Wordless Wednesday

Holy Hay!

This is after four days of them eating free choice on their new hay!! I think they've slowed down a little bit now that they realize it isn't going anywhere lol. The wagon is full of hay that I picked up off the ground. I try to go out several times a day and pick up what they're wasting. We are going to put something around it as soon as we get the time (or when they're ready for their next bale at this rate haha). This was a 900lb bale of first cutting, so it's pretty short, but very good quality from fertilized and maintained horse hay fields. I think a bale of second cut will last longer. We shall see. :)

Excitement

I finished my antibiotics but still don't feel great. I had a long day at work and my legs and back hurt so bad. I just need a little rest and I should be better in no time.

There was some minor excitement last night. There is a natural gas lift station about half a mile from our house and it sprang a leak yesterday evening. The noise and smell were unbelievable!! Luckily it wasn't too bad and they got it fixed. They did have a fire truck available though in case of a fire. I'm very thankful it wasn't needed. Well that's all for tonight. Night!

Yay For Hay

We finally got a few really good quality round bales of hay for Chrome and Zeppelin so now they'll be able to eat as much as they'd like. View the pictures below to see Chrome's opinion of his new hay. :)

My adorable hay head.

"Hey thanks pops! This hay is great!"

Blech!

I finally went to the doctor yesterday and I do have bronchitis. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't contagious. So now I'm on antibiotics and I feel icky.

Anyway I wanted to write to tell you what I've been doing with Chrome yesterday and today. I've started walking him up and down the hill that runs alongside our property. It's short and not too steep so it will muscle him up gradually. I only went once today because I don't feel good. He was feeling spunky though. He kept trying to snatch grass and when we'd go through the ditch on and off our property he would jump really big over it and crow hop. Just being very silly because he's walked through it fine before. :)

I also worked with him on the trailer. I let him eat a bit of his feed on the trailer to make it a good thing and then feed him the rest in his stall because I just don't feel like standing out there for twenty minutes. So my new routine for feeding is fly spray him or hose him off depending on if he's sweating or being attacked by flies, then I walk him up and down the hill, then I feed him on the trailer. It's working well so far. :)

So Hot!

It is so hot outside. I don't think it's normally this hot this soon. We've had a heat index between 105F and 107F for days on end and no rain. I'm not complaining though. I'll take the heat any day over the freezing cold of winter. Anyway my point is that this heat has caused Storm to finally blow her coat. We're practically breathing dog hair! So I decided to brush her. She actually enjoyed it! I could tell she was itchy. Normally she fights me and just wants to run away. After brushing her I looked up for about a second and suddenly she was gone! I couldn't find her anywhere. Here's a picture of the place where she was last seen. Any suggestions where I should look for her?

Seriously though I got a ton of fur off of her. I'm going to brush her everyday until I stop getting gobs of it off. I can't handle that much fur being in the house. Cough. Choke. Gag.

After brushing her as a reward I let her out in the pasture to get some exercise. She loved every second of it and as a bonus I exercised her and the donkey lol.

What is that??

Chrome followed her a little bit, but was more interested in the hay.

Zeppelin on the other hand wants her OUT of his pasture!

Storm wasn't concerned at all. She never stopped looking for chicken poop.

I think they both enjoyed themselves. :)

My pretty girl. She doesn't even look like I've brushed her lol.

I gave Chrome another rinse off. I think he's finally learning that it cools him off, but he's still a bit skittish about it at first. This time I rinsed him all over, including his belly and privates. He jumped sky high at first. I guess I wasn't gradual enough lol. He got over it quickly though. It just startled him.

Checking out my husband's sweat rag.

He's going through another growth spurt so he's gotten ribby again. :(

Showing off his gorgeous neck.

Giving my husband kisses. :D

When he's wet I can pretend I finally have the black horse I've always wanted LOL!

Being ugly to Zeppelin. It's funny they're too hot to play so they just bite each other but won't move.

"What mom? I wasn't doing anything!"

Checking out the crate we were using to move chickens around.

. . . he found the latch . . .

. . . and proceeded to steal the rubber thing off of it. My husband had to pry his mouth open and get it back.

I think he was sulking after. He refused to look at me lol.

Is this the equivalent of a hug? Or a helping . . . tail?

Scratching an itch.

Zeppelin's version of scratching an itch lol.

Shaking his head and yawning at the same time. :)

Then my pretty, clean, wet colt rolls in the hay. Brat!

Don't horses looks so awkward standing back up? He needs some muscling in his haunches. I'm going to start walking him up and down the short hill that runs alongside our property.

Just had to go and get all dirty. Sigh.

All the critters are trying to keep cool. These young roosters were panting because we had to corner them and catch all the pullets so we could separate them.

The goats use the side of the house to keep shaded and cool.

Happy Birthday Stormy!!

If you didn't guess by the title it's Storm's ninth birthday today! I can't believe she's nine. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, yet I can't remember a time when she wasn't there. :)

Close your eyes and makes a wish.

I'm sure she wished for snow, but all she got was a treat lol. :)

Time for this nine year old girl to go take a nap.

Oh and I have great news! We finally got the lease on the forty acres of pasture that adjoins the backside of our property! Chrome, Zep and the goats are going to think they've died and gone to heaven! The lady who was leasing it had one single horse on forty acres and he was so fat I was sure he'd founder any day, but she refused to let go of the lease until now. I don't know why she decided she didn't need it anymore, but I'm thrilled we finally get it. Pictures below.

Looking across it from our back property line.

The old barn is kind of run down, but still usable with some work.

Okay, maybe a lot of work. :)

Look at all the grass!! Chrome will be so happy!

A lot of it has gone to weeds because the woman didn't keep up with the brush hogging agreements in the lease. We definitely will and with the goats' help we'll have it back to prime pasture grass.

There are two huge ponds on it.

This is a view from about three quarters across the pasture. Click to enlarge where I circled our house. The critters aren't going to know what to do with so much room after being on two acres for so long lol. I can't wait until we sign the lease agreement and we can start throwing up some temporary electric fences. I don't completely trust my neighbors so there are certain areas I don't want them going into. Anyway just had to share the exciting news. We've waited almost four years for this. :)

A Fun Walk

Storm looking totally adorable begging but trying to look like she's not begging lol.

Sigh, I think I might be catching what my husband has, however I'm not going to dwell on it so I'll tell you what I did yesterday. I decided it had been entirely too long since I'd taken Chrome for a walk out in the neighborhood so I took him for a short walk. It was hot! I was about dead by the time I got home. I need to wait until later in the evening when it's cooler next time.

Chrome was very excited and a little spooky because he hadn't been out in a while but he behaved very well. I trotted him a few times and he did that incredible, floating, all four hooves off the ground trot! It was gorgeous! I wish someone had been there to video tape him because I've never seen him move out that well. I tried to get a video, but since I was running and trying to look back over my shoulder it didn't turn out. Below are the pictures I did manage to get. I think they turned out well considering I was running when I took them lol.

Can you tell I love my horse?

I really like how this picture turned out. Normally I don't like having pictures taken, but posing with my colt makes me put on a genuine smile instead of one of those fake 'I have to smile for the camera' smiles lol.

Chrome showing off his gorgeous neck!

Another not as good neck shot. He was really into checking things out. :)

I actually had the forethought to fly spray him before the walk so the flies attacked the only thing I didn't spray . . . his ears. :-/

My cutie.

Flagging his cute little tail. Do you see the white growing in the middle of it?

Another view of the white in his tail. He kept going to0 fast for me and leaving me behind lol.

I love this picture. His face looks so Friesian, but his dainty little legs and flagged tail look so Arabian.

Here he was feeling frisky and started to take a canter stride. I managed to snap the picture at the exact moment before he started trotting again. :) He's going to have such a huge canter under saddle I think.

These last two were blurry so I messed with them in GIMP and I like how they turned out. :)