As foaling season arrives and preparations are being made, we said good-bye to Lumin. I foolishly overstressed him and he hurt himself too much to ever have a careerer as a show or breeding horse. He went on to a well loved home at the police academy. He has the perfect temperament for their needs and he is sturdy enough to act as a blockade. Gwen is lonely, but not for long. Silk and TT are both bagging up in preparation for foaling.
That I have been slacking on keeping everyone up to date. I am having a ball playing with Lumin and Gwen, they are learning so fast too! Lumin is showing signs of improving his smarts and strength and Gwen has been pulling some fancy moves to get out of leading and standing tied. I don't like that she's trying to get out if it, but I like the way she moves.
Lumin is up to working 30 - 40 minutes a day. He is being haltered, walking to the tie post, standing, going to investigate the trailer. I wish I could just put it in the pasture with them over night, but it won't fit in the gate. I can't even block the gate with it, the ramp is wider than the gate! Need to look into adjusting that in the future. Both of these little beauties are spunky, smart, and get the concept pretty quick. The one thing I can say about Gwen is she is NOT bombproof. I spent more than one 10 minute session convincing her that the bird that just flew by was not going to eat her or that the one that just landed in a bush was in fact a bird and not some horse-eating creature from space. Lumin on the other hand, is like "what was that? Oh a bird, okay moving on." I don't know how on earth I missed it, or how Kate missed it -- she was riding -- or any of us for that matter. But today I went to the mailbox on my way back from town to discover a big envelope. Had I just registered horses this would make sense, but the foals are not even born yet . . . heck the mares are not even looking remotely close to foaling just huge. So I did not even wait to open it, after checking the address, I screamed so loud that Micha, Pat, Jessi, and Kate all came running down the driveway. They found me jumping up and down in front of the mailbox waving an envelope and a piece of paper. Micha and Pat immediately got mad that nothing was wrong, I must have scared everyone pretty good. They understood the scream when Jessi snatched the paper out of my hands, since speaking was out of the question. We stood down there jumping up and down chanting "she did it, she did it!" long enough that our neighbor pulled up in his rusty pick up and asked if "we had dun gone 'nd lost our minds?" That got us to calm down and we explained the excitement. Got a big hearty congrats out of him and the promise to bring a side of beef over later and cook it up. So BCh Celebration PotLuck it is! All are welcome!
Fly is so close to earning her BCh! Pat, Jessi, and even Micha can't contain their smiles. Everyone is in good spirits for the first time in a long time. Even me! I got a call on Skype from mom as I was heading out the door to work with Trouble. He was not pleased with the fact that HIS time was late! He loves the time I spend with him even if it means that he is learning harder things now. More about him later though, I know you are all anxious to hear about what mom called about. Mom called to to tell me that dad is up and walking around the facility unassisted!! He is fully lucid, albeit a tad confused about where the time has gone. He had been in a medically induced coma for a few months and barely alive for a few months prior to that. The cause of his sudden and hellacious illness... a spider bite. Dad thought he got stung by a bee or wasp out in the garden and treated it accordingly. Had he realized what really happened, this whole mess could have been avoided. I am so happy that he will be able to move on to physical therapy to build back some strength and stamina and from there go home.
Now on to Trouble, at 22 months he has progressed to walking out pretty nice, stopping fairly well and we just started working on turning left and right this month. He is right on track for being ready for his futurity next year! Double or no, Triple excitement here on the farm! With three foals on the way in the spring I think things are finally looking up! |