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 .

Monday 16 June 2014

A little this, that, and the other . Many pics

 Happy Fathers day all! It has been another busy week, cant tell exactly what I was doing during the week, but I felt pretty busy doing it!
When the weekend finally arrived ,I got busy doing what it seems most of us do every week /weekend all summer. Yard work , housework, checking critters etc.
 Travelling partner Winston (still think I might need to change his name to Shotgun! seeing as he does tend to grab that seat on the gator if he can!
Checking cows? I thinks I smells them ! 
Then there is Skeeter , who rides in the back, but jumps out every time I get out to open a gate .Usually lies a few feet from the gator until I start to leave then hops back in .

Shuffled some horses around on Saturday to make sure all have plenty of feed.Cactus was sure a happy guy to get into this pen!

Harley and Stryker are starting to catch up to the grass they had so off to a new space for them as well



Then Johnny and the girls (these pics feature the girls ) were in the front lake  pasture which was getting sparse , they tend to hang around in front of my sisters house so time to shuffle them into another space as well to let the lake pasture come back .
 Another Photo bomber here 
 A couple of fancy fannys headed out to the green 
FV Dreamboat Annie , and FV Catch a Dream

All are out on pasture full time now except Phoenix and the yearlings. Once the bull and steer are out I will have more options for Phoenix and right now its nice to have the Kids in in the evenings to work with them. That is when it's not pouring rain ! yeesh, hard to believe how much of that we have had.
Between the rain and being busy ,I have not taken the time to handle these kids enough. Helped Deb halter break Sprite and started with the boys  a couple weeks ago,but did not get much done.

 FV Shall We Dance (Tango)
 FV Rainmakers Quest (Maks ) 
 They are getting out and getting their excercise 

 As I said, hadn't gotten much time with them , so even though I was a bit tired  on Saturday evening I went out to have a go. Have I mentioned that these kids are GREAT MINDED!! If I haven't I sure should! This session took about 90 min total, and that is for both colts!
First Maks.A little move the feet, and learn the whoa and we have a caught colt! I grabbed the wrong halter so I had to fake it for a bit. I know folks laughed at Harley's pink  halter but it is the only one I have in pink so if I grab it  I know I have the small one . Shirley from Ride a Good Horse made me some last year, and I honestly thought one was green so I grabbed the green one and oops! not the right one .

 Made it work for Maks after all and he was a good boy, a little bracing but as I stated in a post a while back, Resistance is Futile  I did not brace against him, I just waited and let him put the energy in and soon I had him walking along steady and calm .

Forgive the shaky video, its short as I am exceedingly bad at selfies, and worse at video  over my shoulder !


Tango was much the same , a little longer to get him to find his whoa and calm but once we had it  he was a great boy. Followed so quickly and easily I had a hard time getting a photo! 

While he doesn't look particularly amused here it is a trick of the photo as well , what I see and am pleased about is he is looking at me and nice and soft , not fighting with his head flung up, or set back and bracing against me . A really good session. I did not get to Casey, but she is on my radar too! 
BTW both boys picked up all four feet for me as well in this session (but to be honest they have done that for some time weird I know picking up the feet before halter breaking ,but I take the opportunities that present to handle them in any way they come )

Other than that , had a nice lunch BBQ with my dad,mom, sister Heather and brother in law Marc along with my nephew Brendan to celebrate fathers day . I had intended to go out again this evening to work some more with the boys ,but an old friend stopped for coffee and a long overdue visit . And the "kids" will be there tomorrow.
That's all for now. Stay safe my friends.

6 comments:

Shirley said...

Nice babies, behaving the way they are bred to be. Still can't believe Maks hasn't sold yet! Nice photo of Cactus, he looks like he's pretty happy to be up to his knees in fresh grass!

Ami said...

I'm always struck by how much WORK all those lovely horses take. And by how dedicated you are to doing it right.

All the pictures are great, it's like being there.

And of course Winston. I love Winston.

Nicole said...

I absolutely love Winston. I had a Cocker Spaniel once that would fight any person for the passenger seat of any vehicle I was driving.

Crystal said...

Cute little babies! And wow that grass around Cactus! So long, my horses would love that!

GoLightly said...

As always, beautiful pictures.
Your colts are so lucky they have you to start them.

aurora said...

Love the spotted babies! Must be fun for them to have playmates their own size. Speaking of size, they are growing so fast!