Sunday Stills ~ Numbers

The Sunday Stills photo challenge this week was Numbers.

There are numbers around us everywhere we look...here are my two for the week...

The morning sun filtering through the bare

limbs of the elm tree made interesting

yet pretty shadows on the house.

What I really like is feeding critters in the daylight...the

days are getting longer!!! And daylight saving time

begins next weekend!!

They were just numbers.

Like in a prison camp.

But not any longer.

These numbered tags were worn by wild horses

gathered by the BLM.

They were adopted and given a new lease on life.

Rohan, Duncan and a cute lil' mare that a friend

of ours adopted back in 2006.

Check out some of the other Sunday Stills participant's photos by going here in the comments.

Enjoy your Sunday~~

The Golden Pony is a Lucky Pony!!!

Isn't this lovely?!? I was the very lucky winner of Jane Augenstein's 200th post give-away...the prize was this gorgeous hand crafted folk art hooked rug, which of course Jane made with her own two hands. I mean, she even dye's the wool and designs the rugs she makes!

The colors are so rich, the feel is soft and warm, yet thick and strong...it is gorgeous, quality work.

Jane has a wonderful web page, Liberty Homestead Rugs, that has lots of information and photos of rugs that she's hooked. In fact, she will even design one especially for you of your pet!

This is the back side of the rug...personalized!

Every hook is smooth and the edging is as neat as a pin.

I ran around with the Golden Pony to all of the newly painted walls, holding it up, to see which color was best...it looked good against ALL of them! Then I saw The Perfect Place...in a different room...

Right next to the beautiful original watercolor that I won

in another blogger give away from Danielle Barlow

at Notes from the Rookery!

Needless to say, there are some tremendous

blogging artists out there!

So there stands the Golden Pony...in my office...

in the kitchen...above my desk...where I can

admire it on a daily basis; and of

course show it off to anyone who might stop by!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being such a great blogging friend Jane and doing such a fantastic give-away! Rest assured that the Golden Pony is loved and will be cared for...for many years to come!

Now, I did say that the Golden Pony was a Lucky Pony...it has to be. I jokingly commented that I was going to go out and buy a lottery ticket when I found out I had won it...but something else arrived with the Golden Pony...

The Forest Service has decided (with a lot of convincing from the Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition) to return Dreamsicle to his home! In fact, he along with his two mares, the other bay band stallion and two of his mares will be returned to the Big Summit HMA next week!

Dreamsicle here in the front will return with the

bay mare in the back, and the bay mare

in the center.

The bay stallion on the left, the bay mare, and the

bald faced mare with the four socks will be

returned to their home in the Ochoco National Forest.

Another positive is that two additional mares from another HMA will be going too! Yep, each stallion will get another mare for his band.

The Coalition has been working on getting genetic diversity in the HMA and the best way to do that is by introducing a couple of new mares. The FS finally agreed that this would be an opportune time to do just that. Yahoo!!!

They will release the stallions with his respective mares at separate locations so there won't be any confusion...it'll be confusing enough.

To help with the Coalition's ongoing genetic studies of the herds in the HMA, DNA samples will be pulled from all the Big Summit horses that are at the Corrals right now. This will give us a lot of valuable information. I'll be out at the Corrals sometime next week to help pull, bag and tag the hair samples.

I'm sure you're wondering...what about the other horses that were gathered? Well, three fillies will be put up for public adoption.

This filly is one that will be adopted out.

She came in with the bay stallion band and is

the filly of the bald faced mare.

She looks to be a yearling.

These are the other two fillies that will be available.

They were the fillies from Dreamsicle's mares, but

they are not sired by Dreamsicle. The two mares

are carrying Dreamsicle's first foal crop.

The photo is from last June, so these two are now yearlings.

That leaves another mare and a yearling...and a 2 year old horse colt. Sadly, the mare and yearling have a conformation fault commonly called roach-backed. It's where the spine curves upward (the opposite of a sway back). This mare's foal from 2009 had the same fault, so it's quite obvious that it's hereditary with this mare. It was agreed by everyone that she and her filly should be taken out of the breeding pool. They will probably go to long-term holding.

Then the 2 year old colt...well, if no one else is found quickly to adopt him, he will be coming to live at the Rough String! Not that I need another horse...but I named him way back when he was just a lil' foal...Slider. He was playing on a dirt mound right next to our camp; he'd run to the top and slide down the other side...hence the name Slider. So, My Man and I have an affection for the lil' guy.

So, I really believe that the lovely Golden Pony brought a very good piece of luck...thank you Golden Pony~~

Update on Colt & The Truth About "Growing"

Many of you have inquired about Colt's progress. Thank you so much for your concern...and, I'm happy to report that he seems to be coming along nicely. He's still on stall w/run confinement, and I can exercise him daily on a lunge line in the round pen (weather/footing permitting). This has been a good opportunity for us to work on the ground work exercises that Mike Bridges showed us at my Project 5 clinic last fall...Colt's gettin' pretty good at 'em!

I'm sure he's as bored as can be, but he has some toys to play with lots of grass hay of course. In fact, he's finally gained some weight! Colt's beautiful photo in my header is a nice one of him, but he's awfully thin IMHO. That photo was taken after a full summer of riding and showing. He was on green pasture and also getting alfalfa and grain...he's just a growing boy!

Colt's also enjoying his daily dose of brushing and a couple of treats too.

We have an appointment with Dr. Knox at Idaho Equine Hospital on March 12...Yeah!!, six weeks is finally getting here! So, we'll keep praying that he's recovered enough from his injury that he can be started back in training. We're letting the Doc determine that for us.

Thanks again for all of your prayers and healing thoughts for Colt...they are obviously working!

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The Truth About "Growing"

Over a week ago, the Sunday Stills photo challenge was the letter "G," and I chose the word "growing" as my subject.

I got a lot of comments about how other folks around the country were wishing they could see something growing in their neck of the woods.

Well, in all honesty, there really isn't anything actually "growing" here either...except for the first onset of nasty weeds which don't really count as plants in my opinion ;~)

My post for Sunday Stills showed My Man spreading fertilizer on the alfalfa fields...the weather was perfect for it. The annual spreading of fertilizer is the first thing we do to prepare the fields to grow alfalfa. The alfalfa is actually in it's dormant stage still...and will be for a while longer.

We had watched the weather forecast and just as predicted, three days after the fertilizer was spread, we got this:

A nice blanket of really wet snow!

Which is perfect...as the snow melts, it takes the

fertilizer into the soil with it!

This photo was taken on Feb 24.

Taken yesterday, the only green in this photo

of the alfalfa are emerging weeds.

So the next step...we spray for weeds, and that has to happen before the alfalfa comes out of dormancy. Without spraying for weeds, the first cutting would be full of cheat grass and other obnoxious weeds that are potentially harmful to the animals. It also prevents the weeds from choking out the alfalfa plants. A stand of alfalfa will only last 6-9 years, and it all depends on how you care for it. We want our fields to last...it wasn't cheap to put in new alfalfa.

But, it really is warming up a bit...a lil' above 50 yesterday! I can actually see some green coming in parts of the yard that are sheltered and close to the house...so, spring is on its way...we just have to be patient.

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My Man was busy this weekend replacing a nasty barbed wire fence. I wish I had gotten a before photo...but of course I didn't. Trust me, it's one of those fences that made me cringe and it's finally taken care of!

My Man had to play with use the big back hoe

to move out some large boulders and then put in

a juniper post, stretch the field fence and

add the top rail. I like it!

This photo makes the fence look crooked...it must

be the angle of the camera and the slope

of the ground...it really is straight...honest!

It's nearly impossible to get a post into the ground

when it's this close to the rock rim, so whoever

put in the original barbed wire fence used

this simple but effective solution to hold

the steel post against the rock...so, why

try to reinvent the wheel...it's holding

the new fence just fine.

From my post about the wild horse adoption and the Faces of the Homeless, there were lots of questions in the comments...sorry that I haven't answered them. But they are good, serious questions that deserve more than a brief blurb. I'm going to do a post, and try to answer all of your questions...see you then!