Monday, June 1, 2015

Another Month Just...Gone

I guess I have officially reached the age where time flies by and you never quite know where it went. I can vividly remember being a kid and thinking, 'The school year is NEVER going to end'...and summers seemed l.o.n.g....

These days, well, let's just say...It feels like just yesterday that it was January.

On the other hand...I have accomplished an astronomical amount of work already this year. The pasture is planted and growing. It was a real struggle to get water moving across it properly and it still takes a significant amount of 'baby-sitting' the lines.

I have the majority of the remodel done on the rental house. I still have lots of little projects to do inside and outside, but at least the house is clean and set up to function as a guest house. In fact, it already got to serve in that capacity. MH is not much for celebrating birthdays, nor am I for that matter, but this year was his 50th. It took a lot of coaxing, but he finally agreed to let me throw him a 50th birthday party.

It was magnificent!! Tons of people showed up, I put out a pretty awesome spread for the bbq and a good time was had by all. I made about a hundred jello shots. LOL. Five different flavors; Cherry Bombs, Red Silk Panties, Purple Hooter Shooters, Fuzzy Navels and by far the best and the biggest hit...Fireballs with frosting. Yuummmmyyyyy!!!

Jello shots are sneaky little devils. I knew how much alcohol was in them, but it sure didn't taste like it...So I ate A LOT of them! My head was most definitely hurting the next day. ;-).

But now, all of the 'OMG...I HAVE to get this done' stuff is DONE!! The ponies have been put on the back burner long enough. It's time to get to work. Not being on a regular work schedule this time of year has them very confused and unhappy. They are all soooo bored!

They are also a mess. Tangled manes, dirty tails and long in the feet. I figured the best way to get back on track was to start getting them out and getting them cleaned up. I quickly found out that, although I have been working my butt off physically...I'm out of feet trimming shape. I got Moon and Shooter's feet trimmed all the way around and will just have to keep doing a couple horses a day until everyone is ship-shape again.

Thanks to Mother Nature deciding to give us a late wet spring, pretty much all of the barrel races and events were canceled during the month of May, so technically, I'm not totally behind everyone else as far as competitions go. My horses may not be in prime condition, but I'll be able to start hitting the next few races. I'm actually excited to put a run on Moon. My goodness, the old man is looking incredible this year and feeling quite frisky. :-D. I'm also looking forward to running Frosty again. I just keep hoping that at some point he starts clocking. That is kind of Frosty's M.O. Juuusstttt about the time I think I am wasting my time on him...He makes a big jump forward.

Little John and Jet will be the other two I really need to focus on getting going on the pattern. LJ had the pattern down and was loping it a little. He was still unsure about the rate thing, but I hate to really reinforce the rate on him. When he figures the barrels out, he is going to have a tremendous amount of natural rate. Jet on the other hand...Well, he is all run, so he needs to have rate ingrained in his head from day one.

Shooter's leg is getting better. Some of the lumpiness has gone out of it. It's still thick around the fetlock and if he lands on that leg with too much force, he yanks it up. I don't foresee him doing anything but patterning work this year. I did talk to some of the barrel racers about it and they all told me that if I really want to try to run barrels on him, I need to go ahead and work him on them. Using common sense of course!! As far as just riding, Shooter travels sound, if not entirely square. Most people don't even notice the slight hitch in that leg. I have been using the BOT boot on it again, for a couple hours a day and it is sweating good again, so maybe eventually, that thickness will completely break up and with conditioning, he very well may be able to run barrels. At this point, I don't really care. He is still the smoothest riding horse I have ever swung a leg over and I enjoy riding him, so if we can't run barrels, we'll do 'other stuff'. ;-)

Hopefully, the whole breeding thing is finally under control too. Sassy had to go back to Mags for a re-breed and she did the exact same thing this time as she did the last time. Came into heat, went out and then came back in. Luckily, she was still at A's place when she came back in and I told A to jump that stud on her. I talked to my vet about it and he said that she is most likely ovulating in one horn and then the other. Most people wouldn't want to double breed her like I asked A to, but worst case scenario is 2 eggs are inseminated and we have to pinch one off so she doesn't have twins. Personally, I don't think she will settle with twins. I think her true ovulation is the 2nd time she comes in and it's more likely that is when she will catch. Fingers crossed this 2nd round of breeding finds Sassy baking a beautiful palomino filly. :-D.

I was having hell catching my gray mare before ovulation too. The old heifer is so quiet about when she is in heat that it's impossible to tell. The day she shows interest in a male horse is the day she ovulates. That doesn't work too well when you are shipping semen from Oklahoma. LOL. I missed her by a day the first ultrasound, took her back in right about the time she should just be growing another follicle and lo and behold...she had just ovulated again. WTH?? Apparently, the old girl has eggs to spare because she is spitting them out every 2 weeks. (NOT funny!!) We timed it better the 3rd time AND I gave her a shot of Lutilase to help control her exact ovulation. Guess what?...that slowed her ovulation way down. At that point, I just left her at the vet's and told him...Call me when she is bred! This is the first time I have ever AIed a mare and I am most certainly NOT THRILLED with the process. I have a feeling that I am going to cry when I see the vet bill. :-/.

Aannndddd...Of course, because the weather was so crappy in SD and over the mountain passes...I still have not gotten Frenchie back to SD to get pasture bred. At this rate, I am kind of wondering if I am going to have ANY babies next year. :-(. That would SUCK!! I finally gathered up one of the nicest sets of mares I have ever had and am trying to invest into some top notch stallions and it's not working out too good so far.

Oh, it will all work out in the end. I'll have babies. They will be a month or so later than what I had planned for, but not horribly late in the season. And of course, next year, I'll have beautiful pastures for everyone, so being a little behind this year will be worth it. :-)

And that about covers the whole last month around here. Farming, remodels, birthday parties, breeding woes...I've done everything BUT ride, but that has to change. Immediately!! It's the first of June already. Total craziness!!


4 comments:

Shirley said...

I sure hope Sassy caught! I have riding woes too, after Delia not working out I have nothing to ride. Need to sell Snoopy and get a riding horse! I can still use Beamer for teaching the kids, but I need something for me. That doesn't buck....
You know, hint hint, we can never get too many foal pictures! How is Flashy doing?

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Oh, I do need to get some new pictures of Ruger. He is so stinking cute. Love that little guy. Flashy too. He's doing awesome. He's a chip off the old block...Reminds me A LOT of his Uncle Moon. He has the exact same head, eye and expressions. It's so cool and yet so scary. LOL

Crystal said...

Ya I feel the same way too, this time flying and getting nothing done. At least I'm not worried about mares getting bred but I haven't been getting near enough riding time in....but I will my horses don't like the time off either, except Jessie but she turns into a brat with too much time off so I better get back at it.

Sherry Sikstrom said...

Exciting times ahead! I have very little problem usually with mares showing signs of heat with the two stallions here, mostly they are like cats! That said, Icis *momma to Whoa dammit) is a tough one, it sucks because I have missed her a couple times, and once we just tried her because everything else was in heat, that time it worked!