Welcome to Fern Valley

Here in central Alberta prime farm country,my husband Martin and I work together raising beef cattle and Appaloosa horses. Fern valley appaloosas have long been known for their quality of temperament conformation and color.I have recently rediscovered a love of writing and have published 2 collections of poetry. "Telling Tails" and Tails Trails and Campfire stories" . I look forward to a future spreading my wings as an author and as a horse woman .

Saturday 19 April 2014

Springing out!

Finally time  for the horses(at least some of them ) to get out of winter  quarters and stretch their  legs.
I did things a little different this year because  I have only  a small number of geldings now so the big  girls are on coyote  watch in the lake  pasture ,and Johnnie and his little harem are in a bigger pen  but still up close. Stryker and Harley are still in because Harley was tearing around  yesterday and has injured himself (kids!) and of course the babies, we they too are in a bigger area, but just a little ,I still need them close to work with them now that it is nice out and I finally have some time (I hope) 
But first I went out to make sure all the gates on the far side of the lake  pasture were closed , and what  did I find out there??
Well Loch Ness has Nessie, the Okanagan has Ogopogo, and we here have the monster of Lake Ste  Thomas! Winston! First polar bear swim of the year! 

 see the ice?
 dang  this dog is tough!! 

 then it was time to cut the girls loose





 "That  Richie mare " 20 yrs young and looking every bit the athlete  we know she is 
"umm! hey! what about us?
 next  crew running up the alley! 
Cat ,Annie, Andee and Johnnie 


 a little  animation, cause we can
 the bathing  beauty , chillin' in the gator

Pretty  good  day overall, also got some help from my nephew loading a truck to go to the dump, a few things to recycle and such. went really well till I clocked myself in the head with the side of a bench!Sigh, I guess its still a good day if its only a little goose egg.

Much better then the snowy cold days we had  earlier in the week
 these  two calves  were hard pressed to be born on dry  ground! 

Then yesterday the weather turned around and boy were we all happy! 



Sunshine and spring  will just make anyone want to kick up their heels! 

Happy Easter  everyone!
Stay safe 

7 comments:

Country Gal said...

Wonderful photos ! You still have lots of snow and ice in your waters ? No snow or ice in the water here now just lovely sunshine , warm temps and greening grass now was touch and go for a bit here with the weather but Spring won , thank goodness. I have put out my Oriel and hummer feeders this weekend so they have some good food for their return ! Thanks for sharing . Have a good day !

aurora said...

Must feel grrreat to run and stretch across land. Your horses are looking good & good looking!! As for Winston, brr! He looks perfectly content, and in no hurry to get out of his ice bath. Silly boy.

kden said...

Wonderful pictures with a beautiful blue sky. You have one crazy dog there :-)

Cut-N-Jump said...

It's warming up quite a bit here. Summer is definitely on the way. The snow looks good, as in, ahhhh cooler temps... Brrrrrrrrr in a good way. Trade ya! Hahaha

4RRanch said...

Lots of fun pictures but way too cold for a swim. Beautiful horses as usual.

Linda said...

Always amazes me that dogs that love water will do water.........whether there is ice in it or not. I had a mare that loved to drop and roll in ice water too......not much fun if she caught you on her in one of her "cool off's" :(

Nicole said...

It still boggles my mind that you have snow and ice showing up! So around here lately people have been doing cold water challenges. You have to jump in the cold water to help raise money for different charities, then you call out people and they have 24 hrs to comply. So... seeing Winston in the water, we could have volunteered him and he wouldn't have had any problems at all... lol :)