here we are.

I wish it would rain, Since my pastures look awful and everyone's lawns are burnt, it look like it is August!

So we are all good, Smooshy is working on being the largest baby in the world. Two month growth spurt? he has been constantly attached to my boob for the last two days. In the (brief) moments between nursing he has been really cute and smiley *sigh* I guess I'll keep him ;)

Broody hen

made this happen

Which is pretty cool, we have 5 little ones and two hens still brooding.

Vet came out yesterday to draw blood for coggins test, I went ahead and had all three done, Joy for show, Poppy for sale and Little Horse just in case I feel like taking her somewhere (as she is two and it's good to expose her to things). Little Horse was by far the best behaved for the blood draw, I'm thinking she will make a good trail mount for Joe. Joy stood fine but didn't like it and fussed a bit and Poppy fussed a lot. The vet showed me a neat trick of tapping on the middle of the horse's forehead with a finger while she was drawing blood, it seemed to distract them a bit and make the horse stand quieter, worked well!

Got Miss Poppy listed for sale, which bums me out a bit but since I am having such a hard time finding riding time right now it really is for the best. Plus with the droughty weather we are having already, having three horses on the pasture is to much. We set up a "sacrifice" paddock in the back (which has poor grass anyway) then have one large paddock, and two small ones. The problem is that when they eat the area down a bit, it stays down, the grass is too slow growing due to lack of water. So I am feeding hay and mostly keeping them in the sacrifice paddock with daily excursions into the grass areas.

I've been lunging Joy frequently, since that is easier to fit in right now then riding. She is fairly unfit (big shocker) and I want to improve her canter before we attempt it under saddle. I am cutting her off grain again, She did fine on the Triple Crown Sr but I ran out of that and was just feeding a little plain oats since everyone was at a good weight. As you can see in the above pictures she is off in Fairyland and is quite annoying to work. Grain does not make her more hot, she is always hot. It makes her easily distracted and over reactive, not fun to deal with.

So the plan is to put her on beet pulp, alfalfa pellets and rice bran as she did well on that mix last summer. Since it is not a fortified feed I'm supplementing with Glanzen Complete. If I find she is not keeping condition or needs something more I will put her on Triple Crown Sr.

Fitness-wise I'm going to lunge her three times a week, normally I wouldn't lunge so much but it really is easier right now since I can do it with Smooshy in the Mei Tai and don't need anyone else home. I also feel Joy can really benefit from being lunged with the Chambon. Going to aim to ride four times a week, I'm so happy to be riding again, it's been hard to schedule but I think we have figured it out.

So that's us :)