MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So much has happened around here since I last posted. We had several 4-H events which took up several weekends. I did make it to the arena once with Rascal. Had a good ride on him. Tyler took Mira for one 4-h project lesson.

Then the cold weather hit and so did kidding. So far in two weeks we have kidded out 33 goats and have 50 live babies. Not bad considering it was -40 for three days in a row. All right before christmas too! We had upwards of 16 babies in the house at night as I just did not have enough heat lamps to go around. And when the babies are first born, they don't know enough to stay under the lights and are in danger of freezing to death. So we take the babies into the house right after birth to get them completely dry and warmed up, back to mom for some bonding time and maybe a drink then back in the house. I tell you, they are noisy!!

But it is much nicer outside now, all but two have kidded and things are settling down. Just a few bottle babies to feed.

The house water froze up for a few days, the heater tipped over under the house and everything froze up solid. Of course, this was when we had all those babies in the house! Still no water in the kitchen, but at least the bathroom works.

Got another week before school, so I hope to get some riding in. I really want to get some work on Raz and Carpet, and some ground work on those long two year olds started. I did get some time in on Dee and Bell. Tied Wilbure up and gave him a good grooming. Got lots of horse feet to trim and goat feet too, so I should be pretty busy during the holidays.

The fall weather sure has been nice, we've managed to get lots of out door work done, even with Gordon working in Vancouver. With the help of CRTWH, providing a lovely new banner and brochures, and the WHN for the extra magazines, I manned a table at the St Paul Harvest Festival. The Festival is held every second year for six years now and I've been to every one of them. Mornin's Miracle was a wonderful ambassador to our breed, hanging her head over the stall for the entire weekend lapping up all the attention. Although they didn't have breed demo's this year because of time constraints, I did have two of the trainers from the Trainers Challenge ride Mira after they done. The winner of the challenge couldn't believe how smooth Mira was and is now looking at getting one for her arthritic father.

We also participated in Cattle Sorting. It's kind of like team penning, but you only have two team mates and must sort the cattle in numerical order with the first number being called out by the announcer in 75 seconds. The pros could do 9 calves, us beginners were lucky if we got in one or two. It was great fun.

I had a nice visit from Bob Lamport, his daughter-in-law Phyllis and granddaughter Trina back in Sept. Trina met my son Tyler at a 4-H camp and they came up to see our walking horses. Bob imported one of the first stallions into Alberta way back when, by the name of Prince Radar. He still has a few of his descendents on the farm. I brought Mira out and rode her around a bit for Bob. His whole face lit up when he heard that wonderful 1 2 3 4 thunking of a good run walk. It didn't take me long to persuade him to hop on for a ride. It had been three years since he sat a horse and he enjoyed himself so much. The visit was over much too soon, as they had a long drive back.

I've weaned 3 of my 4 foals, as the last one is too young yet, so am having fun doing their ground work. Eddie, my bottle baby from last year is a great babysitter as he is so mellow and relaxed with anything we humans may do that the babies are following his example.

Finially thought of a name for Angel's little colt. CSR Rascal's Lil' Puzzle. He sure is cute, and way smaller than the other babies, even though his mom is like 16hh.

I lost one of my foals. I had decided to wean the last two foals as the first two were doing well. The mares came in for water except for Koko and her baby. Went out to find them and found the baby in the fence. He missed the gate and tryed to hop throught the fence instead. Some how he got the bottome wire twisted around his hind foot and ruptured the tendon and ligament as well as ripping the muscle to the bone. So it was with very sad hearts that we put him down as the vet said that with injuries of this type the risk of tendon and bone infection were incrediable high.



Busy weekend with 4-h as we have weigh in on the 11th. The boys had to go out and round up the cows and then pick out the calves that they want to use this year. We are also going to have a stall mate that will be in the freezer next year. So now we have to tag them and get them haltered.

Sold the last of my goats yesterday, and also got rid of a few more chickens, so now I'll have to go out and take stock of what is left to feed for the winter. Just got to move the bunnies to the barn and I think I'm all set! We still have more to wood to haul, but that's a never ending chore. Mind you, I like not having to pay a natural gas bill!

St Paul Harvest Festival

Just a quick note to let you all know that I've been asked again to set up a booth at the St Paul Harvest Festival. I'm taking Mira and a bunch of stuff to display promoting my wonderful breed the Tennessee Walking Horse.
And because I got talked into it, I'm entering a clinic for beginner cattle penning. Should be a hoot. We'll see how Mira does.

The dazzling colours of fall

During my bus ride every day, I am struck by the absolute beauty of the fall foliage. The mix of the trembling aspen gold, the poplar yellow and the spruce dark green are all layered in the most artistic way.

It literally takes my breath away and makes me want to pause to take it all in. Even the leaves lining one of the few roads that hasn't been bulldozed and "Fixed" are stunning. Roads lined with gold.

I'm listening to Randy Bachman on Vinyl Tap on CBC radio and he's doing a show on movie music. So I'm bopping to Cindy Lauper and girls just want to have fun while I'm typing . If any of you have a chance to catch his show, it's 2 hours of excellent music and the most interesting stories to go with them.

Right now I'm working with the cutest little pony named Star. She is 10hh, black with you guessed it, at star. She's a registered Welsh and I'm training her to be a safe pony for Lesa's little girls. She is an absolute sweet heart. Maybe I should go into training pony's. It's not to far to fall either! Although I'm way to heavy to get on her, Tyler can get on. He just doesn't know it yet.

I'm also doing some work with Belle, one of my two year olds. She had a small hole in the center of her hoof and instead of cracking down, it cracked up into her cornet band. So I took her to the equine vet who took one look at it and wanted a good farrier to look at it. I ended up leaving her there as there is no such thing around here. I told him that she would probably need to be sedated as I haven't done too much work with her and she's been out running in the field. It turns out that they beveled some of the crack and decided a shoe with clips was the way to go to hold the foot together until it grew out. So Belle got a hot shoe on. Apparently she was really good. I was pleasantly surprised, that's for sure. I figured that as I have her at home, I should do some work with her so we've been working on gaiting on the lunge line and desensitizing her to lots of touching and strange things in the yard. She does have a gait to die for and is getting to the point where I just say "walk", "walk up" and "canter" this is just with the halter on, not even the bitting rig.

Here's a picture of Bell's foot before treatment

Fall work is starting to wind down, although we still have much to do. I want to finish the gate for Rascal's pen and get the goat barn cleaned out. It's been pretty nice weather for training horses too, although the last few days weren't that great.

Driving home tonight from picking up Tyler in Vegreville, I was struck by how fast the boys are growing up. Tyler has a girl friend, the operative word being friend. Wes's driving back and forth to St Paul everyday, really enjoying school (not so much English) and holding down a job. They act so grown up now. But at home they are still my boys, leaving clothes everywhere and constantly looking for food.

Gord's been working in Vancouver for the last two weeks. It was only supposed to be two weeks, but you know how those things go. He's doing one more 4 day rotation then will be home for a week, but he's going back. The work is just too steady not to. I guess the trucks aren't working so hard here at home. They figure the job will last until the end of November.

School's In, Back to Work

Me and Rascal in the bush

Well, we survived the first week of the new school year. I'm driving my bus again this year, Tyler's already in grade 8, and Wes is taking Welding at the Comp in St Paul. He's got himself a job at McDonald's to help pay for his gas too.

CHOKECHERRIES!!

The choke cherries are hanging on the trees like fat grapes this year, and I just couldn't stand to see them go to waste, so Gord and I went berrie picking one morning. It didn't take long to fill a five gallon pail, but now I had to deal with them. First the boiling and straining, that took three days, then Saturday I spent the day making jelly. Now I know why I don't do this every year. It is so time consuming!! But sooo darn tasty. Now the kids want me to make crabapple jelly. I hope it gets rainy and miserable outside when I do that, because then I won't feel so bad about being stuck in the house.

Last Monday Lesa came over with three horses to ride, two green ones and Delight. I rode Mira and Lesa rode Nebbie. We just took them out into the hay field as this was Lesa's first time riding Nebbie and I had just trimmed Mira's feet a bit to short and didn't want to take her on the gravel. Nebbie did real well, just got to work on her going to fast, but she's not scary at all.

Next we took out Smartie and Rascal. Smartie is a high energy horse, although she was a low energy horse when Lesa's hubby rode her, and Rascal is my stud. It was an interesting ride. We went to the hay field and then back home on the rode. I thought it would be a good idea to keep going north, but my other stud happened to be on the other side of the fence that had no juice on it. Oops, we got out of there pretty quick.

Then last we took Delight and Rascal out into the big pasture. It was an awsome ride!! There are lots of trails through the bush, and then up onto some pretty high hills were I'm sure we could see Villna. It was almost dark when we got home, pretty darn happy, but tired.

You can see more of our trail ride on Lesa's web site www.rafterdiamondl.tripod.com

Me and Rascal in the hay field

Summer Daze

After getting 3.5 inches of rain, we are back in the heat, +30 for the next few days. It means getting out there early or late to beat the heat.
Me and Lesa went for a late ride last night after it cooled off. Ok, we tried the night riding thing. Can't say I enjoyed it very much. The last time I tried it, I was attacked by a pair of nasty owls. Being dive bombed by owls is NOT fun. Didn't have any cameras on us last night, which is a shame as we were riding in one of our prettiest hayfield's with the setting sun.

Just got Mira back from Nicole's after two weeks of canter training. I'd been working on it during the winter, but I knew that if she got some consistant training she'd do much better. Nicole did a wonderful job on her. I got her to pick up both leads easily, got down to both a halt and a walk. It was so fun. It was tempting to try out our new skill in the hay field last night, but after sinking into a few mole hills at a run walk, I desided I'd better wait for better footing.

parade pics

Here's Rascal and myself at the Willingdon parade. Handsome boy that he is, he didn't mind the flags, floats or kids at all.

Riding, riding riding

Oh my gosh, I always seem to be apologizing for not keeping this blog updated. Hard to think that it's already the middle of August.

My daughter for two weeks arived from Ont. just in time to go to the clinic. It was so much fun to have Allysa come, she is welcome any time. We worker real hard on the three year olds, and I hoped she learned about gaiting while here. We just didn't work though. What's a trip to Alberta with out going to WEM? The kids hit the wave pool while I did some shopping. Allysa was also in her glory with all the tack shops. Would you believe you can't buy ladies black jeans in Ont? I'd never seen someone so happy over black jeans. It seemed like she just got here and then it was time for her to go home. But she was on her way to Tennessee the day she got back to pick up some new walkers, so she had to go........





Our clinic was a great success, we all had a great deal of fun and learned lots. We had some new faces in the crowd, people who had just gotten walking horses and wanted to learn more. A clinic just for walkers is certainly the place to do it!





There were nine of us for the Blackfoot ride. What a lot of walkers all in one place (and one throughbred). The only incident was the Beaver. The thing decided to slide back into the water just under poor Leroy's feet causing him to bolt forward and hit me and Squirt. Leas just about landed in my lap and we all almost went for a drink in slough on each side of us. But, we got our selves sorted out and the horses proceeded as if nothing happened. Both Leroy and Squirt are only three year olds, so we were real proud of them for getting ahold of themselves so quick.

Me and Rascal have been having a fun summer. In case any of you don't know, he's my 10 year old stallion. I hadn't ridden him in about 3 years, just was too busy with the other horses. I decided to jump on him one evening and tool around the yard a little bit. We had a great time! It was like I rode him last week. So when Lesa phoned my up and wanted to come for a ride on her three year old gelding Leroy befor the clinic I saddle up Rascal. We went around the arena, no problems with either horse, so off we went into the feilds. Both boys were soooo good. Lesa hadn't ridden Leroy since he came back from the trainers, and I really hadn't ridden Rascal in three years.

We met up with my folks moving equipment around in the field, had to tie both horses to the old truck, they acted like best buddies. Didn't care about the tractors or truck either. After that we rode some more, for about a total of three miles. It was great. That is what trail riding is supposed to be like.

I then took Rascal to the clinic for Sunday afternoon. I wasn't really going to ride him at the clinic, just afterwards. But Alyssa's horse got tuckered out so I gave her Mira and I hopped on Rascal. Some riders were a bit nervous about a stud in their midst, but Rascal was a perfect genleman and gave no problems what so ever. The next Wednesday I took him to the Willingdon arena as we were tired of getting thundered and lighteninged on. Again we had so much fun with him. Allysa got to ride him, her first time to ride a stallion. She told me later she was a bit nervous, but he was a good boy and she got over it pretty quick and had fun with him.

Our next outing was moving cattle. Rascal hadn't moved cattle in about 6 years, so I had no idea how that was going to go. The hardest part turned out trying to get him to the pasture. It was close to home, so there was no point in trailering him. He figured that going out the driveway and down our track was good enough, actually going all the way to the end wasn't in his game plan. But I persevered (and had hubby drive ahead with the truck, which he was more than happy to follow). Chasing cows was FUN!!! we had to get them past the growing barley to get to the road about 1/2 a mile of lovely, green barley that the cows would have loved to run amok in. Once we got them out of there, it was onto the road. Again, Rascal wasn't to thrilled with going away from home, but he did go with cows eventually. He was the perfect drag horse, not minding in the least going cow speed.

Today, Rascal and I rode in the Willingdon Parade! It was a bit stressfull at first as we just wern't sure how the horses were going to behave. Lesa was riding Leroy, what a honey of a horse! you just can't ask better of a three year old. He wasn't too sure about the acordian player, and sat on a car trying to avoid it, but he was so good on the parade route. Rascal didn't mind any of the scary stuff, ballons, flags, lots of music, traffic. However, coming out of the staging area, we were the first in the group of horses, was a shadow of the over head flags. He didn't know what to make of that! Then we were on our way. The amount of people was overwelming to both horses at first, but they soon got used to them and the kids running out for candy. By the time we got back, our boys were old pros and we are ready to tackle the Vilna and Two Hills parades next weekend. Maybe even next year we'll go some bigger ones like Vegreville.

Clinic

Just a reminder about our clinic that is coming up. Dianne Little is coming again to St Paul the first weekend of July to help us with all our gaited needs. Bill Roy is also coming and he is going to discuss saddle fitting, starting a young horse and problem solving. It promises to be an excellent clinic with lots of one on one time. St Paul has great facitlities with stabling, a campground right across the street, lots of accomadation and restaraunts.

We are also going to hosting a gathering Saturday night, if anyone would like to bring their Canadian Reg walker for the Progam of Excellence. Vidio will be made for the tests bronze, silver and gold, and if anyone would like to try for the trainer challenge that would be great. You can find out more about these programs on the CRTWH web page.

For more info, please call me at 780-768-2250

Mane Event

Back in April, Lesa, Irene and myself headed off to Red Deer for the Mane Event. All I can say is WOW. It was so huge and over 42 000 people went throught the gates. There was so much to see and do, it was all rather overwelming.

I did take Mira to demo and we participated in the Sat. spectacular. I think we did pretty good! Lesa took some nice video clips of us riding on Saturday afternoon in my english gear, on Fri and Sunday I rode Western. Met tons of people, the CRTWH had a booth that was manned by Karla Freeman and Bill Young who came all the way from BC.

I've got to say a big Thank-you to Lesa and Irene, for with out their help, I couldn't have made it. They helped with everything from grooming and saddling, stall cleaning to getting my big butt up in the saddle!

hoof trimming

Well, Lesa and I had the oportunity to take a natural barefoot trimming course at the beginning of the month. Don came to the farm and gave us lessons for two days. We did 8 horse and now he is on his way back to see how we are doing. It is a lot of work, especially as it takes each of us so long to do as we are not very fast (yet!). But it will be all worth while as now we know that the horses are being trimmed correctly and we are no longer at the mercy of farriers not showing up when they say they are going to.

I think it has also made me a better horseman too, as now my youngsters have to stand perfectly still for me to trim as I place the hoof in my lap and squat down beside them. It saves the back big time, but your horse has to cooperate. So the young ones get put into the round-pen and we use round pen techniques to teach them to stand quietly.

Picture is of Lesa trimming Tinkerbelle, with the help of Joy.

SOME OF OUR FARM ANIMALS

Just some pictures I took of some of our feathered freinds here on the farm

NEW BABIES!

We've got four healthy foals and just have one more mare left. The first picture is of Angel's foal from Rascal, a nice colt. This baby is a spittin imiage of his papa.

The second foal is from Koko, and is by Treasure. He is a smokey black. I was hoping for a buckskin or a palimino but I got black. Oh well.

He does have the most amazing grey eye, and is very correct in his build. He's also got the long legs I've ever seen, he stands a couple of inches over the other babies.

Tinkerbell's baby from Money is the most quiet, easy going foal I've ever seen. Here she is taking a nap while we trim Tinker's feet. Lesa thought she should play with Joy's (that's what we named the baby) feet. Joy just lied there while getting all her toes picked out, and her legs moved around. We then brushed her and she put her head down, had her eyes half closed and was almost purring.

Funeral

Yesterday we went to the funeral of a 15 year old girl. No one should ever have to go the funeral of a 15 year old girl. It is not right, it is not the natural order of nature, and I hope that anyone reading this never has to go to the funeral of a 15 year old girl.

Why did we go to the furneral of a 15 year old girl? Because a 42 year old man decided to get behind the wheel of his truck, decided to put the key in the ignition, and decided to drive down the hi-way, he then hit head on my friend and her daughter, killing the girl out right. The only blessing is that her mother was with her.

What do I want to happen to this man? Is hanging to good?, jailing for life?, never being able to drive again? I think the worst punishment that God can hand out is to live in the purgatory of his own mind for the rest of life knowing how he destroyed a family. Hopefully God has given him a soul so that he might suffer.

where did the winter go?

We had our first baby this year, a cute little filly from Glory. I've been waiting for a filly from this mare forever and finially got one! Born right on her due date, April 19. She beat the storm by a few hours. We are now in the midst of a full blown spring snow storm with 40 to 80 cm of snow expected to fall. I put her coat on her and sent her out to play for an hour with her mom this AM while I cleaned out the stall. She didn't care that it was snowing like crazy, she was running around having fun.

Lesa and I have made it to the arena almost every week, yeah us! This weekend, however we are off to the mane event. Irene is joining us and we are going to have a wonderful time. I'm bringing Mira to demo, hope she does OK. The CRTWH is also hosting a booth that I'm going to spend some time in, so come visit me.

We've got 4 more foals to come, it will be

nice when they are all done. It seems like it's been way more than a year since I've bred those mares. We've been having more goat babies too. Had a set of quads the other day, but lost one. Oh well, three healthy babies is pretty good. Opps, Wes just came in and another doe kidded twins, that makes 10 babies for April, and a total of 47 babies since Jan.

Went to the odd and unusual sale a couple of weeks ago and came home with some more critters. A large bunny with black spots, 3 call ducks, 6 duckling (Indian Runners and Swedish Blue), and some goose eggs to hatch. I'm banned from going to any more sales.