Working With Flynn

The morning routine is to grab 2 buckets of grain. First Valiant and Evan are fed, then the mares in the middle paddock, then Roxanne and Rosaleigh but the last paddock I do differently. Grain is put in the buckets of the two foaling stalls and the paddock gate opened. Zalena and Indy know right where to go and usually their foals are good about following their mom's right into the stall. The stall doors are shut and then I feed Sally and Eli. Sally is low on the pecking order of all of the other mares and since her colt needs the most grain it helps if these two are fed by themselves. Today Flynn, Zalena's colt decided he did not need to follow his mom and went running around the yard showing off to all the other horses. He caused quite an uproar with the stallions trumpeting and Zalena screaming all worried about where her baby went. The stinker was having so much fun he wouldn't let me catch him. That meant it was time to teach this colt some manners. When Karin arrived, Flynn was first on the list. She brought him into a stall, put a halter on him and tied him up then put Zalena outside so he was left all by himself. He was not at all happy stomping his feet but never pulling back. He is such a smart colt.

 Next he was led into the round pen again just him, no other horse near just to make sure he would listen to a handler even though his mother wasn't in sight. He really is a smart colt. He called to Zalena but then paid attention to Karin pretty quickly. 

 She did a little desensitizing him then led him over to the stock trailer for a loading lesson. 

 These foals all seem to take loading in stride. He was good about following Karin right into the trailer.  She had to work with him not to come out to fast as he wanted to rush back to Zalena but it didn't take long for him to wait quietly until Karin stepped out then instead of jumping out and trying to run, he stepped out like a gentleman. 

We were expecting the man buying Whitney to arrive around noon today. The plan was he was going to take her on the trails then spend the night at a hotel in Peoria, come back in the morning to load her up for the long drive home. When he didn't arrive at noon, he was sent a text asking his ETA and it was only then we found out he is coming Sept 9th, to pick her up. There was some confusion on both sides. No problem Kayla showed up to ride so Karin took Whitney out on the trails with Kayla riding Anna. Below Kayla is putting Anna's bridle on.

 Below they are heading out to the trails. 

Mark was working on the wood pile for winter. He hired two of Joan's children to help. Faith and Mackenson were great help today. Mark borrowed Spark's flat bed trailer, he would cut the logs, they used planks to roll them up onto the trailer, then used the skid steer to haul all the logs over to our place for splitting later. Faith and Mackenson rode the trailer over to help unload. These logs are just huge and very heavy, most of them are oak.  

 It usually took both of them to roll them to the pile, while Mark rolled them off the trailer. 

They were finishing up with the first trailer load when the riders came back. They were not able to do the death trails, there is a tree branch hanging across the trail that is way to low for Whitney to walk under it. 

 After the ride Kayla brushed manes and swept the barn aisle floor. 

The next  job was to put the new sprayer together and spray the arena again. This weed killer did great but we could tell every spot missed last week. Both Karin and I are excited about this product. It is guaranteed to keep the weeds out for the season. Wish we would have learned about this a few years ago, it would have saved hours of weeding. 

Today was the Heritage Day Parade in Hanna City and we did not take any of the horses for the first time in years. We were asked to do a vaulting routine but had to tell them Ribbon died, then with not knowing when I would need to go to Mayo Clinic I just didn't want to commit to the parade. Rachel went and said it was small, they really missed the horses but lots of candy was thrown. Maybe next year we will be back. OutHear, David, Caleb and Jessica's band were scheduled to sing at 4:30 pm in the tent there but after working outside all day we were both too tired to go.