Winter Pick-Up?

Not much happened today except the usual feedings. We had above freezing temperatures which helped with some of the snow melt. Another puppy sold, this one is a male from Nikki's litter.

His owners will be thrilled. These are non shedding AKC registered Moyen sized purbred Poodles. 

Tomorrow morning I'll be taking the truck and trailer out to Middle Grove to pick up Indy and Oksana and need to do that while the ground is still frozen.
They love it out there but need to be here at least 30 days before they are due so they must come home.
Indy was born on the 4th of July 2010 and grew up at Middle Grove. It is hard to believe she is going to be 10 years old and also hard to believe we haven't had her longer than 10 years. She is such a joy. She is our tallest purebred Friesian mare standing at least 16.3 hands. At least that was what she was sticked at a few years ago.

 She has explosive speed, especially for a Friesian and loves to race. 

She also is one of our best swimmers. She has been swimming since she was just a few months old. 

She is a very emphatic mare. If there is a mare in distress she gets right next to the mare and almost hugs her with her head and neck. If that doesn't work and the other mare is still distressed she sidles up until touching and stays quiet until the other horse quiets down. We have seen this with our own eyes. Indy is so very gentle with children.

Oksana is a couple years younger and was born June 16th, 2012. She also grew up at Middle Grove. As a yearling she would follow the trail riders at Middle Grove leaving the rest of the herd even jumping into the lake crossings. Below is a picture taken in the summer of 2013 of Oksana on one of the trail rides.

Oksana became very baroque, more than we expected. She is also tall but almost as wide as she is tall. We tried her for vaulting in 2019 but she just has too bumpy of a trot.

Check out that rump. The picture below was taken at the Jousting demonstration Oct 2019.

 She is a fun ride.

 Oksana has a wonderful balanced canter. 

Oksana is a clown, she is very curious about everything and when loose in the arena will check out the garbage pail and tip it over then walk over to the saddles and start pulling off the saddle pads.  I can't leave my camera laying around anywhere, she sees anything different and must go check it out. We finally decided Oksana must be tied while waiting for her turn for Karin to ride her as we couldn't stop her from making a mess.  If a whip is left on the ground, she finds it, picks it up and starts waving it around. She likes to carry things around in her mouth, especially when she is the center of attention. She loves treats, loves kids and most of all loves humans. 

It has just started snowing so that might make the trip tomorrow not possible depending on how much we get tonight. Emma was just out to go to the bathroom and came back in covered with snow.