One Big Party

The big celebration of our country's birthday seems to start days in advance. Everyone wants to start the party earlier each year. Horsemeister was hired to bring ponies from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm to the Giant Goose Ranch's big 3rd of July party.
Since Emily had finished all of the mowing with the big tractor on Thursday Mark wanted to remove the mower off the Kubota and get the road scraper put on. Almost all of the family is camping at Middle Grove so it was a good time to get the drives out here scraped and groomed.
We were out working on the tractor when Karin arrived to work horses. She had Rosalie and Oksana in the indoor and both were doing well. I needed to flip a new round bale and even with the skid steer running moving bales at the same time she was working the mares the horses paid attention to her instead of spooking at the big machine making all that noise in the back of the arena. The next mare she worked was Piper. Karin just wanted Piper to have a refresher course and I needed to give her a 5-way shot before she leaves on the 19th. Her owner wanted her to have the shot 2 weeks before transport. I was pleased with Piper, she didn't even seem to notice when she was given the shot. This mare has made a huge improvement in her ground manners since she has been here. The water tank in the big field needed to be filled so while the water was running I grabbed the camera to take a few pictures of the foals.

 Above is Jewel's colt by Evan born June 20th, and below is Prissy's colt by Valiant born April 6th.

 The three foals above are Ribbon's filly by Valiant, Sangria's colt by Valiant and Indy's filly by Evan and below Sheena's colt has joined them. Indy's filly is named Zenia by her owner and is in the lead followed by Sheena's colt by Valiant who still has no name. Walter, Sangria's colt by Valiant is 3rd, last is Zara, Ribbon's filly by Valiant who is the youngest of this group. Not pictured is Emma's colt by Evan and Marika's colt by Valiant. Those 2 are in the pond pasture.

Mares were teased once the water tank was filled. Emma is in and showing well so covered by Evan. We are praying this is a real season instead of the false heats she has been having since her colt was born. Oksana is still in season and will need to be covered tomorrow. Emily went to Middle Grove and de-wormed all the horses there except Star. Star only likes Karin and no one else can catch her. The horses were all moved from the summer pasture to the original Middle Grove pasture. Mike rode Mika while leading the herd boss Lily while Emily and Hannah followed at the back of the herd on Bunni and Missy. At one point the mares reached the top of the hill and didn't want to head down so it took some reining maneuvers for these 2 girls to keep the rest of the herd from running back to the summer pasture. Emily said Serenity took off running and bucking but when the rest of the herd didn't follow came running and bucking back.
Karin, Emily and I left to pick up Larry and Paris from Ruth's just before 4:00 pm and headed to the Goose Ranch determined to be early this time and made it there with 15 minutes to spare. We were busy the entire 3 hours and could have stayed busy longer but needed to get the horses home before the fireworks were set off.  When we first arrived the Herman grand kids came running to help. We gave them the fly spray and told them to spray down the horses and below is what the horses looked like when they were done.

These kids try so hard and poor Larry got his spray in very specific areas.
Below are a few pictures of the evening. The rest of the pony ride pictures are now on the Horsemeister Facebook page.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we were loaded and on the way home but also really hungry. For some reason we just aren't in the habit of eating our dinner at 8:30 pm. There is a Chinese buffet in Canton which seemed much more appealing than fast food and it really was delicious and fast. Larry and Paris were dropped off at Ruth's then as soon as we were home Killian was fed and watered. I am so ready for bed!