Good Friday morning y’all! I’m a bit behind on my blog posts, but hope to get to it this weekend! Some fun things have happened and some fun things are in the works with the horses. We have had a little drama, but nothing a big fat vet bill didn’t fix (insert eye roll here).
In the meantime, enjoy some pics from the farm from the past couple weeks.
We are a good 3″ or more behind on our average rainfall so it was pretty exciting when we got a non-forecasted quarter of an inch in early June. I can’t help myself, but take pictures when it rains.
RAIN, glorious RAIN!
The surprise goat kids are growing quickly. They are both white, but I can tell which is which by the skin color on their faces. Hansel’s is black and Gretel’s is pink. I think it is adorable that they are more or less pink and blue.
Baby Hansel Goat plays in his feed pan. Kids!
Our sweet barn kitty napping under the hay soaker. He’s absolutely the sweetest cat I’ve ever had. True to barn cat form, though, he’s been leaving bits and pieces of his kills in the barn aisle. I turned on the lights yesterday morning to find a bunny head and other various sundry parts. Gross!
Sleepy Murtagh
Boot City and I have been diligently patrolling the pasture to pull up sticker weeds and the other evening we came across this cute box turtle. He/she wasn’t very social, though. We released it on our neighbor’s side of the fence, away from our dogs and on his/her way to some water.
Come out, come out, wherever you are!
When I left for work this morning I saw this snugglefest in the corner of my eye and had to snap a photo! It’s funny to see a 100lb sighthound snuggling with a pink squeaky bear.
Sterling snuggles.
I’m planning to take Coco to a local English show tomorrow morning, perhaps catch a game of polo and get lots of work done around the house and farm this weekend. I hope you have a fabulous weekend!
I’m back! I feel like I have my blogging ducks in a row now, but that can always change. I would love MORE feedback from my readers! If you like a post, please comment. If you want to know more about something, please tell me. If a blog is boring/offensive/fantastic, let me know. I sometimes feel like I’m writing into an abyss and getting feedback helps me stay motivated and write interesting content.
We have a somewhat unique lifestyle that people seem interested in learning about it, and that is the primary reason I started this blog. I love writing, too, so that is my selfish reason for blogging. I’m hoping to maintain more “themed” days so readers will know which days to tune in if there is content they find more interesting. I presume most non-riders get bored when I write posts about the details or riding and showing, but I enjoy reading the blogs of other riders so I like to add my 2 cents about that every now and again.
This post will be somewhat of a catch-up on goings-on at the farm as well as some just silly pics of the farm animals. Enjoy!
Chivas has been somewhat on lock-down the past 2 months because she has some serious seasonal allergies. We haven’t gotten her officially tested, but every spring she gets mad itchy and is a tiny ball of oozing, itchy sores and keeps us up at night with her scratching and chewing on herself. This year has been the best for keeping that itching at bay, but it reared it’s ugly head in mid-May so we opted to try to keep her in the house and not take her out for rides and feeding. This is how she feels about being left in the house.
Who knew a 13lb dog could TEAR UP a giant dog bed…..
I posted before my blog break that we had a surprise set of twin goats. They are adorable baby goats as all baby goats are, but they are also weirdos. This is a photo of them nursing from their aunt Punky. Punky doesn’t currently have any kids and hasn’t had any kids since last summer. Their mom, Penelope, is producing plenty of milk for them, but for some reason they have also started nursing from Punky. We have never had kids do this! Punky and Penelope were part of a set of triplets and Penelope had to be bottle-fed because the Mom only had one teat to nurse from. Since the kids are nursing from her, Punky has gotten milk in her udder. Kind of a fascinating little social/ag experiment going on here.
The twins and their aunt Punky.
It has gotten hot in Texas so Murtagh has more or less moved in the tack room with AC 24/7. He also has mites in his ears that we are treating so I like that he’s happy staying close to home. He is just the sweetest kitty in the whole world!
Cat naps
In early May the horses came running to the barn from turnout to be put up for the night. Coco and Simon walked into the barn aisle where Boot City was opening stall doors to their various stalls. Coco turned and pinned her ears at Simon and he in turn tried to turn away from her a little too quickly on the concrete floor and fell down. It was one of those stomach-in-your-throat moments as he lay there and waited to get up. When he got up he was CLEARLY lame on his left hind. We got the other horses put away and fed them their dinner and I went to taking pics and video to send to my vet. Within an hour Simon could hardly walk.
We approached the injury fairly conservatively (my vet didn’t seem at all worried that he had broken anything) with stall rest, cold hosing, bute and poultice. Thankfully it only took a couple weeks for him to be almost 90% sound. I erred on the side of caution and kept him on stall and then paddock rest for a full 3 weeks before he was clearly stir crazy, not hurting and about to do something stupid when his friends got turned out and he had to stay in the barn. While he was sore he was a perfect gentleman on stall rest and even behaved for Boot City when he had to do the cold hosing and poulticing while I was away at a horse show with Sterling. Simon is a very wise and calm horse for only being 4 years old.
Simon helps.
Poultice and stall rest o-rama
It took a good few months for her to settle in, but Ouiser finally seems to be happy and content in our house. She didn’t leave “her” room for about 2 months and now she more or less has the run of the house. She loves to sun bath in window sills and she is very chatty with Boot City and me.
Ouiser getting out and about in her house
Last, but CERTAINLY not least, is our dear Pablo. Pablo appears to have foundered or something similar and he WILL NOT let us catch him to try to see what is up. He lies down a lot. Stands on soft ground as much as possible. Appears sore when he moves out. We fear that his refusal to let us treat him will result in an earlier than necessary demise and believe me when I say we have tried working with him. Donkeys are “stubborn”. Everyone knows this, but you don’t really understand it until you have had a donkey. They don’t forget anything and they are not at all trustful.
Someone has mistreated Pablo and he refuses to get over that. We have, in the past, forced him to let us vet his legs/feet, give him meds, etc, but it just isn’t worth it. He will occasionally go into an enclosure where he knows we can catch him and let us groom him or trim his feet or whatever, but he seems to be doing that less lately. We don’t really know how old he is, but we have had him for 11 years. All 11 of those years we have given him treats, groomed him and basically let him do what he wants, but he still is terrified of the halter and being caught. His feet don’t look bad and he’s eating just fine (as you can see by his belly!), so he’s not suffering. We got 10 semi-loads of sand in April and he’s been loving rolling in it, sleeping in it and standing on the piles.
If you are an actual donkey-whisperer, I’d be happy to hear your advice for dear Pablo.
Pablo on his empire of sand
Please comment if there is anything I don’t write about enough or that you are just interested to know more about. Thank you for being here and reading about our little corner of Texas and the interwebs! Happy weekend and I hope it is cooler where you are than it is here.
Happy Friday! The weather here in North Texas is AMAZEBALLS right now! Temps in the 70s and green grass (and bluebonnets) everywhere. It is truly delightful!
I feel like I never post pics of the chickens, so here is a chicken (one of our Blue Andalusians) with a beerhound photobombing.
Cheesy goat smile.
Some days you just need a unicorn and a prosecco.
I had quite a lot of help unloading feed on Monday.
If all goes accordingly this weekend will be the final hunt for this season. It’s always a bummer when the season ends, but exciting to get my Saturday mornings back! Now that I have three sound horses (and hopefully they stay that way) I need all the time in the saddle I can get!
What are you up to this weekend?
Tis the season y’all! We had our first hard freeze last night and I’m SO excited! The more hard freezes (hopefully) the fewer bugs next summer. I had quite the horse blanketing conundrum this morning, but I’ll take it. I just need to buy more horse blankets. Bummer.
The goats love it when they get turned out by the house because they LOVE to eat the crepe myrtle leaves.
This hen has been broody for a couple weeks and she broods in the funniest position with her feet splayed out. It doesn’t help that she is setting on more eggs than will fit under her.
More baby goat cuteness. She is starting to run and jump and play.
Bunny likes to snuggle in her Friday Fox waxed cotton coat in her daddy’s lap. #spoiled
Happy weekend y’all!
Holy smokes, it’s September already! How did that happen?!
The past few days have been so emotional for me. I watch my Facebook feed to see countless posts of the devastation in the Houston area from Hurricane Harvey. My heart is warmed and my faith in humanity is restored to see SO many people stepping up to help people and animals in need. We will be taking in some shelter dogs a as a temporary stop on their trips out of Texas to make room for Harvey evacuee pets. My Facebook feed is also full of posts of the devastation from fires in my home state of Montana. Over 500,000 acres have burned this summer. Farmers and ranchers are losing their livestock and livelihood to these fires. At the end of the post I’ll include links to organizations I feel have the best direct impact on those in need in Texas and Montana.
Onto more uplifting pics of cute animals!
Pablo meets a Muppy!
When I was riding on Tuesday night I got a bug in my eyeball and it has looked like this since Tuesday night! It looks much worse than it feels.
Our goats like to play with and in their food.
Links to help Harvey victims:
Fund established by Houston’s mayor: http://www.ghcf.org
American Associate of Equine Practitioners: https://foundation.aaep.org/form/foundation-donation
USEF Disaster Relief Fund: https://www.usef.org/donate
Urgent Animals of Fort Worth: https://www.urgentanimalsfw.org/donate
Austin Pets Alive: https://www.austinpetsalive.org/hurricane-harvey-evacuations/
Tarrant Area Food Bank: http://tafb.org/donate/
This was a relatively quiet week at the farm. The weather is heating up to typical Texas summer temps, which makes me kind of sad. The spring and fall here are delightful, but the summers really are brutal!
Sweet little Harriet had her first heartworm injection this week. She was quite lethargic the first day, but has pepped up since. She will have two more injections in a month and hopefully will then be cured and ready to be adopted!
I can’t even with these two! This is no less than 150 pounds of dog on one dog bed. Never mind that there are at least two other same-sized dog beds they can use.
This is Mickey, our most recent foster from the Fort Worth shelter. He is your typical 6 pound dog who acts like he is 60 pounds! He is also heartworm positive so will be starting treatment soon. In the meantime he is trying his paw at goat herding.
Pardon her closed eyes, but this is Coco modeling her new fly sheet. She is a solid 16hh so I have mostly bought her sheets and blankets sized for a horse that tall, which is generally a 75-78 depending on their body type. Well, Coco has a very compact body and she was tearing up her size 76 fly sheet because it was too big and didn’t fit her correctly. This sheet is a 72. She is so petite!
This photo is a barn evening in a nutshell! Peaches asleep in the middle of the doorway. Quila chasing chickens trying to find eggs to eat and chickens wandering in the barn aisle and pooping on the floor.
Happy weekend y’all!
When I woke up this morning I was pretty sure someone outside was flipping a light switch off and on. In reality, it was Mother Nature. I check the weather pretty religiously and I’m confident there were slim to no chances for storms today. Alas, by the time I was finishing up feeding the horses it was POURING rain! We are still a few inches behind average rainfall, so I’ll take it!
This was Pablo’s feed pan when I got home from a work trip last Friday. It rained over 3.5″ that day!
This is what happens when you forget to latch Sterling’s stall and he’s in the barn all day on stall rest. Oopsy! Pic cred to Boot City
How many hens can you find in this photo? They are ALL broody and stay in this position, more or less, 24/7. Chicken ridiculousness.
These two are goat brothers. I think it is so cute they are the same color! The little guy is for sale if you are in the market for a baby goat.
One of our adorbs foster kittens. They go to the Humane Society of North Texas this weekend and will be available for adoption! Get you a kitty!
The wind huffed and puffed and tried to blow our house down last night! Thankfully it appears that the only damage incurred was a few branches strewn about and a tarp that tried to blow away. The power was out for a few hours, but came on just as I left for work. Yay for the house and tack room having AC today!
We need to name this goat. He’s a whether and is pretty silly. He enjoys helping unload hay.
I built my cinder block container gardens a few years ago. We usually grow some squash or some onions or whatever, but since we started doing Blue Apron a couple years ago we don’t really need to grow our own stuff. When I was outside last weekend I saw a hummingbird and it motivated me to plant some flowers. I snagged these at the feed store on Sunday. The donkey has eaten a few of the pink flowers, but the chickens have left them alone. The taller pink and orange ones are Lantana and should get pretty big. If they live, that is.
Simon has the prettiest face. Such a sweet boy.
The horses are always curious when we put out the hammock. They walk by and pretend like they aren’t staring at it and somewhat terrified.
Happy weekend! Do you have any fun plans? I have my fingers, toes, legs, arms and whatever other appendage will cross crossed in hopes of RAIN! It is much too dry right now.
I’m looking forward to the Southwest Hound Show this weekend! If you live around DFW and want to see the loveliest fox hounds in the region you should come by! We will be at the Marvin Savage Farm, which used to be part of Greenwood Farm all day Saturday.
In the meantime, check out the goings on at the farm!
Sabrina, our foster fail kitty, LOVES her a box. She also loves the counter so a box on the counter is idea.
This is Dragon. I don’t think I have introduced her on the blog yet. Dougal was hit by a car and killed in December (so so so so so so so so so so so so so sad) and we were so lucky to get the opportunity to give his sister a home! Meet Dragon. She would dearly love for the baby goats to play with her, but she just ends up chasing them around and they are terrified of her. You can see how tiny the baby goats are and how tall (28″!) is Dragon.
I find the chickens in the wheelbarrow to be hilarious. It makes me sad that they won’t stay in the wheelbarrow and let me push them around. A girl can dream.
Why eat the hay when you can climb onto the hay bale and eat the much tastier tree leaves?!
Every ass needs a stage. Amiright?!
