Ryans 4th Birthday

We celebrated Ryan's 4th Birthday on Saturday with a western theme, Ryan dressed up like a cowboy with boots and a cowboy hat, he even had his sheriffs badge on! It was a great day with Family and Friends, We had fried chicken, baked beans, pasta salad and of course cake and Ice cream!

Ryan got a new swing set and a wheel barrow with garden tools, many toys and books. Yesterday he wore himself out playing outside with his new things and helped Nana and Pop pop work in the garden.

Its so hard to believe that he is now 4 years old!

Preparing for foaling

I know I have not blogged for awhile but we have been busy preparing for our new foals, Willow is showing some signs that the time is near, The muscles around her tail head are soft and wiggle like Jello! Her vulva is elongated now and swollen. She is like a yo yo with her teats, sometimes they are looking like they are filling up and then other times their down. She is cranky today for the most part. I have chose to leave her in her stall where we can monitor her closer, we have a camera system set up so we can watch the mares with out them knowing!
Badger's Teats have just started filling up but the muscles around her tail are still firm.
This is such a nerve wracking experience for me, I cant help but constantly watch them and yet I am very anxious but also reluctant at the same time for the moment to arrive!
I will try to post pics later, I have lost the cable to upload pictures to my computer, as soon as I find it I will show pictures of the girls!

Super bowl Champions!!!

The Steelers won!!!!

What a great game all the way to the end, both teams played great but,

we won!!!!!!!

More Basement Progress

We are still busy working on the Basement, Here are some pictures of that progress!

This is that back wall, I was talking about in my last post

This is a before picture of the wall across the room

And this is after painting!

We are going to try to work on the ceiling and frame out a few rooms down in the basement a little later, but we are going to have to focus our attention on the horses and the barn again real soon, we are getting closer to having baby horses and we need to prepare for them!

I will post more pictures of our progress around the house and barn as we get the chance.... Things are a bit busy here for now!!

Blog Header

My New Blog Header is compliments of my friend Robin of Robins Rest
Thank You Robin, I Love it, I will have to learn to do that someday!

A Needed Improvement

I have started to finally paint the basement! We have a very small house and use every inch of the space we have, The Basement seems to have been chosen as the Family room, Ryan's toys are all down there and the computer is in the basement, so we find ourselves spending a lot of time there, I couldn't take the dingy block walls any longer so I decided to paint!

Here is a before picture

And and After

We are hoping to frame in and finish that back wall too!

I have a lot more painting to get done and I cant wait!

it made a world of difference in the look and feel of that space, next I want to decorate and hang some pictures!

Then this space will really feel like a family room!!!

Winter is NOT for butchering!

What do we do when it is 25 degrees outside with 14 mph winds?

We butchered, not that we really wanted to but, we had to, we butchered 6 chickens and 2 rabbits today for a total of 47 lbs 10 oz. of meat,
I would rather accomplish this in milder weather but we were low on meat in the freezer and these animals were way past the time for butchering.
It is very expensive to feed so many animals in the winter, not to mention the hardship that cold weather brings to both man and beast.
We had intended to have this done way back in November and not have to worry about it at this time of year but, a series of events had taken our time away from those chores. so now we are left to do our butchering in the middle of winter, we have 19 more chickens and 6 more rabbits to do before we are done.... not a chore I look forward to doing in warm or cold weather, but enjoy the benefits once it is all done!