Re-Awakened!!

Hellloooooo!!!!!!!

It has been a long, long time since I have blogged. I just wasn't into it anymore and finally just gave up on it.

So, so very much has changed in the last few months though and life is interesting and vibrant again. I feel like I have awakened from a long nap. Rip Van Winkle style. LOL.

I guess if you aren't on my fb page, you probably don't know, but...

We moved to Arizona full time!!

Yayyyyyy!!!

Colorado just wasn't doing it for us anymore, especially for me. It wasn't the same with My Honey working out of state again. I was lonely and depressed. Hah! I didn't even realize it was depression that was kicking my butt last year, but once we made the decision to move, I couldn't get out of CO fast enough and that was a pretty big clue. Hahahahahahaha.

I am settled in, with all of the horses and pets at the 'winter home'...for now.

When we decided to make Arizona our full-time home again, we decided that we needed more land than we currently have, so I did what I do and found us a lovely little 12-acre plot of raw land.

In the not too distant future we will begin construction on our dream property. It's all very exciting!!

In the meantime, I still have a few things to do on this property. I had been buying used panels every chance I got and I hauled the majority of the panels I had in CO down here too, so I do have nice pens set up for the horses and 6 stalls, with actual gates even, but there is no shade on this property to speak of, so putting up shades has been a big priority. I bought 2 kits that I will be getting up in the next few days and then I will be buying clamp on shade kits for the stalls. It won't be fancy, but it will be functional and I can add to it all as needed.

It took a good long while to get my horses back up to snuff too. Over the last year or so, I just wasn't riding much and everything was just kind of done as necessary. The whole bunch needed lots of TLC to get them back up to my normal standards. In the meantime, I was getting 2 mares bred and then had to contend with a little 'surprise' that I wasn't expecting, but was plumb tickled about. ;-).

I brought Beretta and Frenchie down in anticipation of taking them to Firewater Fooler to breed. I left Sassy in CO, where she was getting bred. The timing on everyone was working out perfectly!!

In case it has been forgotten...last year was the absolute worst fiasco I have ever endured when it came to getting mares bred. The gray mare wasn't breedable, Frenchie never did settle to that race stallion out of Oklahoma, the vet couldn't get the brown Tiny Watch mare to settle either...hell he said that even Beretta didn't settle. According to him, Sassy was the only one in foal.

Eventually I did get the brown Tiny Watch mare in foal. In fact, she settled immediately upon arrival at the breeding facility in Utah.

By September it was obvious that Sassy was no longer in foal though. It was a bitter disappointment.

I was hoping that by starting early this year, as my mares were most definitely cycling...and February, early March babies are the norm in Arizona, that this year would be better.

I no sooner got Beretta down to Arizona and it became abundantly clear that when the vet told me she didn't settle last year, that he was wrong. Hahahahahaha. Yep, Beretta was packing a baby already. I had several people ask me how I didn't realize that all winter...but Beretta is a big mare and she is a complete fatass 'healthy'. It wasn't until she started bagging up that I actually realized she was in deed, pregnant. Well that and the fact that I watched her getting kicked from the inside. Hahahahaha.

In all the hubbub, I missed Frenchie's heat cycle, but it was still plenty early yet, so no big deal. Sassy did get covered in CO and the watch on her began. I decided that this year, I wasn't paying a damn vet to check mares at 14 days. It just didn't work out very well last year. I know my mares like I know that back of my own hand, so I just went with my gut and waited to see if Sassy started to come in or not. When her time to come into heat again came and went without a sign from her, I was confident that she had settled.

In the meantime, Frenchie did start coming in, so I hauled her to the stallion for live cover. Apparently, that didn't go very well. Frenchie was having none of that. It took 2 days of teasing her for her to let the stallion cover her and then after that, she went right back to wanting to kill him. The stallion owner was not confident that she would settle. She did not believe that Frenchie was truly cycling. I have no reason to believe that Frenchie has reproductive problems, she was an easy breeder before I got her and I tend to believe the reason Flashy was born premature was due to me hauling that poor mare all over and not a problem with her, but you never know, I mean mares don't generally give you any warning they are going barren, they just suddenly can't reproduce. However,  I have long suspected that mare has some sort of pain issue. She is unreasonably grumpy. I've had her checked out by a chiro...who found nothing. A friend suggested ulcers...I was kind of skeptical. I doubted it was gastric ulcers, but didn't rule out hind-gut ulcers, so I started treating her with a cup of aloe vera gel in her grain and it has made a huge improvement in Frenchie's demeanor. I didn't know if she had settled in foal or not yet, but figured that if she hadn't that at least the next time she went to be bred, she would feel better and probably be more receptive.

In the meantime, Beretta foaled a healthy baby...BOY! Yep...Another boy!! LOL.

At this point, I really want the boy streak to continue. I am really hoping that Scamper has a colt and not the long-awaited filly. But, with my luck...I might as well resign myself to the fact that Scamper will have a filly. Cause that is the way it always works right?

As it turns out, about day 40, Sassy suddenly decided to show some interest in the geldings next door. Uh-Oh...That was not good. It was just a flash and then she was disinterested again for several more days. I kept my fingers crossed, but I already knew in my gut that she was going to come into heat soon and sure enough...on day 45, she was. The timing told me all I needed to know though. Sassy is catching...she is just absorbing immediately after the 30 day mark. That is a classic sign of low progesterone.

If any of those assholes in CO had listened to me, we would have caught it last year. I told both the vet and the breeding manager that I thought she had come open, but they both just brushed me off and said, 'Some mares just show heat while bred'. I reminded the stallion manager of those conversations when she mentioned a 're-breed fee' and she decided it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to charge for that.

Anyway, I took Sassy over to a well-recommended breeding facility here in the valley for an ultrasound and about half fell in love with the owner. That woman knows her shit and for the first time in 3 years, someone took the time to TALK to me and explain my options in regards to Sassy. After all of the money I have paid frickin vets over the last few years and I got less than nothing out of them. A bunch of half-baked explanations and shrugged shoulders.

Sure enough, Sassy was open again, but ready to breed, so semen was shipped and she was rebred immediately. This time, she will receive a regumate shot 5 days afterward. We will have to ultrasound her at 16 days to see if she has taken or not...only because that determines whether to keep giving her the shots or not. If she has an embryo, she will receive a weekly shot of regumate to help her maintain the pregnancy. If she didn't take, then we will have to determine what we want to do from there. I have a good feeling though, 'catching' hasn't been Sassy's problem...it's just the maintaining part. I think we have that figured out though, so if she catches, we should be good this time.

Because I was already going, I decided to take Frenchie for an ultrasound too. I was about half expecting her to be open. Not that I didn't think one breeding was enough to settle her...I mean, nature dictates that it only takes one little wiggly dude to find their way to the egg at the right time...but since there was concern that she wasn't cycling right, I didn't really know where she stood.

As luck would have it...Frenchie did settle. Yayy!!

Oh, and if my disgust of vets hadn't reached it's peak yet...The VET who was ultrasounding Frenchie made a quick swipe and pronounced her 'open'...but the lady who owns the breeding station was watching and said, 'Wait a minute...Go back'....and sure enough...There was an embryo. Thank God she was watching the machine!!!

I am still awaiting the arrival of Scamper's foal. Got a few more weeks though. She isn't due until the first week of June. Poor girl. All I can say is, the unseasonably cool weather for this time of year in Arizona has been a godsend for her. The heat is coming...but I will have a shade and misters set up for her in the next few days, to help keep her comfortable.

I'm sorry I have no pictures in this post. My computer is wildly out of date and I can no longer plug my phone in and download pictures. I will actually have to dig out my camera and do it the 'old way'.

But...I'm back and feeling more like my old self than I have felt like in a good lone while. Yaayyy!!