. Some have been around awhile and some are new ones just sprouting up everywhere. Our next big project is clearing a bunch of trees out of an old fence line so we can rebuild the fence along the east line of a pasture and build a complete new fence along the west line of the same pasture. By September we are going to be needing the pasture so we’ll be pushing ourselves to get it done amidst an already hectic schedule. In the meantime, the foals and their mamas are enjoying their small pasture and we are enjoying watching them out our dining room and living room windows. They tease and play with each other and then they just stretch out and soak up the fresh air and sunshine, if its available. We hope you are enjoying your spring as well in your part of the world.

We enjoyed showing at the Blue Stem Miniature Horse Club July show over the 4th of July week-end.  We have a busy summer going on so it looks like this will be the only sanctioned show we will be able to attend this summer but we certainly enjoyed it! It was great to see our horse show friends and the Blue Stem club put on an excellent show. Thank you to all the club members for your hard work and dedication!

Out contenders for the show were our 2 year old stallion, Outlaw’s Pecos Bey, and our yearling stallion, Outlaw’s Cosmos Bey. We were very pleased with how both boys placed and how well they handled the new surroundings. You know when you are from the country, taking a trip to the big city and seeing PEOPLE and other animals can be a scary thing!

Outlaw’s Cosmos Bey measured 35″ and showed in the Yearling Over Class, 34″ – 36″. He took a first place under both judges. Outlaw’s Pecos Bey measured 35 12″ and showed in the 2 Year old Over Class, 35″ – 37″. He took a first place under both judges, then received 1 Jr. Championship and 1 Res. Jr. Championship, and then went on to receive a Res. Grand Championship under 1 judge. Both boys showed very well and considering it was Cosmos’s first show and only Pecos’s second show, we couldn’t have been happier. We want to thank Dan Timmerman of T’s Miniature Horses for being willing to step in and show Cosmos for us. He did an excellent job and Cosmos looked very good in his expert hands. 🙂

We enjoy showing our horses and are glad we got to get out at least once this year. We look forward to more shows next year!

Today is much warmer than it has been and just hearing the word “March” brings visions of warmer days and spring weather! As I look at the calendar I realize that we will start foaling next month so there are some things that better make the “to do” list rather quickly. We are expecting 2 ASPC/AMHR foals this spring and 2 ASPC foals. Two of the mares will be foaling for the first time and it’s always exciting to see what the genetics produce. Our Tom Collin’s daughters are reaching the age where they are producing and I love seeing what the second generation of a certain bloodline produces in comparison to the first generation. Foaling season is definitely my favorite time of year!

Well, the days are getting shorter and show season is over with so now I can really turn my attention to the weanlings.  We weaned all the foals at the same time this year in mid-August and everything went really well. We have weaned according to the sign of the moon now for a long time and there is a definate difference between doing that and not doing that. I have noticed that some times there is only 2 days that are good for weaning and some days, like this year, there was about a 10 day stretch that was good for weaning. It seemed nobody was unhappy and the weaning went very smoothly for both moms and babies. Now we are in the process of  halter breaking.  Oh my! What an insult to have a halter on and be asked to do what??? Actually the process is not going too bad. We halter break in pairs if we can and so the first two boys are leading and learning pretty well. The second two boys are picking it up and this week we will start to ask them to lead outside of their pen and then we’ll make the big adjustment into a stall for a few days. I enjoy the one-on-one time that I can now do with the weanlings and not be under any pressure to have them ready for a show. And that is the way the rest of the fall will go. Just messing with them when time allows and learning new things as we go. This year’s foal crop was 4 boys, 3 of which have been gelded all ready. Each one has their own personality but I am impressed with the conformation and potential of each one of them and am excited to see what the future holds for them.

Wow, summer is just flying by for us! We enjoyed a week in Kentucky in early June for our oldest son Tyler’s wedding and it seems like we are still playing catch-up! We had some nice spring rains so the hay was ready in June and we are still putting hay up. We are not complaining as last year it became hard to get hay because of the dry conditions. We are still dry here but the spring rains did help with the early season grasses. So between the haying and our work load and the timing of the local shows, we have not been able to show any this season. Bummer as I was really looking forward to getting a couple of boys in the show ring! We have started our 3 year-old Gelding, Outlaw’s Antici-Bey-tion in harness and are looking forward to getting him into the cart. It’s also time to start clipping the babies for pictures and seeing what is underneath that foal hair. We clipped our ASPC/AMHR weanling colt, Cosmo Bey, this past week-end and WOW! I was impressed. We are thinking that maybe he might have to take a trip to Nationals for us this year! We’ll see what the next couple of weeks bring as we’ll have to make a decision quickly. In the meantime, we’ll keep working & haying, working & haying, working & haying…….

Spring has sprung according to the calendar except looking out the window today I see snow on the ground, snow in the air, wind blowing the trees and it’s cloudy and cool. Oh well, it’s Nebraska and it’s March so we know the weather will change and warmer days are on the way. 🙂

We are about 30 days away from foaling and as always, I am looking forward to foaling season. This year we are expecting one ASPC/AMHR foal and three ASPC foals. I just love the challenge of genetics and seeing how the bloodlines we have chosen cross with each other. This year will be a first for all of the crosses as we used our stallion, AE Bey Star, on all the mares this year. The ASPC/AMHR mare is a D&S Tom Collins daughter and we have been anxiously waiting to cross her with Bey Star. We decided to use Bey Star on the ASPC mares to see if we could gain a little more height on the foals. Tom Collins is a size reducer whether bred to an AMHR mare or an ASPC mare so we wanted to see what Bey Star would do on those same bloodlines. I will definitely miss having a Tom Collins foal this year but hopefully Judy Gottlob’s mare, Ginger, is bred so we will be able to boast of one foal by Tom Collins. We will be bringing the mares into the barn area next week and starting to get them into the routine of being in the barn at night. So excited! And I am also hoping that in another 30 days we will be seeing warmer spring weather!

I’m always excited for a New Year and the prospects and challenges that come with it! January in Nebraska is usually cold and it’s dark by 6:00 pm so we don’t do much with the horses and ponies except chores. The last few days have been nice though so I’ve been getting the ‘itch’ to think about show season and conditioning. However, I’m not ready to clean stalls again yet! We have our show string picked out for the 2013 season and are thinking and talking about what shows we think we might want to attend. We stepped back into the show ring again ourselves last year after a few years absence and it’s still fun! We have show and futurity prospects available for sale so if you’re looking for that special horse/pony for 2013 please take a look at our website. Browse through the site, enjoy, and please don’t hesitate to call if you have questions. We have 3 generations of our bloodlines here so we know our horses and ponies and we love to talk about them! Happy New Year!