Saturday, April 29, 2017

Build An Ark

We had an inch of rain in the rain gauge last night.  I dumped it and tonight we have another FULL 3 inches giving us a total of 4 inches in 24 hours. This isn't a nice soft gentle warm rain. It is so cold outside that we can see our breath when we breathe, the thermometer is reading 41 degrees with a real feel of 32 degrees and the rain keeps pounding down. This morning it wasn't coming down hard when Karin came over to help tease and cover mares. Galena was first to tease, she showed well but Valiant has been refusing to cover her. We think he is racist, he doesn't like white mares, or it could be he thinks she just isn't pretty. We think she is beautiful.
What ever it is, we know how to fix that problem, Galena was taken into Valiant's pasture and let loose, then he was brought in and after a few minutes of him doing his airs above ground he ran over and did his job.  Now for the record Valiant ALWAYS is willing to do his job and is our go to stallion that is all except for Galena! Once we knew she was covered we pulled her out and put her back into her own paddock. Jewel was next, she was still in and Evan was quick to do his job.  Next we brought Anna over to tease but we didn't really get the job done, she was too worried about her filly. We will need to see if I can bring her in for an ultrasound next week.
The sky was still just spitting at us when Karin started working Wicktoria in the round pen.
She wanted to try out a few things she learned at the Midwest Horse Fair. Wicktoria has been a mystery to us, why she is such a slow learner but Karin had new ideas and by the time she finished with her Wicktoria was walking in and out of the trailer quietly. On Thursday I could not load her by myself so I was very impressed. Jewel was taken out next, Jewel has just been a brood mare for the last 5 years and she has some holes in her training. Training we didn't know to do 5 years ago.
 The pictures above and below were taken today while Karin was asking for transitions. Jewel is a bit muddy but not terrible when one considers the tremendous amount of rain we had. We were pretty thrilled the round pen was usable. 
By the time Karin finished with Jewel the cold rain was really starting to come down. We were thankful to have the wood burner going to have a place to warm up after working outside. The rain just didn't seem to let up and I was getting concerned about the young foals. Lily and Zalena with their colts had been in the indoor all last night and this morning but with the cold driving rain the indoor was needed for Lola's, Soul's and Star's fillies. The two mares with colts were stalled while the three with fillies were brought inside the arena to dry off and warm up. Next Ella and Sheena were brought in and stalled. The picture below is of Ella taken on Thursday.
Even though they aren't due yet I just can't take a chance on them delivering outside on a day or night like this. The good news is the temperature is suppose to start to rise tonight the bad news is the rain is going to continue through most of Sunday according to weather.com.
This evening Peoria held testimonies. There were 3 and all were so interesting to listen to. Once home the stalls were picked, each mare given more hay, the water buckets filled and the water tank in the indoor filled. When I was downloading pictures I found a few taken on Thursday I forgot to post. Below is Lily's colt at 4 days old playing with his mom's tail.


The funniest picture was when the tail hair went into his mouth.
Zalena's colt was out in the big field on Thursday so of course I got a picture of him too.

NOW I'm ready for bed.

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