An Old Horse is About to Start Some Learning New Tricks

Starting tomorrow Hogan is about to start working again..  After years of wanting to learn I'm finally going to put him to good use and have a trainer try to teach him and I the basics of riding sidesaddle! Since he's never done anything like this it will be a crap shoot as to whether he makes it or not, but since he's not up to much else and is safe and pretty easy going we figure it could be a good fit for him. Or at least it's worth a shot. 

Adventures with the Walking Horses

This Sunday we got invited out to join two local groups trail riding.  We took Nynya and Red, and decided to go in the slower group.  Well, that may not have been our finest idea..  Although the trail ride was slower and not as long it wasn't because other people had green horses it was because everyone else in the group had trotting horses.  Because of this we spent most of the ride holding the walkers back so we wouldn't pass our group leader. And the one time everyone did speed up I couldn't get Nunya to do anything other than trot. All that aside though, we had a nice ride.

Red and Nunya got enjoy a nice splash in the creek.  Nunya actually went in pretty deep, but I couldn't capture that on camera.  Every time I asked her take a step deeper into the water she balked a little bit and started pawing and splashing, but eventually she'd stop and go a little farther out. She ended up quite a bit past her fetlocks, which I thought was a pretty big accomplishment for her.  Red didn't want to go in as much.  He got in a little over his hooves and that was it for him! On our way back to the trailers we also saw a herd of deer and an eagle.  Since I had never seen a eagle in Maryland I thought that was very neat.  All in all it was a pretty nice Sunday!

Three Down Three To Go

Sunday, we went ahead and tried to have Dolce bred.  It turned out to be a mess.  We brought her to another farm to be bred after I knew she was in standing heat, but at first the buck scared her.  Then, when she was finally interested in him and he was a bit calmer the buck wouldn't do the job.  We got 2 breedings out of the whole mess and neither of them were even very convincing. We thought maybe she was on the end of her heat cycle and that was why the buck lost interest, but sure enough the next day she was still in crazy standing heat.  I decided to just put her with Mocha.  Now I'll have to get DNA tests to see who the dad is, but I doubt it's the other buck since he barely covered her.  Mocha at least got 4 really nice breedings in.  Not bad for a 7 month old!

We must be the worst at setting goats, but this is Dolce

Country Charm's Mocha

I was hoping to avoid breeding Dolce to Mocha because of him being unproved, but I guess we'll see what their kids turn out like..  This will be Mocha's last breeding for the year, since I had already made a deal to do a driveway breeding on my other three does. Poor guy will just have to spend the rest of fall with his buddy doodle.

Smarty (they white goat) and Sparkles are also bred to Mocha and are already pregnant.  They didn't come into heat this week so that's now set in stone.  Smarty is due February 24th and Sparkles is due the 21st.   I also already have have people on a waiting list for their kids!



The next goat to be bred will be Pauline.  Then it'll be Ally and Karamel's turn.

Hitting the trails at Fair Hill!

Friday, October 11th we left for the annual gaited horse trail riding weekend at Fair Hill Park in Elkton, MD.  Friday was real dud.  It rained all day and night, making everything wet and disgusting, but Saturday morning the sun came out and the weather got warmer.  Since we're still new to trail riding and Nunya and Red are still getting used to going places we found a small group to go with.  We decided to ride to a covered bridge on the property, that a lot of other people said was very cool.  They all said it would take 2 hours tops..

Couldn't have asked for better weather!

Mom and Red

It ended up taking a total of three hours and we rode over 5 miles on horseback! We crossed countless bridges and went through and around some crazy obstacles.  Our first real obstacle was a really small and dark culvert we had to go through.  The horses made it half way through before they heard their own hoof beats and our voices echoing and decided they were NOT okay with what was going on.  Luckily they were able to contain their fear and stay somewhat composed till the end of the tunnel. Then we had a guy come out of nearby Port a Potty on the cross country field and slam the door.  The horse went ape but after a few minutes they came to their senses and calmed down.  After that we had to go under a highway overpass.  They horses didn't mind that until they heard the "thump thump" of the cars driving onto the bridge, but no one really spooked at it, they just got worried.  Lastly we had to go over a busy highway and on the other side was a moon bounce..  We made it halfway through before our lead horse Alegra, who I might add had been one of the most level headed the whole time, decided he couldn't take it, spooked, and tried to turn back.  Nunya of course spooked as well and tried to follow but we managed to calm them down.  After all this I looked back to my mom and the baby because they baby is the spookiest of the three, and go figure he didn't spook at all!

 We reached our goal though and all of us made it to the bridge,  And, after everything the horses had gone through by the time we reached the bridge everyone all the horses were more than willing to walk through.  After all, that day they had already seen way worse!

We were, needless to say, very proud of Nunya and Red!  It's been a long year but this ride showed how far they have come.  Fair Hill 2013 was a success and we're already looking forward to 2014!

It's been too Long!!

So sure enough I said I was going to document everything and whatya' know I got busy and dropped the ball!

So here we go fresh start!  From here on out I will update it. lol

The farm's website is up an coming now. Hopefully it will be online within the next few weeks.  Two does have been bred for the 2014 season and two more are due to be bred this Monday!  The chickens are all laying now, except for the younger two.  The week before last the two walkers go to visit the PG Equestrian center and ride in the big indoor.  It was a lot of fun and the horses loved it!