Its a Colt!!!

Introducing Dexter our new Arabian/ Thoroughbred Colt

Born May 13, 2009 at 11:25 PM

We were told by the vet that Willow should be due to have her foal sometime in March, We had no due date to go by because they were discovered to be pregnant when we bought them, so this lack of information and the vets guess as to when it "could" be lead to a lot of sleepless nights for us....since March 28th we either stayed awake watching Willow because she would show signs that it was very soon, only to stop her labor and then nothing.

When we didn't stay awake watching, We would take turns getting up every hour and looking at the monitor to see what she was doing.

It would figure that Willow would foal while we were not here, My car broke down Monday and Alan had to come pick me up from work, while on our way home Robin called to say she looked at the monitor and Willow had foaled!

So we missed the actual birth but we made it home in time to see Dexter get up for the first time and take his first steps, nuzzle with his Mom and nurse!
I checked the placenta and found it to be intact! Both Willow and Dexter seem to be very healthy and happy!

When we first pulled into the driveway, I ran into the house and changed out of my nurses uniform into jeans so fast that I think I may have broke some Guinness world record or something! I flew down the barn but then I took my time approaching Mom and baby because I was not sure how protective Willow might be and thought caution was needed! Willow was wonderful about us being there and let us touch and examine her new little one, we mucked out the stall around her and put down fresh straw bedding to remove the mess from the delivery, all the while Willow did not mind the interruption. Once Dexter got to his feet and started nursing, we felt comfortable leaving the barn to let Mom and baby have some quiet time and bond some more while we watched from the monitor at the house for a few more hours before going to bed.

It was a wonderful event that we waited what seemed like forever to happen and finally found ourselves with a sweet new horse!

Now we have to wait for Badger to have her baby. So I see more sleepless nights in our future but, it is such a great experience that we would not trade it for anything!!!

New Babies and a little trouble

Wild Kitty had her babies Sunday night, 6 total! It is so exciting to see the new little ones, but the trouble here is that she decided to give birth in Badgers stall!

Alan tried to move them but.... wild kitty was so determined to have them stay in the horses stall that she tried three times to move them back in there, even as fast as Alan carried them to the nice bed of straw that he prepared for them she would carry them one at a time into the stall...I guess she really likes Badger but she has no idea how dangerous this is for her six little kittens. We ended up having to move her and her kittens to the empty brooder coop and close her in with them!

Other than wanting to share them with a 1200 lb horse, she is a good momma, very diligent with caring for her little ones!

Taking care of the Animals on a winter day

Robin and Willow

This morning is cold, its the kind of cold that chills you to the bone as soon as you walk outside. I greeted the Horses who are always glad to see us come down because they know they are going to get their sweet grain, Badger will whinny in excitement and then bite at her gate until she gets her grain, Willow whinnies and then gets aggravated with Badger biting at her gate. While the horses eat their grain, we feed and water the Chickens, Turkeys and our flock of Meat chickens and open the door to the coop to let everyone outside. The Rabbits are next, we fill their feeders and collect the water bottles to take up to the house to thaw by the wood stove, we will take the water bottles back down to them after they thaw out later. We put the Halters on the Horses and let them out, Willow has to go first, then Badger. They get fresh hay thrown to them because there's no good grazing right now, everything is frozen.

We of course spend a little time loving the horses before we return to the warmth of the house.

In the evening we return to the barn to feed and water again, Brush the horses ( I have learned to do this in the evening because they usually like to roll during the day) We clean out their hooves and muck their stalls, then they go in the stalls and impatiently wait for us to bring them more grain and throw hay into the hay racks. We collect the eggs from the chickens and close them in the coop for the night. When it is really cold out the chickens and Turkeys get some scratch grains before roosting to help keep them warmer through the night. We give the rabbits each a little hay and say good night to all the animals.

Sometimes going to the barn feels like a drudgery to get myself motivated this time of the year ( I am not a cold weather type of girl)but, Once I get down there, I actually enjoy it, I love being with the animals, petting and holding the rabbits or hugging the horses and watching the antics of the chickens. The animals provide me with a sense of calm and help me forget the stresses of the day and they always do something that will amuse me and make me laugh, Its then that I forget, for a little while that its cold out side!

Its been awhile!

I am sorry that I have not blogged in a long time, it has been a hard adjustment to losing my Grandmother and then we misplaced our camera, so I am reduced for now to use my cell phone for pictures.

We have had a lot going on around here, we have done more cleaning on the property and rearranged our barn to fit two rescued Thoroughbred race horses!

This is Willow, she won 9 races in her career and won over $60.000 before a leg injury took her off the track, she has a calcium build up on her left front leg as a result from her injury. Willow stands 16.2 hands high and has a very sweet personality!

This is Badger, she stands 17 hands high and is blind in her left eye from falling into the rail during a race, we have not been able to find her race record. Badger loves her treats and trys to mug us for more!

Both horses have the famed Man O War in their blood lines and Badger also has the only horse that beat Man O War, named Upset in her bloodline as well!

We are treating willow for rain rot that she got while with her previous owner and they both have some hoof issues that we are taking care of.

They have been with us now almost two weeks and they already look forward to seeing us at the barn, they follow us around and get lots of Hugs and Kisses!

We are proud to offer these two beautiful horses a home where they can live out the rest of their lives being loved and cared for like they both deserve to be!

I will post more pictures of them a little later, hopefully I will have another camera soon!

Thief in the hen house!

When I went into the chicken coop tonight to collect eggs and secure the chickens....I found a thief!

All curled up in one of the nest boxes, caught red handed!

He had several big bulges in his belly and yolk dripping from his mouth!

I called Alan down to the barn to apprehend the felon

court was held, the jury... Robin and Myself voted for execution but the high court... Alan, ruled against us and decided that this egg bandit should be banished from the land and so Alan took the snake in custody... inside of a cooler, to a land far, far away... well, actually about five miles down the road and released him.

I hope that is the last we see of him!

No chickens were harmed, just robbed or their eggs!!!

Big Black Snake

We decided to camp out on our property this past weekend and while we were sitting around enjoying a nice camp fire, Trevor noticed that we had a visitor.

Trevor holding the Black snake

Closer view of Alan holding the snake

Robin checking it out

Alan guessed the snake to be over 5 feet long

After everyone was done looking at it and taking pictures, we set it free in the woods.

Black snake or not you will not find me holding it, but it was neat to look at it anyway!

Heavenly Rays

This was the view from our backyard last evening, the suns rays shone down through rain clouds to give a spectacular sight.

A Heavenly gift of beauty!

Feathered Friends

Meet some of our feathered friends,

Little Red Hen

Cant a girl get some privacy?

Fresh eggs in the nest box

Big Boy
Look at me, aren't I handsome!

Here, this is my best side!

Spring around the Homestead

Lilacs, My favorite flower
One of my flower beds
Tulips, we have several beds of these pretty spring flowers!

This is my favorite time of year, this is the time when life renews itself and beauty emerges from every direction. We have been busy building our garden beds and cleaning up the flower beds and many areas around the barn. The chickens and turkeys have been enjoying the nice weather and being outside.

down by our little pond you can hear the frogs singing in the evening and the bats have been flying around!

I love this time of year with all its wonderful smells and beautiful sights!

Busy weekend!

We had a very busy weekend, we cleaned up a pile of metal that was on our property and we are taking it to be recycled today!

This is the pile before we started.

and this is after!

This is what is going to the recycle center!

It feels good to get another area cleaned and out of sight!

Update; we had 4560 lbs of metal that brought us $400.00 just laying around on the property! so we got paid and cleaned another area up at the same time!

How wonderful is that!

Boys and their Toys

We had some work done around our homestead on Saturday, we had an area that we are turning into parking graded down and the top soil removed and placed down by the garden area, He also graded some of the ground for our raised garden beds and had a manure pile brought up from the barn to the garden area. Then down by the barn we had an area widened and a wet weather pond worked on a little bit. It was exciting to see all this work done in such a small amount of time!

Here is the skid steer before they started

Ryan got the ride of his life for awhile, he got to ride in the skid steer and move some of the controls!

All the work that had been done in about three hours by this machine would have taken us about two months or more to complete by hand, The operator was a friend of ours and would not accept any money, God had answered a few prayers for us that day!

February Frost

A Beautiful, Peaceful Sunday Morning

We woke up this morning with a beautiful frost and low fog.

it was so peaceful walking around the homestead taking these pictures, the only sounds that were heard was Charlie crowing and the Turkeys gobbling, I enjoy these country moments and would not change them for anything!

Winter Barn Chores

It has been very cold here the last several weeks, we had an ice storm last weekend and today it is snowing. The night time temperatures have been in the low 20s, All these cold temps make my barn chores a little.... well I will be honest here...A Lot more challenging!

I have now started taking warm mash down to the barn in the mornings for the Chickens, Turkeys and Rabbits.

The chickens and the Turkeys got a mixture of oat meal and layer mash, mixed with hot water that I added some skim milk powder and a small amount of molasses with it for a little more nutrition and just a touch of a sweet treat, boy o boy did the chickens like that! they were all scampering, pushing and pecking their way to the bowl for some!
The Turkeys.... well, I think they have convinced themselves that I must be trying to poison them with any new food, they avoided it like it was something really bad and one of the Toms kept grunting and running at the bowl like he was trying to scare it away! I will give them a few days with it and they should start getting the idea of what it is and that I really am not trying to poison them!

The rabbits got a little warm oatmeal with the skim milk and molasses.

The warm mash gives them something to eat and drink while I defrost the waterers and refill them for the day.

I am going to make a treat for the rabbits today and thought I would share the recipe, I would love to take a picture but my camera has been temporarily misplaced.

Here is the Home Made Rabbit treat recipe,

like any other treats I would feed this in moderation!

1 small carrot, pureed
1/2 banana, mashed until really creamy
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup rabbit pellets, ground finely in a coffee grinder
1/4 cup ground oats, ground finely in a coffee grinder
Mix pureed carrot, banana and honey in a medium bowl. Add pellet powder and ground oats. Mix until blended. Knead in your hands for 1-2 minutes. Roll out the "dough" in 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick layers between sheets of plastic wrap. Cut into small cookies (about 3/4 inch across). Place cut shapes onto a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes (check to make sure they are not browning too much). Turn off the heat and let the cookies sit in the warm oven for an hour or so.

Enjoying Nature

These are some of the beautiful sights that I enjoyed tonight on my way to the barn for the evening chores!

Its Snowing!

I woke up this morning and made the bed, brought in firewood to stock the wood box because the weather man was calling for rain showers, I saw Alan and Robin off to work and then started a load of laundry. Ryan and I then got dressed and went to the barn for the morning chores.We have one hen who has a touch of pneumonia and is in the hospital area, she seems to be improving with the care I have been giving her but, she is not ready to go back in the coop with the rest of her family yet. The baby bunnies are doing good, we have four left and they now have fur! There are two brown, 1 grey and 1 black
As we were walking down to the barn it was snowing! a beautiful white shower! The snow is melting as it hits the ground but it is pretty to see it fall from the sky!
I am going to use up the rest of the apples to make apple butter today and work on some sewing for Christmas gifts!

Work Boops

This is Ryan showing off his new boots,

I bought these yesterday at a thrift store for $2.00!

they were brand new still in the box!

Ryan calls these shoes his "Work Boops"

of course,

work boops get dirty fast,

especially when you are working around a barn and animals!

These pictures were taken down at the barn when we were cleaning up, so he is a little dirty from helping and playing!

( He was much dirtier by the end of the day!)

We winterized the barn a little more and cleaned out the animal pens. We also got some clean up work done around the outside of the barn and had a nice bon fire going, for lunch I went to the house, made sausage gravy and biscuit's by request and then my nephew TJ came by to visit! not bad for one day. It felt good to stand back and look at what we accomplished today!

Now its time to get our bath's and get dinner on the table, then its time to relax a little!

Numb Hands and Barn Chores

I am a warm weather kind of gal and this morning has proved that to me, I wake up at 5 am and get that all important first cup of coffee in me, Look at the weather on the computer while I try to wake up, then today I donned two pair of socks, long johns and jeans, Tee shirt, long john top and sweat shirt, put on my "Turkey Poop" Shoes and finally my coat, grabbed my gloves and out the door to the barn! There is frost all over the ground that glistened so pretty as the sun rose in the sky. I tread down the hill to the barn with my egg basket in hand and think...This isn't so bad!
That is until I get to the barn, start watering the animals and the darn hose is now leaking....out of the nozzle and over my hands, but I continued on even though after a short...and I mean short while later, I could no longer feel my hands! Have you ever tried to open the water bottle of a rabbit cage with numb fingers? Well let me tell you it isn't easy... but the chores must be done, I got the rabbits watered, fed and then saw Bubbers, our cat!!! He wanted fed, I needed warm hands with feelings and so, I grabbed him and tried to hold on to him for some much needed warmth!
Well...All I got was this look of disgust from him as he jumped out of my arms then proceeded to his feed bowl and demanded food! Lucky for him, I have a soft heart and obliged him.
Next it was the turkeys turn, I went in the coop with frozen, numb hands and grabbed the feeder...its metal! Good thing I already couldn't feel my hands grabbed the feeder and filled it, then had to empty the water can and fill it.... fingers burning from being so cold. After all that, I spread more straw about the Turkey coop and then had to make way to the chickens (ugg... I am so cold) and guess what?......
Same thing as the turkeys, the chickens needed feed and fresh water, well eggs have to be gathered and that is not easy to do with fingers you thought just fell off because you can not feel them! The only good thing was that while reaching under Queenie, I didn't feel much when she pecked me!!!
With the Morning barn chores done, I make my way to the house and grab my coffee, not to drink at this moment, but to warm up my hands!
Time to build a fire in the wood stove I think!!!!
The bad thing about this morning.....Its only October! I am not looking forward to winter, I think I need to ask Santa for some better gloves and warmer country clothing!

Hanging around on a rainy day

This is Bebub, Our cat who stayed in the barn all day because of the rain, He sits here waiting on his turn to be fed!

This is Queenie sitting on her nest, I don't reach under her to gather eggs, she pecks when you stick your hand in and if you even get near her nest, she growls at you, like shes warning you to go away!


This is Charlie our Silver laced wyandotte, he is our only remaining rooster since we had a predator attack last week, Charlie and the girls were upset this morning because I would not let them out of the coop today!

Rainy Day

Today has been a rainy day and we have needed it! I took the day to do some grocery shopping, house cleaning and laundry. I have a pork roast and sauerkraut in the slow cooker and an apple pie in the oven. We will have mashed potatoes and corn to go along with the pork!

Our cat Buber's has been hanging around in the barn to avoid the rain and Hunter has been pouting all day because he couldn't go out side much.

I have needed a day like today and the sweet smell of the rain is a delight!

We woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the tin roof and it was like music to my ears!

Our Sunsets

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape; Trickling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

This is the view from our back deck, We are fortunate enough to have a spectacular evening show almost every night! One of my favorite warm weather gatherings are to have dinner on the back deck while watching the beautiful sunset and seeing the bats dance around in the evening sky, while savoring the company of my family. I can not think of a more enjoyable way to end the day!