Lost Horse alert!!
Last night while bringing in her 3 horses our resident trainer lost one to the night. They left with a car and a bucket of grain to find the adventurous horse and ended up coming back empty handed. Meanwhile back at the barn the tricky little steed had circled back and went and stood in the barn isle as if nothing had happened. The poor empty handed horse hunters returned wondering what they were going to do next and were happily reunited with the lost but now found horse.
Colic scare again. One of the boarders observed one of my horses laying and rolling in the early afternoon. We were very much on the alert wondering if a vet call was in order. I think in the end it all turned out to be a horse justenjoying the sun that has finally found it's way back to this side of the earth. I heard this morning that we have gained 106 minutes of daylight more since the December 21st winter soltice. Thank you lord for bring back the SUN.
 
It seems alot longer since I had written in this blog. I have been doing all my writing on my sisters caring bridge web site.
The horses are all loving the deep snow we have right now. Some of the mares are starting to come into heat cycles and are very active and aggressive. I watched one 20 yr old mare chase everyone in her pasture around for a good 15 minutes. They all ran, but really didn't know why. The foals from last year are so clueless as to why things happen. They just go with the flo and run with the heard. Got the stitches out of everyone in the barn that had stitches. Glad that's behind us. It has been hard keeping up with the snow in the yard. It has really piled up this year. Time to start getting the coverall cleaned up for the clinic in March. It's coming fast. There was a whole bunch of riders for lessons and practice on Sunday. Haven't seen the arena that full in a long time.
 

Monday... Monday... Remember that song?  It was a cold and sunny weekend. The die hard riders were all riding and jumping in the coverall yesterday. I couldn't even venture out to watch for awhile. Taxes, taxes... if I don't stay focused I'll be filing for another stupid extension. It's best to stay in and focused. I know they had fun, How couldn't you when there's nothing else to do. Time to get the stitches out of Nickers butt. I'll get one of my vet tech friends to help later this week. It's supose to get up to 25 degrees by thursday whoopee!! Some of the barn folks got to go to warmer climate this week. Must be rough!! I accidentaly threw out my entire collection of long underware this week. They were in a bag to go to the farm and ended up in the garbage!! Time to go shopping for more, I refuse to go garbage can digging...nope..nope..I just can't do it.

 

Slept in this morning. It was actually light out at 7 am to go out to the barn. I bet the horses thought I forgot them. I turned out Nickers with his butt full of stitches today. He was so cooped up I thought he'd break down the stall gate to get out with his brother. They have been side kicks since they were born 18 months ago. They would make such a great driving team, such power and size. They are so close in height and weight and looks. I hope we can find a buyer for them to make them a driving team. I would do it but there just isn't enough time in the day or year for that matter. I will have to back out of taking horses to the state expo again!! Last year I had my gallbladder taken out expo week, now my sister, my best friend, has cancer. I will have to spend as much time as I can with her.
Still don't know if Pollina our oldest Icelandic mare is pregnant yet, only time will tell. The vet couldn't find an emptyuterus with the ultra sound wand, he said that was a positive thing. I hope so. It would be a great thing to have a foal on the ground from triggvy this year. I know he's young but he seems to know what to do and where to put it

 
INJURY!!  It never fails...pay off the vet and someone gets hurt. While feeding one of the yearlings in a stall he attempted to leave by pushing the gate and getting his head stuck in the gate. In fighting to free himself he fell backwards onto a wooden divide and found a 1/4 inch nail sticking out of the wood panel. 14 inch cut in his butt cheek and 30 stitches later the vet left to go watch the vikings lose to the Saints. What a bummer. An emergency vet call on a Sunday and our team loses in overtime.
How long does it take to put 8 horse blankets on when it gets cold during the night? 45 long minutes. Each blanket gets a little harder to put on as your fingers get mroe frozen and refuse to bend. By the last blanket I was shaking and ready to give up. All is well and warm though for this next cold spell we are going into.
God I hate the Minnesota winter!!
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Said Butt Cheek!
 
Ice Storm hit Watkins
It was more of a rain storm, but it froze into the sliperest, nastiest ice possible. It was so slippery that I couldn't get to the barn by walking upright. I got half way across the yard and fell down. I was then throwen a rope and pulled to the barn. How embarressing was that/ To get back to the house I took a scoop of free choice salt and mineral thats' used for the horses and SALTED my way to the house. Don't laugh it worked!! The ice postponed the photographer for a day. It never fails, bring 6 extra horses in to the barn for the night and something will change your plans. and you got alot of extra poop to clean up!
 
What a beautiful morning to go to the barn. When does 27 degrees above zero feel warm? When it happens in mid Janusy in Minnesota. I was sweating doing the barn work this morning. I actually had to strip a layer of long underwear off . The rescue horse Dick with his frozen penis is so close to being totally recovered. I am so optomistic at his full recovery. At this point though he still can't have a day outside because he can'y fully retact his penis into his body and protect it from the cold. Tomorrow will be a busy day. We have 6 horses to get cleaned up and ready for thier sale pictures. It would be so much easier if they didn't have 4 inches of winter fur to brush out. Oh well, if we can sell them from a winter picture think about what they will look like all shedded out in the spring... GORGEOUS to say the very least. I don't look forward to the 6 hours of brushing ahead of us tomorrow. but I know it should give us some good results.
 
Had to ad a few truths in the horse world
1) How do you induce labor in a mare?
Go take a nap.
How do you cure equine constipation?
load the horse into a clean horse trailer.
How do you get a horse to wash his own feet?
Clean the water trough and fill with clean water.
How do youget a mare to come into heat?
Take her to a horse show.
How do you get a mare pregnant with only one encounter with the stallion?
Let the wrong stallion get loose.
How do you get the perfect foal with the markings and colors you've always dreamed of
Sell the mare before she foals
How do get a show horse to perform thier very best? Practice at night or when no one is around.
How do you induce a cold snap?
Body clip your horse.
How do you make it rain?
Mow your hay field.
Hope you enjoyed these as much as I did!!
 
Made a big decision, finally got all 4 barn kitties fixed. In the past it was live and let live with the cats. Found homes for the kittens but there was always an expense in keeping the kittens healthy enough to get them old enough to GIVE away. It just makes better sense to nNOT have kittens. So we won't. I'm sure there will be kitty additions to our barn, but they too will get fixed. We need the mousers, just not the kittens. Got to put in a feed order again today. Feed used to not be such an expense or worry. Since 2008 it has gone from $142.00 a ton to $398.00 a ton.  We are very careful not to spill the grainy gold these days. If they weren't using grain to make fuel for trucks and cars the price would be alot better. I was told by my feed supplier not to expect prices to go down at all either. At least hay prices have leveled out some. I read this morning that some barn in PA> was robbed of 225 bales of hay...an approximate value of $1000.00 Hay robberies who would of thought. I wonder if the robber wore a mask!!
 
COLIC SCARE!!! We had one of the boarder horses come in acting really funny last night. A very large ex race horse that didn't wnt to eat!! That's always a sign of trouble. He came in fine just didn't dive into his feed like a big horses should. We watched him for awhile and he was lying down and getting up and pawing the floor.  We then took his grain away and gave him a shot of banamine. We called the vet but ended up not needing them  It was a long night going out to the barn every hour or so to see what was going on. First check he was laying down, second check he was up but no poop in the stall, third check he was up and eating hay, forth check...yup still dark outside.... finally a pile of poop. Never thought I'd be doing a happy dance for finding poop, but that is just what happened.  It was good. Horse people are definetly different from others. We like the smell of worn leather, horse hide and manure, it's as good as any scented candle and just as relaxing.

    Mary Loch

    Hi,
    Thanks for visiting our website. My name is Mary Loch and I have had horses in my life for 33 years now. I have had the great pleasure of meeting many horse people from a huge variety of horse back grounds. From the first time horse rider to the highly skilled horse trainer. I have learned one thing from all of them. We all love our horses and the presence of horses in our lives. We all started with the love of the horse. Then some of us moved on to where we want to be, or hope to be, constantly changing directions, as we see new paths that we can challenge ourselves with. New obstacles  that we can try with our horse companions,  I hope this blog of ours touches you with some great horse stories and experiences and lets you become a part of our STABLE LIFE.

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