Busy, Busy, Busy!

*sigh*

It's not that I don't want to write, I just can't seem to find enough time in a day to do so! My work is absolutely crazy lately and by the time I get home (usually late), I can't bare to look at a computer and I'm more oriented towards my bed than anything else!

I have FINALLY come to uploading my pictures to my computer and here are some of them... unfortunately, I don't have any hoof pictures, I have done Peg's two front feet on Saturday morning and it took me so long to do them, putting them down, not being satisfied, picking them back up, rasping and rasping and rasping. Her hooves were long, well, for me, that's long! The reason I didn't take pictures is because I made my way all the way to the barn, caught miss Peg, cross-tied her in the barn... then I kicked myself in the butt for forgetting my darn camera in the house! I was too lazy and the wind was too cold to make my way back... plus I would've had to get someone to keep an eye on Miss Peg and I wasn't going to let her back in the field! She's hard enough to catch as it is! So, since I have to check back on her hooves this weekend, I will take some pics then. Her poor hooves are in bad shape, the heels are way too long and her frog does not get ground contact at all... so it basically is petrified... so I have to work on lowering her heels so that the frog can live again. You also know how unbalanced her feet are since she is bow legged... well I tried to fix that too... with ok results.

Dandy is due for a check on her feet this weekend too and I will do Pearl (she's the easiest) too if I have any strenght left at all. Hoof trimming is usually exhausting and I am very particular on how I want them, so I usually take the time it takes to get them perfect.. or nearly! But my back hates me afterwards!

The latest news is that I have moved Dandy back to my SO's farm. Peg and Pearl have been nasty with her at first, but they seem to be getting along better, at least they tolerate her. Nabisco (the cow) is doing fine with the horses and they eat all together without fight or chasing. Dandy did okay for the move, she got in the trailer after only one failed attempt (HOORAY for taking it easy the first time!), it was her second time in the trailer and she was pretty nervous. She was soaked when we got there and she had to stay in the barn for an hour with me and my SO drying her with towels and brushing her. Poor girl also knocked her head on the trailer (on the first attempt to climb in), which left a little bruise and a small spot with no hair on her forehead! My heart was broken! She seemed fine.

I was a bit rushed to move her, because she was pastured with a colt that was not yet guelded and was soon to be a yearling. I do not want Dandy bred at all, so I moved her and my mind is peaceful now. The poor colt was whinnying and screaming when we drove off, but he settled nicely and is now back to being normal... and alone. It will give him a chance to make humans his partners (not that he needs it!) and bond with them.

So here is Dandy and Wakan a week before I moved her... They were enjoying the hot sun and their coats were burning hot! It was somewhat cold with the blowing wind but I don't think they were bothered by it at all!

This is Wakan. He is 9 months old and a true Jet black. His coat does not seem to fade in the sun so much, but it's so long... he's a yak! He's a bit more bum-high and is about 12hh right now at the withers. He is a pure breed Canadien colt and is registered and DNA tested. I think he will make a pretty cute guelding! He is very people friendly and does not bite or kick. He is halter and lead trained, picks up all four feet, gets in a trailer and can wear a blanket no problem! He can also stand tied for quite a while before getting bored. It's hard to see his conformation since he is so black!

This is pretty much what we see all the time, he keeps following everyone around! (sorry for the crappy shadow of me taking the picture but I had to move in order to get this shot, he had is nose pressed to the lense!)

This is Dandy... probably looking at my dad, we had just put in a new bale of hay and she was curious about the twine removal process...

And here, I broke her concentration on the food when I called her... see her ears still focused on the bale... lol! You can also see how her coat has faded... compared to her face... she is still a true black, but her coat tends to fade in the sun and cold wind... just like our hair would I guess! When she sheds this coat out, the new one will be as black as night!

Enjoy and have a great evening... or morning, depending where and when you read this!

Do you like Winter?

First, I would like to thank Horse Filled Days for her encouragement, with a bit of knowledge of the horse's foot, right about anyone could do it! I read your blog every day... well, I at least look for new stuff! but on that note, I've seen A LOT of people pay big money to have the farrier trim their horses and the results were... hoof cracks, constant abcessing, lameness and these horses were all horses with healthy hooves and a potential to absolutely crush rocks with their bare feet. Unfortunately, most people believe so much in their farrier that they will not take advice from someone like me. I have been asked to trim many horses too, but I don't really have the time and my back is really bad too... usually, after 4 hooves, I'm sore for 4 days! So I do 1 horse per weekend and my sister helps with the harder stuff (like nipping Dandy's feet!).

On to my post. For a change of tone, I will post winter pictures... ok, ok... I don't like winter, I don't like the snow and I totally hate the cold. Unfortunately, I live in a part of the world where we get a lot of snow... and a lot of cold. I love taking pictures of scenery, fall leaves and pretty much anything that is worth immortalizing.

So here is my collection of winter pictures. Usually, the snow doesn't stay in the trees like this, but we'd had some freezing rain and then snow right after, so it stuck good and well to tree branches... sadly, this process, while absolutely stunning, makes it dangerous to go out in the woods and breaks many trees.

This is accross the road from my dad's place, there is a field and a little mountain (Believe me, it's big when you want to go on top!!!!).

Same shot looking left of the first picture.
This is basically taken from the driveway looking to the right... oh and the roads are always that bad in the winter... it hadn't snowed in a few days when I took the pics. There aren't much houses past my parents'.
This is a really cool shot... this is on the left side coming into our driveway. We built that fence like that because the whole land there is gravel and, consequently, very hard to dig into, so my dad had the ingenious idea to build it like that. It is very sturdy and unique!

This was taken a bit further, I was still in front of the house, which would be on my left. This trail leads to a sandy pit and more trails!
Further on my counter-clockwise walk around the house, I captured this. This is a trail that I often use with Dandy and ultimately leads to much much more trails...

I have now made my way behind the house and I was walking back to my car, which would be on the left, when I saw this... The barn is just outside the left side of this picture, this is the mountain at the very back of the house... yes, there is a mountain in front AND behind the house... You can see that there is a trail hugging the side of the mountain and right next to this trail is the horse enclosure... they have woodsey area to run around in and they LOVE it!

And, last but not least... and just because I want to rival Jayke's original butt picture... here's my take on it. That is Dandy's very large bum to the left, rivaled by the 8 month old colt's cheeky cheeks to the right. You can't see very well because it was starting to get dark outside and using the flash only makes it worse!

They look so much alike that it is hard to believe that Dandy is not his Dam... most people think they are related... they are not... not even a tiny bit. He's a purebred Canadien colt, papered and microchipped; and Dandy is a grade Percheron x Quarter horse (I think)... will never have any kind of papers, not a chance. They both have their flaws, but I have to say that for the price that I paid for Dandy, she is worth so much more than that physically and to my eyes (much more to my eyes!). Anyone could walk up and offer me any amount of money that I have ever dreamed about and the answer would still be NO, she is not for sale and if she ever is... that means that I will have eaten a whole lot of plain spaghetti and can no longer afford it!

Now let's all wish very hard... (Harder than that!!!) that we will not get another snowflake! I can't wait to get back on the trails... I can go out to ride, but it is limited and I don't canter in the winter. Horses have been loosing hair and it isn't so cold out!!! YAY!!!

Do you like fall?! Sad news

This is a long one, so get a coffee or something!
I'm sorry, I still didn't get around to uploading pics and I don't think I will this week, unless I really push myself. The funeral will be held on Thursday and I have to clean the house a bit.


Anyways, I was going over my old pictures and found some nice ones that may take you back to warmer days... this was in the fall and it was super nice that day. Warm and sunny, just the way I like fall days!


This was taken on Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving). We were going up to my uncle's place for dinner and I decided to snap a few shots on the way. The fall colours weren't in full swing, but close enough!


These are wild turkeys in a freshly cut oat field. Wild turkeys were introduced a few years ago to our region and seem to be doing really well... in fact... they are everywhere! Hunter are allowed to take one bird per year, in the Spring. The hunt is only opened for 2 half days per year. Hopefully, they will let hunters take more since turkeys are really taking over EVERYTHING! Our indigenous partridges are starting to regress in numbers because wild turkeys destroy partridge nests and are big competition for the food. In fact, there are some many turkeys, that they had to capture and rehome about 200 of them because they were destructive to crops! We have also seen an increase in coyote population and wolves.


I took the following pictures from the truck as we were moving along the gravel road, so they may not be perfect.



These are the fall trees (with adjacent power lines... sorry!).

This is the road we are going up to get to my uncle's place, he lives about 15 minutes up this road on a lake shore.

That is a small lake we have to go by to get to my uncle's it is vry pretty when the leaves are in full swing!

Same little lake, different angle. There is definately some stuff that I would've removed from the picture if I had been on foot (Wires, red thing at the bottom!?!)... but this as taken from a moving truck!

This is a little farm near the little lake!

Same little farm, I think that this picture is very cute! Don't you all feel like running an rolling on that grass?! Maybe it's just me!?!? I think I need to get outside NOW!

On a sadder note, one of the horses that we boarded for the summer, King, has passed. I am very sad, but not shocked from these news. King was a percheron cross gelding and was 17 years old. The owners got King and another gelding for free if they could catch them. King was in good shape last year at this time, but kept loosing weight over a year's time. Last Summer / Fall King was only skin and bones. The guy brought his horses over for pasture boarding in hopes to get some weight on King. I put King as a 1 - 0.5 on the scale, he was litteraly skin and bones. Unfortunately, that summer / fall would happen to be the most frustrating one for me. These people knew nothing about proper care to a horse. When King came home he had SADDLE SORES!!!! on his spine (yes... spine), one was deep enough. Bone was sticking out everywhere on King and they would still ride him!?!?!?!? I honnestly felt like crying, raging, screaming... I was a real B**** for the rest of the time. I told the owner several (if not 20) times to have King's teeth done, that would help solve the problem. King ate painfully, spitting out 3/4 of his food. King was also fed Fat Fiber whenever the owners felt like it. King obviously had a tooth problem the size of Texas! The owners never took King to a vet and continued riding him throughout the summer / fall. I'm surprised that the poor thing didn't collapse before that!

I finally told the owner to file the teeth or King wouldn't make it through winter. He was surprised, but still did nothing. I decided to let it go, because I already had lived enough in the past months (losing the foal to an actual good reason!). He would've never took his horses back home if we hadn't taken the liberty to bring them over and drop them on his front lawn. This man had 4 horses, one of which was in obvious bad shape, one of which got injured on our property but received no vet care at all, for a cut that was about 2-3 inches deep on her back pastern, I think that she had kicked in a fence, she was crazy! One of which was lame and ridden VERY hard by a 12 year old girl (the horse was 2!!!!!) and the other had serious psychological problems that would've been easily dealt with by a trainer. All this to say that any kid was allowed on any horse (thin or injured or lame), without helmets or proper attire... I'm talking about kids from 4 to 16 years old. Tack was in bad condition and it is basically an accident waiting to happen. Now, a good horse has died for absolutely no reason other than neglect. I wish I would've done something at the time, but there is no resources for things like that in my neck of the woods... we have an SPCA, but they probably wouldn't have done anything! I knew something had happened to poor King because I drove by twice and never saw him. He was supposed to keep him inside and blanketed for the winter, but I am sure there is no blanket on this man's property and the horses don't have a good shelter to begin with, so there is certainly no stable to put him in. I'm sorry if I'm going on about this, but I feel partly responsible for not doing more, but financially, I had just taken on my rescues and had no spare cash to take another, but today, I could've taken him, but it's too late, plus, they would've never let him go.

I had vowed that if that horse made it through winter, that I would call SPCA and take him on, but it's too late now and I feel very sorry. I guess we can't save them all, but I just feel like smacking EVERYONE upside the head for that. I'm so upset! That poor horse died frozen in the cold winter. It was obvious to me that he wouldn't make it, why is it that they couldn't see it. Now the kids must be traumatized, or don't care at all... I now hate these people, I can't stand them! I feel like the next time I see him, a fight will break... IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO CARE FOR YOUR HORSES, DON'T KEEP 4 OF THEM ON HALF AN ACRE!! THAT IS NEGLECT... NOT PROVIDING VET CARE IS NEGLECT... floating teeth costs what... 50$, for all I know, he could've trailered the horse to a vet and pay for it... would've saved them a lot of psychological scars! I even feel responsible because the horse was boarded for free on our property and that no work was done in exchange for board, like it was supposed to happen. Sorry, but I am enraged. I don't think I can face these people again because the minute he will tell me that King passed, I will blow up! I don't have a picture of King, because I didn't want criminal charges against me... I was only trying the help by giving pasture and my best advice, which was obviously ignored. Did I do the right thing? I know I should've called SPCA but they probably would've taken into account that all other horses are nice and fat and that it is not a neglect case. Still I should've tried.