Wednesday, April 4, 2018

And So We Wait Again

After a very disturbed night and not much sleep we had to get up, go outside in the bitter cold to clean stalls and feed horses. When I say bitter cold it wasn't that bad, 24 degrees but this is APRIL 4th. It is suppose to be around 60 degrees. The wind was still blowing hard.  Marika had decided not to have her foal and must have been having braxton hicks contractions. Not sure if mares actually have that or not but for sure it must have been false labor.
After breakfast, Rhoda and Emily came out to help with pictures. It was just so cold outside we didn't spend much time with any of the horses. Today was the first time Galena's colt was ever taken out of the stall. He wasn't sure about walking out in the cold. It didn't take him long to learn to use those legs.


The pictures were emailed to his owner.  Next we brought Lily's colt out. He too is really friendly and loves scratches.  Check out the video below of Emily giving him scratches.
He had a ball running around in the field.

Next we went over to the cabin field to check on the round bale there. Hadassah's filly was galloping around having a ball.
 She is growing well, but speaking of growing, Anna's colt looks like he is a couple months old. He is just huge for 3 weeks old. 
We took Lola's colt out next. He also loves scratches and when Emily was giving him a good scratch Ruby,  Rhoda's dog came over to see him, stood up on her hind legs and licked his nose. I was video taping at the time and caught it on the video.
I didn't take many pictures of him but the one below shows a little bit of his extension. He is just 5 days old and already has really good movement.
Rosalie's filly was the last one out of the barn and by this time we were pretty cold but still snapped a few good pictures of her. Of course it helps that she is so photogenic.


We had a late lunch at the Warehouse then Rhoda and Emily left.  Around 4:00 pm Justin Herman brought Shaeya over to spend the night on foal watch for Marika. I took the golf cart up to meet them with the egg cartons for the Goose Ranch eggs and saw that there was a broken board in Valiant's paddock and he had gotten in with Lola and Rosalie. Rosalie is just coming into her foal heat and he was determined to breed her and she was determined to get away and between that a whole section of the fence came down. Rosalie started running down the drive with Valiant chasing her until he saw Evan, stopped dead, turned and threw himself against Evan's fence trying to get to him, tearing down another whole section of fence, tearing down the electric fence in his fury to fight Evan. I went running for the stallion cane and leadrope, jumped into the paddock all the while yelling at the top of my lungs. I was able to break up the fight and Evan ran behind me leaving me to face Valiant. Valiant saw the cane and turned away. The lead rope was quickly attached to Evan and that was handed Justin while Shaeya got the gate opened to get him out.  Shaeya took Evan then Justin ran down to  guard the section of fence that Valiant had broken down to keep him in the paddock. I grabbed Evan and locked him in the indoor then came back to catch Valiant.  Shaeya grabbed Rosalie who was more than happy to go with her and get away from Valiant. Her filly was with her the entire time but thankfully never between Rosalie and Valiant. Valiant was caught and put in the round pen. Mark, Shaeya and I spent the next  3 hours fixing fence both electric and the wood rails. None of the posts were ruined but broken boards had gone flying 10 or more feet into the air during the fights. So thankful none of the foals were hurt at all and even the stallions have no permanent damage done. They both have a few bite marks but nothing serious. I'm SO very thankful Justin and Shaeya showed up exactly at the right time. It really did take all 3 of us to break them up and keep everyone safe.  We finished the last fence at 6:50 pm, went inside and were able to listen on line to Mike Rieker give the message tonight on after the Resurrection. 
Shaeya and I went up to the barn after church to test Marika. She is testing right at 325 which should mean we will have a baby within the next 12 hours. And So We Wait AGAIN!

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