smrpBlog

Happy sleepy guppies...

Don't you just love sunny warm sleepy mornings? We do :)

Hay!

I looooove hay days :) 150 gorgeous bales of grassy goodness dropped
off and nearly stacked by my favorite trailer delivery guy, Bryan, and
his son Logan. I don't know what we would have done this year without
these guys...they are saving our backs right now in a big way!! Having
horses on your own property is a LOT of work-it really takes a good
group of peeps to help out to be able to do it well and without
destroying your body (too much) in the process. Thank goodness we
have so many good friends and workers to help us :) the Flowers sure
appreciate it!

Silly flowers

Happy well fed piggy ponies napping in the non-windy sunny morning
warmth. They always look wistfully up at me when I walk out the back
door: could she be bringing us even MORE food???
Yumyumyumsnortsnortsqueal!

Snowy morning!

Nice snowy morning here at DVR...the yahoos watch as their papa fixed
our arena gate. RTT prefers to watch intently just in case I decide to
throw a ball :) and The Reverend Fernando "The Bunny" Scroggins,
Gorilla-at-Large, hopes to intercept any potential ball throwing :D

Ummmm...mom?

There's a monster Ace bandage around my face. AND they are STARVING
me!! What's up with that???

(I have to say it was super sad to see my LilyBear like this...but she
will be healed soon and hopefully have an amazing life. But it's still
hard...she's my baby widdle pony!)

LilyBear Surgery Update

Thank you all for the good wishes for LBGL's surgery. This sweet little horse sure has a wonderful fan club and I think she deserves every bit of the love and adoration :)

She did well through surgery and I was relieved to get the final evening update last night: she had recovered from anaesthesia and was resting comfortably in her stall.

Littleton Equine Hospital is an amazing place-I am SO happy we went there! Dr. Gaughn, a charming man and an excellent surgeon, called first with the details of the surgery-I'll include details since several of you asked:

-he found bits of broken bone, a remnant of broken tooth, and strands of stemmy hay in the infected gum area of the fistula/drainage tract between the front of her face and oral cavity (no wonder it hasn't healed and never would have without this surgery!)

-there was some infection in the jaw bone which was scraped and cleaned up aggressively

-he drilled a hole the diameter of a dime down through her face (yes, through the bone)-I think that was to allow for drainage and healing?

-he placed an acrylic dental plug in the space where the original two rotted teeth had been. This will protect the fistula/drainage tract from any food contamination causing continued infection. Originally he thought he would need to wire the plug into place but luckily that was not necessary.

-tooth 209 (behind the gap caused by the two removed teeth) had the root exposed, but it was solid and not loose so he hopes healing the area will result in tissue growth avoiding the need for another tooth extraction.

-good news: the abscess did not go through the actual sinus cavity: this makes her chance of fully healing much better!

She will stay hospitalized for 5 more days and then hopefully be ready to come home.

Will it be a successful surgery in the end? We don't know...we went into this surgery knowing it was a 50/50 shot of successfully healing her wound. I cannot imagine the level of discomfort she has grown accustomed to for the past 18-24 months. I am so happy we are giving her this chance at living pain free and without constant infection.

This little horse melts my heart...she has been betrayed by people over and over again yet she continues to trust and love us for some reason. Of the 27 horses seized from the "rescue" where she was starved and neglected, she was the only one nobody wanted to adopt. What a loss for everyone who didn't look twice at her but what a gift for me :) I am so lucky to have such a great, aforable, funny, and unconditionally loving little buddy.

I love my pony :)

Thoughts for my pony...

Hi LilyBearGuppieLips' aunties and uncles-Please keep our little coy flirty felon pony in your thoughts today-her surgery is scheduled for this afternoon at 2.30. I hope this surgery makes her life more comfortable and helps keep her here, full of silly punkitude, for a long long long time! Sent via Pony Express ~ _ ^> ^ ^

Just because

You are a hospitalized pony doesn't mean I can't make you into a
unicorn :) heehee. Poor Lily-it is time to take out a restraining
order on your mom!

Awwww

Poor little felon pony...behind bars batting her little eyelashes at
me oh. so. innocently...

Jail cell pony

I visited my sweet little LilyBear this morning...she's doing great
though she wants everyone to know she is being STARVED in her little
jail cell! I guess compared to the rations she gets at home that's not
too far off ;) poor pony!!! I miss her...it's going to be a long 2
weeks!!!!

Pony surgery

Little bitty LilyBearGuppieLips is at a super nice horse hospital
awaiting surgery on Tuesday to see if we can finally heal the hole in
her head. She deserves every chance to be healthy and comfortable! I
sure miss my tyrant pony flower-she'll be gone 2 weeks. :(

I'll post an update on Tuesday!

Sent via Pony Express ~ _ ^ >
^ ^

>

>

Good News Bear :)

First let me say that I adore my regular vet. After a less than
impressive visit to one of our mountain vets (who put poor Bear into a
catatonic fear state way too many times by doing all of the things I
asked him NOT to do) I went to recheck everything and add an
ultrasound to see what was up. My vet cares about what works for each
animal and blood was drawn with Bear comfortably lying on his side,
unaware of what we were doing. They shaved his tummy while he was
standing so that no one would have to handle him too much. I was
allowed to hold his head and kiss him and whisper to him through his
ultrasound and the tech babysat Jesse in the same room so that they
could be together. He is so well behaved that these things work and
make his life less stressful. This means so much to me especially
since he can have seizures induced by fear. They are the best.

Here's the best news of all: all of his results came back perfect!!!
The previous urine test had shown cells indicative of bladder or renal
cancer so you all can imagine how upset I was for those 24 hours. The
relief I feel is incredible. I love my little boy with all of my heart
and hope we will enjoy many years together. Big happy sigh :)

Please think good Bear and Lily thoughts

We are headed down the hill for an abdominal utrasound for my sweet
Bearbeedoodle this afternoon.

He was having some trouble urinating yesterday so we went to the local
vet to run some tests.

He has some scary anomalies in his urine and we are worried. The
thoughts right now are bladder cancer, kidney failure/cancer, or a
bizarre bladder stone (unlikely but fixable via surgery).

I didn't sleep much because I was so worried. He has been through more
than his share in his 5.5 years...4 surgeries and a slew of seizures
poor little sweetheart. He deserves a break.

And tomorrow we take LilyBearGuppieLips to south Denver to be assessed
to see if surgery could help cure her nasal abscess. Sigh-she is just
a baby at 4 and has not been trailered much...it will be a worrisome
trip.

A big week for all of us...I am a nervous dog and pony mom :(

Snackimals

Yum yum yum...pony and puppy snacks on a chilly morning.

Obama Obama!

What a proud day to see our historically republican state turn blue last night :)

Go Obama!!!!!

Looking pretty cute!

I thought I would post a picture of The Pony Formerly Known As Mariah
for those virtual admirers of hers to see how she well is doing.

Little Sweet Pea Willow Flower is a gem of a little horse...she is
friendly and curious, loves to eat(!), and seems thrilled with her new
Princessy Pony World. She is a neat horse in another sense of the
word, too: she uses a corner of her stall to do her business...the
Felix Unger of the herd :D

I have her on an All You Can Eat Hay Buffet (much to everyone else's
chagrin!), lunch time meals of Equine Senior pellet complete feed, a
glucosamine supplement, this week have added a cup of veggie oil
daiky, and will soon add beet pulp to help fatten her up more. She now
has a salt and a trace mineral block (a must!) and loves those very
much. All five girls get pony kongs filled with grass and alfalfa hay
cubes, too. Hmmm...and I wonder why they produce so much poo? :D

Her feetsies were trimmed last week, making her much more comfortable.
My vet checked her out and gave her a flu shot. Surprisingly her teeth
won't need to be floated (rasped down to get rid of sharp points)
until the spring.

AND! Her beautiful mane is shiny and flowing again, free of knots and
dreads :) sigh. She truly is a beautiful and gentle horse. I hope she
stays with us a long long time!

Latest addition to my resume

Gourmet cuisine pony chef: aka Grass Pulling Pony Babysitting Slave
Girl :D

Apparently ponies are afraid of men with big white hats wandering
around their veranda installing super long gutters-you woulda thought
a flake of hay with grain sprinkled on top would suffice, but the
girls wouldn't settle down until I gave them hand pulled fresh
grass...so...i've been running around like a nut keeping my girls
happy :) the workers, Alan and Riberto, think I'm a wee bit crazy.
Imagine that!! :D

Oink oink snort snort

Little Buttercup finally got access to her new stall this weekend (we
had to do some shifting because of the new Flower's arrival). I
realized a minor design flaw once she entered her new princessy
chamber-hahaha. She thought she had been granted her wish of a 24-hour
buffet :D sorry, Princess...no buffet for you!

Isn't she adorable, though? I love her little ink-dipped ears :)

Oh dear...and...what's in YOUR pocket?

I knew something was up yesterday when the ponies were acting a bit extra spunky at dusk and the yahoos were barking towards the back meadow at bedtime, but I didn't expect this. Eek.

I went back to investigate with a friend, The Monkey (leashed of course!), and my trusty can of mace (just in case). We saw drag marks coming from deep in the willows but there was no way either of us was stupid enough to follow them to see if the rest of the carcass was there. At one point while exploring I jumped, sure I heard stealthy lion steps behind me :D My best guess is that this is a deer ribcage...too small to be elk, too big to be anything else.

Amazing to have the reality of nature right in our backyard, but I hope it remains outside our fences and paddocks...please, kittykitty, do not taste my ponies.

This little incident made me think about the mountain essentials I always carry with me. And it reminded me of how different my life is from most other people's...instead of lipstick or eye liner, I carry these...always. My trusty knife, my jogger's Mace, Bear's Butt Valium, and my iPhone. In fact, I feel incomplete without them!

Pony kongs!!

This is TOO cool!!! I bought something called the Amazing Graze Horse treat dispenser toy..it's sort if like a tricky treat ball, waggle, or kong-except it's HUGE!!! Today I offered it to Lily to see if she was interested...it had a dozen grass hay cubes and a half dozen Mrs. Pasture's horse treats. Oh.my.piggy.ponyness!!! She went crazy playing with it! She knocked it around with her muzzle, stomped on it with her foot, turned it end over end-it was so ridiculously silly! I have to video her tomorrow because it was too funny :D I loooooove that I can now hand out frozen kongs to the Yahoos and hay cube filled treat toys to my Flowers :D

High Five from The Count!

We got the tumor pathology back and the silly Woodle had a benign
tumor-yippeeeeee!!!!! Thanks to all of his concerned aunties and
uncles!!

A new little flower...

(A quick update first: Count Basie is doing great! We get the results next week...thank you to all who asked about him!)

Please help us welcome a new addition to our family. She is The Divine Miss Mariah (now renamed Sweet Pea Willow Flower)-some of you remember her as the little horse I rode over the past few years who belonged to my old neighbor at our previous house.

She used to be a little girl's show pony-she was ridden english and went over small jumps and even knew how to bow on command. She's a registered Morgan, about 14.1 hands, 23 years old, and the most lovely fuzzy muffin.

I don't know what happened or why my neighbor let her get this skinny and neglected, but I finally convinced him to sell her to me. I've been working at it since last December and I suppose I finally wore him down. She looks like she came from some Pony Holocaust Camp...it breaks my heart to see her like this after having known her to be such a healthy girl during the days I rode her.

All I can say is that I feel incredibly blessed to have finally found a way to bring her to Dream Valley Ranch where she will never ever EVER be hungry again.

Ninja Pony Mom came to the rescue (as always!) and met me this afternoon, mere hours after finally sealing the deal, so that we could whisk her away from the horrible home she was in.

Here are some pictures of her arrival...by the way, she walked into and out of the trailer like she'd done it all her life, which I suppose she had during her show pony days.

I feel like an 8 year old little girl who's dream has come true...all over again :) Sigh :)

 

  

  

  

 

 

Woodle Thoughts...

Our sweet Count Basie headed with his dad to the vet this morning to have a small tumor removed...please send extra good thoughts to our fuzzy wookie woodle today! The house seems so empty this morning without the big muppet around :(

 

Yummy warm midnighty Candy Cane snacks

Or so one would think:)

The forecast is calling for a low of 15F...since we live in Siberia, I'm guessing we'll be lower than that. So, with those chilly temperatures in mind I warmed up what sounded like the perfect night time snack for Princess Ponies: Equine Edibles Candy Cane Recipe Bran Mash...ehhhh...not so much. LilyBear and Starbee pretty much hated it straight off the bat-they made funny and disgusted faces, threw their heads up and down, spit it out after each bite, and looked at me like I was most evil. What punks!!

On the other hand, Princess Buttercup deeevoured her portion with glee, and Miss Daisy gobbled up the first half and seems to be saving the rest for dessert :D

They are all enjoying a nice big flake of hay at least. Such silly and individual little muffinheads :) Sigh...even if it isn't always appreciated, I sure love spoiling my ponies!

At least they did all appreciate the extra bale of warm and fluffy shavings I put down in each stall.

Sweet and cozy dreams my little peppermint ponies...I love you!

Finally!

It's a boggy mess out there and 31 degrees, but I finally got
Buttercup's new paddock done and her stall will be ready soon.

The naughty Princess has been driving StarbeeTwinkleFlower around too
much the last week or so. Yesterday was the straw that made the camel
sigh (breaking it's back seems so unnecessary). I saw Star happily
rolling at the end of the paddock when suddenly I heard the music from
the movie Jaws: duhdun...duh...dun. Duhdunduhdunduhdun! And there was
Butter, full of brattiness, running full speed at poor Star. All 4
punks started galloping around and bucking and kicking.

If I had a really nice, large, roomy paddock with several shelters and
space to get away from one another I would keep them together.
Especially worrisome is that Butter was keeping Star away from the
water trough, feeder, and even their shelter! With winter coming I
don't want to risk poor Star having to stand in the rain or snow.

What peace of mind to know that all of the girls will have their own
little haven without stress or bullying. It'll be SO much easier to
groom and work with the love twins like this, too :)

They will get turned out to pasture in different pairs so that they
can have more social time together of course.

Buttercup snuck a little "lie down" shortly after I put her in her new
world. I think she wanted to let me know whether or not 3 bales of
shavings were enough :D I tried to snap a picture but she quickly got
up-I think she didn't want me to have photographic evidence that she
is part Princess. She considers herself Queen Badass you see ;)

Cozy...

It's that time of year again...so nice to sit by the fire on a foggy
misty day :)

I love my Star Twinkle Flower!

My friend Pam was visiting this morning so we decided to play with Starbeedoo...it was so fun! I loooooove my blond pony!

Here is Pam leading STF over a log:

I have Star tacked up with a Cashel Soft Saddle and padded breast collar. It's super comfy for both of us and is the only saddle that fits her right now. Although she has lost a lot of weight, she still needs to lose more and needs to tone up some muscle. Doing some riding in the arena should really help her with that.

She is also wearing a Dr. Cook's Bitless Bridle-I prefer not to use a bit if at all possible...makes me happier.

Here is a picture of my very first ride on Starbee (and that's our friend Paula walking alongside us). I try to always wear a helmet but I hadn't planned on riding at all so didn't have it with me. I made Paula walk alongside to give me a hand in case Star got spooked. Though all we did was walk I feel much safer with a helmet and it is now perched at the entrance of the tack room to be sure I don't forget it :) Anyway-can you see what a big silly happy idiot I look like? That's because all I could think was "OH.MY.GOD!!! I'm riding my very own pony!!!!!!" Hehehe...being easily amused makes it easy to enjoy life :)

 

I am so lucky to have four sweet horses and six amazing doggies in my world. What a perfect life :)

 

Finally...grass nibbling for all!

And there was much rejoicing. Yay.

:)

Since not all of my Flowers get along I've been having to rotate the
pasture among them...a tedious and sometimes stressful task depending
on their spunky moods ;) not anymore! Thanks to NinjaPonyParents I now
have enough panels to split our pasture into thirds...it is so nice to
look out our living room window and see all of my Flowers at once :)

This picture would have been so much prettier ten days ago when we
still had leaves on the aspen trees but, since it seems we live in
Siberia, not much can be done about it :D

Moving the Monster Pony Limo

Oh boy...what a morning adventure!!! Just moving things around so that
I can set up my round pen, but man this thing is huge! Donuts in the
arena a glacial speed :D

Slurp slurp slurp

Yummy!

I'm sleeeeeepy

Time for my morning latte :)

Guppie on lap!

Too bad nobody is home right now to fetch things for me...I have a
sweet Guppie boy on my lap, napping and snoring happily. Sigh. What a
perfect moment for a GuppieMom :)

silly boy

I came in from pony duties yesterday afternoon to find Mr. Guppie asleep in his favorite spot-tongue hanging out and all :) Such a silly silly boy!

Sweet Butter

Sweet little Buttercup enjoys her morning snack: Strategy complete feed pellets with a big dollop of molasses and a gram of bute (anti inflammatory) to ease her soreness from the farrier's visit. Next time I'll request a much lighter trim so that my little girl isn't ouchy afterwards. She feels pretty good now that she's getting some pony style advil, though.

 

And here she is enjoying her post breakfast pasture snack :) I'm turning her out on her own for a few days because of her soreness...let's just say that Miss Daisy is NOT pleased that she is being separated from her bestest buddy ;) Oh well...just for a few days, girls...then you can act like the silly love twins that you are :)

Beautiful fall day...

Make that 75

:)

Did you know flies get sleepy?

The past few years we have been inundated with overly hyperactive
flies each fall. This has happened to friends with just 1-2 dogs, so I
know it's not because of all of our animals. Plus, I am the
PooNazi...it's like I can hear poo falling onto our property and I
have to rush out to pick it up :D so it's not like we bait flies to
come live here ;)

Anyway...poor JGuppie is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She
takes her GuardGuppie duties quite seriously...whenever she sees
critters or people in our valley she gets her worried GuppieLips on
and sounds the IntruderAlertAlarm. Apparently, she considers flies
intruders, too, and seems tortured by their presence. She looks likes
she's had a quadruple esspresso by the end of the day and, I must
admit, there are moments when I feel her pain, too. There are just so
many of the darned little dudes!!

Finally I had had enough and I ordered something I never thought I'd
own. Yep. A kid's butterfly net :D

Try as I might, I simply could not outsmart the winged buggers though!
Mr. smrp had more success and captured and released 5 yesterday. A
small but important psychological victory.

Last night he pointed out that the flies seemed to be sleeping on the
ceiling. Hmmmm...realllly? How innnnteresting. I picked up a glass and
piece of paper and half heartedly tried to capture one of the elusive
ninja flies. GASP! It didn't move!!! It was ASLEEP!

The rest of my evening, as well as too much of this morning, was spent
stalking my little sleepy friends :) soon I ditched the cumbersome
glass and used my mighty weapon, the butterfly net, and proceeded to
joyfully catch and release flies like a madwoman.

To the tune of 65 flies.

Yep. 65.

Sigh...I think I need a life :D

Help Save The Beautiful Moapa Valley Paint Herd

First a little background: The Huppie Syndicate

Some of you know that The Pony Whisperess, Saint George, Miss Tammy Cowgirl, Sheriff Joe, Mr. smrp, and I have been rescuing horses from abusive and neglectful situations for the past few years. These rescues would not have been possible without the generous help, encouragement, and support from friends such as the Ninja Pony Parents, Sta Cruz Max and Mr. Max, Coocoocoolio and his sweet girl E, Suzbaru and Suzbaru's Mom, DV8, Farmboy Hank and his lovely Alayne, Crazy Dog Lady Diane, Team Lib, Auntie DoubleU, Hedgielicious, McKerry, FleaVeeDad, The Royal Farrier, Dagwood Farrier, and others who have helped in various ways.

We call ourselves The Huppie Syndicate named after our first rescued little filly-The Huppie. She was neglected and sickly but reminded me so much of a horse version of one of my Guppies that we combined Hooved Guppie and came up with The Huppie. This is what she looked like when we rescued her in November of 2006 at 4 months of age:

  

  

And this is what our beautiful girl looks like now at 2 years of age-what a gorgeous and sweet little horse she's become...she makes my heart melt :)

 

We have rescued upwards of 25 horses now, some placed in new homes, some placed with rescue groups, some in our own homes.

Help save The Moapa Valley Paints

The Pony Whisperess (Paula) recently found out about a group of 75 beautiful paint horses who will all be sold at auction and then most likely shipped to slaughter in Canada in October. They live in Nevada and are known as The Moapa Valley Paints. The owner is considered by many to be running the equivalent of a puppymill for horses. He claims to be doing a "herd reduction" sale, however, many other folks say that he is simply selling them at auction and that they will almost all go to slaughter. We are trying to find out more details about timing and how to rescue these horses before the auction.

 

A nearby neighbor is the force behind this attempt to rescue these horses-she found out that he was sending them to auction and has been working hard to help find homes. We are simply doing what we can to help out-she is amazing to be taking this on and working so hard on their behalf, and I hear she's only 18 years old. Wow.

 

Paula has arranged to drop the sale price from $800 per horse to $200 providing we take at least 10 of them. We can commit to fund the adoption of up to 25 of these horses but we need a lot of help for the next step.

Can you help by adopting or fostering?

We are looking people who can provide a loving, safe, good permanent or foster home to one or more of these beautiful horses. We are contacting everyone and anyone we can think of (including local rescues and will be contacting Best Friends this week to see if they can help). Most of these horses are green and have no real training, but the dozens of babies are friendly and just need a little bit of work to bring them along.

We will be taking at least one of the little babies in for training and will then look for a loving home.

For some reason these two little ones have captured my heart...maybe the Whisperess can find them in the herd, though I'm not sure how anyone could choose one over another once you are there. Sigh...

If you are interested in adopting or fostering any of these little sweeties, please contact us as soon as possible. We have only a few weeks in which to find foster homes.

Contact me directly at smrp_at_colorado_dot_edu if you would like to work with The Huppie Syndicate to help rescue these horses, or contact the wonderful neighbor who is trying to save these horses: Sarah Burke 702-375-4462. Here is the video that she uploaded onto youtube:

Thank you for reading and thank you for caring.

xoxoxox

The Huppie Syndicate

A cozy morning

All of the Yahoos are sleepy and snuggly this wet cool morning. I'm
excited about our first fall and winter at DVR-being able to look out
upon our own little valley steeped in the yellows, oranges, and reds
of autumn will be amazing. I hope to spend as much time as possible
outside with our fuzzy menagerie enjoying our mini paradise. I may
even start doing some bikejoring with a few of the pups to give my
foot a bit of a break-that should be fun and interesting :D off to
scoop poop-happy Monday to all :)

Eek...27.0

A sign of things to come...that is chilly! The ponies are munching
away on a nice big hay meal, the best way to keep horses warm
according to everything i've been reading. I have a feeling that I'm
going to be waking up in the middle of the night to hand out more
warmth-inducing-hay to the little chilly ponies the next few nights.
They are starting to get their winter coats-I hope this helps them get
fuzzy fast!

29

We've officially entered that time of year-last night was our first
night of below freezing temperatures. Time to hand out a little more
hay each meal and to make sure everyone is comfortable with blankets
in case we face really cold and wet days. Luckily the Flowers are
smart and they snuggle down each night into their cozy beds of
shavings in their stalls. The barn stayed a toasty 36 last
night...lucky ponies! Here is The Pony Whispering Paula teaching
LilyBearGuppieLips that blankies are friends not foes :)

I love my StarBeeDoo

How can you not love this sweet, adorable girl? She melts my heart :)

The Pony Whisperess visits

Paula arrived in Colorado to work with the Flowers...what a fun visit
it's been! We've played with POOnies and POOpies all weekend, drank
yummy coffee, watched pony training videos, snuggled with yahoos, and
otherwise enjoyed a full weekend of silliness.

So far Daisy has learned to like being fly sprayed, lily is learning
to be more trusting about having her sinus abscess being cleaned,
Buttercup is brushing up on her Parelli games, and Starbeedoo lost
enough weight to finally be able to be ridden lightly!

After working on some basic ground manners and some light circling
warm up games, Paula jumped on Star-we have her tacked up with the
Cashel soft saddle and Dr. Cook's bitless bridle. They had a fun ride
walking, trotting, bending, and backing! I didn't have my helmet so I
just got on and walked her around a bit with Paula at our side making
sure Starbeedoo didn't suddenly act up :)

I think Star had a lot of fun-it'll be nice to help her lose a little
more weight and gain some muscle with a bit of arena work. And, it
will be nice to rest my fractured foot since up til now i've been trot
hobbling alongside Star to exercise her :D

I will have the mobile tack fitter come up soon to see if we can get a
nice comfy English saddle on my girl...nothing like a well fitted
saddle to make for a happy riding partnership :)

It is so fun having my very own resident pony whisperess :)

Don't Paula and Star look so cute together???

Pony Limo Training

Look at that little LilyBearGuppieLips go!!!

Happy Flower

First sign of Fall

Crazy...not even September and we have our first aspen leaf change
here at DVR...it looks like we moved into a little slice of the north
pole compared to the rest of Ned!

Crazy funny ponies

When it's time to bring TheLoveTwins in from their pasture I shake a
small amount of grass pellets and grain into a feed tub, give my pony
whistle nice and loud, and then I wait. The girls come galloping full
speed up from the bottom of the pasture, pushing and shoving each
other like little kids, and then share the goodies like good buddies
should :) I loooove being a pony mom :)

Cutie Patootie

It's warm enough today to hose everyone down before going on walks...I
think Count Basie looks SO adorable when he's all wet :)

Peaceful Valley Ranch

Today it feels like we live in Peaceful Valley Ranch: all ten critters have eaten, the paddocks and yard are poo-free (at least for this nanosecond), water tubs and bowls are fresh and full, all of the girls have had some turn out time in the pasture or arena, the monsters are napping awaiting their walks, and now I'm drinking my coffee as I watch two of the flowers graze in the front pasture. It's so relaxing to sit and enjoy the view and the company of the monsters after a busy morning of critter care. There have been other days that have inspired not such nice names (Nightmare Valley Ranch, Stressful Valley Ranch, Painful Valley Ranch, PooFilled Valley Ranch). The secret is to appreciate the calm, good days when they arrive :)

 

But it's mid August!

I am having difficulty wrapping my sleepy, coffee-deprived brain
around this number: 33 degrees in mid August. All of our friends
nearby had lows in the mid 40's overnight, but we live in a little
riparian valley where all of the cold air likes to live. Brrrrr..the
little Flowers are going to have to grow nice heavy shaggy warm coats
for the winter! I'll have blankets for those rare situations when
they'll need them, but usually having their heavy winter coats and
nice cozy shelters is what keeps them happy and heathy. Thank goodness
my girls don't just stand out in the rain getting soaked-it is good
they are divas :)