Time Out for Candy

 

Let's start by telling you how hot was today at one in the afternoon when all happen.

 It was 102, yeehaw!! We have a frantic knocking on our front door, when we answer it was just a guy we didn't know. But thankfully he came and knock on our door to tell us about our paint "Candy" been outside of our hot fence all the way to the end of our property that is paralel to a main road.

 

Next thing my daughter flew inside her rubber boots by the pation door, went to the tack room grab a halter and rope and the next thing she was running down the field to catch her. I was right behind her, but not as fast. :)

I have had nightmares about this hapenning, so today had been a wake up call for my husband and I.

I will feel aweful if something happen to Candy or if she hurt someone driving down the road.

 

Candy was pretty calm by the road, she is really used to the cars going by the road all the time, she is also calm when we get in their pasture to bring feed or hay with our truck. I am very glad that she has such a great mind and can solved her puzzles in front of her and not freaking out with new things.

 

She is becoming a great mare!

 

My husband and our oldest son went ahead and tested the fences, somehow it happen that the fence she got out  from was not connected on the bottom ( we have two lines) Candy is two years old, so imagine a toddler in the form of maybe 1,000 pounds, Ha!

She is curious and off course the grass it is greener in the other side of her fence!

Blessed her heart!

 

So she is in time out, not really but really into we built this padcock we want to built with a fence we already have, now we just had to hurry up and drill those holes on the ground and get the fence up the rest of this week ! This fence also need to go all around our fence line. Anyone wants to help?

 

 

 

 

 

Back Yard Farm Connection #38

The month of June

June is here and lots had been happening. My husband and I celebrated our 15th Anniversary, is been a great adventure, 5 kids later and the last few year of having horses and sheep. The chikens started our formal farm experince four years ago, beside the gardening years since we got married. We truly love our little farm, the work ettics is teaching us and the kids, the love for the land and animals and the apreciation of a simply life with the richness of quality life. I am truly blessed!

Garden happenings:

1 .Ocra
2. Tomatoes
3. Cucumber
4. Zuchini
5. Summer Squash

Is not much, our drought is been aweful although the last few weeks we had been blessed with several storm bringing few rains. I am thankful but the ground can't get enough. This summer we had been studing how to make a better garden next year, also we got a product that may make a difference in our plants, Soil Secrets . We bought after our garden was planted, but we look forward to the difference later.

Jacob Sheep happenings:

We have a new baby lamb ram yesterday, he is perfect and loving on his mama. His mom Carly is allowing us to get close and pet her baby. We made 3 padoocks for our 2 baby rams that born early last January is funny they are as big as their mamas, Our oldest ram also got his own padoock. As I keep learning the process of managing breeding our Ewe, I decided to keep the big ram separated for the rest of the summer. I am pretty sure they are all pregnant by now. So now is a waiting game to see when they are going to have these new babies, Carly lambed yesterday so I am pretty sure Treasure is next, then Chocolate. I am not sure about Emma. I guess we will find out soon, she does looks big thought. We are working to built a bigger shelter for them, I decided to place all the babies chicks we hatched this spring  with the sheep so the chicks (about 40 of them)  had taking over the old shed the sheep used last winter.

Hen house happenings:

Lost our two oldest 3years old hens few weeks ago, they were awesome and gave us lots and lots of eggs. Our oldest rooster that lived with the sheep, we had to butcher him. He was 3years old and just attacking pretty much every human who enter his territory. When my baby came with big holes on his legs I thought it was just time to let him go, because he loves to go and feed these chicks and gatter the eggs of several hens we have on that side. We still have "Fancy Pants" in the hen house he is almost 2year old now and still a sweet boy who likes to be pet. And I am pretty sure we have bunch of roosters from the chicks we hatched this spring. By the way these babies are mostly from Fancy Pants and several from Rowdy.

Horse barn happenings:

Candy (paint) continue her training to be brake, she has had a lot of progress learning to canter and trot. My oldest daughter can't wait to start riding her....! We officially had her for a year now, Candy turn two last February and is been a very rewarding experience for my daughter and Candy.

Texas (quarterhorse) had a bad cut with the metal in our barn, right aboved her hoof.  So that has put her in rest mode, she is great and hopefully soon my son can start riding her again. Other than that I had been obesrving her heat season. I really want to have a great baby from her, I love this stallion . He keeps trowing blue babies like him, I hope with her been a gray mare a pretty color will come out of it.

Aramis (toroughbred)  turn 14th years old last April, he is a great "just a horse" now. He is "new tu us" and this coming December he will be with us for 2years. Been a toroughbred he has teach us a lot. He was retired from races and then got some training for jump and things like that. Us, been new to horses and him always wanting to get his way had been a very strong curve of experience lol! Our trainer working with Candy had been working with him too. Is good to have diffrent kind of horses, it always teach us patient and perseverance with strong wills from both sides, ha! When my kids ride him, always come down saying they love how he moves...!

I look forward to get on the projects we need to get done before winter comes, I was very glad when we got our horse barn built last winter. Thankfuly we havent had big hail storms in our town this year. But if we ever had a baby horse, I know he/she will be prperly sheltered. That is what I want for our sheep, so I better get things going.

Maman
Enid

Our first sheering Day

This is how started

And now they are completly different !!
 The wether were wondering who they mom was...!

And our handsome ram....he need it one also!

Treasure really surprised us!!She is super cute!

The girls packing the fleece and my oldest son building a fence for the ram.

So these are the bags plus the ram added later on!

 

We have a college kid who came and did this for us, Is was not all cut in one piece but I figure something good will come out of it." Learning process"

Building telephone post horse shelter, Week two

I am so very very happy, the shelter is done and the horses are actualy getting under it for cover.

The shelter was done on February 27.

Bulding a telephone post horse shelter, week one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was inside a round pen today

Texas first ride at home!

Our good friend ride my Texas girl today, he really love her! She seems to remember all she knew and is under her belt! His goal is to ride her several times more to feel her and see what specifics things we need to work with her before the kids are able to ride her and just to be safe! She is pretty awesome and seem enjoying her self!

Enid

My new best friend

I found this tittle funny, because my truly best friend is my super duty handsome husband. But I can honestly have a best friend as a horse, ahem!!! a mare perphaps!!. A young girl and friend of my kids let us borrow her trailer last Saturday and we travel to Stephenville, TX to bring my girl home. She load likea pro and didn't have a proplem during the four hours drive back home. She did super, I was very proud of her. We came home very late and it was dark already. My neighbor was gracious to let Texas spent the night at their arena, her fencing there is the real deal, we just have electric fence and I was scared that she could brake our fence during the night not knowing were to go!

Sunday early morning the kids and I went back to our neighbor to bring her back home, Texas seems like had been confined to small spaces for a log time with his previous owner and she dosn't walk well next to me in a halter. So that is something we need to work on. We got back home and we place her inside our arena into Wednesday, the new friends sniff each other trough the electric fence, nap side by side. Wednesday I bring her inside the big pasture with Aramis and Candy. They run with joy and did so well, I was very thankful and pleased about how everyone reacted to each other.

On Thursday, Texas got her hoof trimmed, she did fairly well. It seems like she was not on schedule, her front left leg has some cracks that our farrier thinks will take few more rounds to get them down and fix.

Today my vet came over and took a sample of Texas blood for the coggins test. This is a test necesarely as the previous owner believed, that it need it to be done for transfering ownership! So that is all for this week. Very full and exciting week! Now we all rest!

Enid

A halter dosn't necesarely mean work

On Thursday morning of this week I wanted to applied what I learn from my friend Brice. Aramis dosn't want to be catch, he rather no work or wants to be riding, we always trick him with hay/feed and catch him right then. I basicaly followed Aramis till he started to run, as soon as he would run I would turn to the oposite direction, ignoring him. Then when he stoped running I would turn around and followed him until he runs and I kept doing that until he let me get closer enough to him to put the halter on. I bring him inside the arena,  I took the halter off and walk away,  I repeated the same process again to teach him that "a halter doesn't necesarely means work.

David

A round pen would be nice!!

Is before lunch time in a very cold morning, the wind gust are 27 mph. I just finish watching my DVD with Kalley. A round pen would be nice, there is over 1,000 things I can do with it. I need to put a plastic bag in my carrot stick and work with Candy and get her used to flying things that wants to eat her. I want Candy to be broke ready to ride. I want some hot sauce and chips.

Erin