Lingering Fall Days

Yes, there have been more beautiful days in the past week, but there has also been some snow...not enough to amount to anything; just enough to make things wet an muddy when it thaws.

A Dusting of Snow in the Foot Hills

Today's set of photos were taken in Manual mode on my camera. It's starting to make a little bit of sense to me...and I'm liking the results most of the time.

Handsome Cowboy

I'm still working on figuring out the action shots in Manual though.  Red Dog and Rastus were havin' a pretty good time while I was raking and mowing leaves last week. The sun was gorgeous and there was hardly a breeze...perfect!

Play Time!

As you can see, I got some of the action to stop, but not all.

Action!

But the fall colors came out nice...and I'm pretty much done with the leaves! Yeah!

My Helper.

Pierce still has a bit of a snotty nose, the cough seems to be gone, but he has some swelling in his rear legs...which I read can be a symptom of Rhino.

Colt had a bout of something yesterday. He had finished his dinner from the night before, but was lethargic and off his feed in the morning. I gave him a dose of Banamine and by early afternoon he was looking much perkier. He finally had a pile, so I gave him a small dinner. I checked on him at 1:30 this AM and he'd had two more piles. At feeding this mornin' he had one more pile. But, he's still not his robust self, so I'm leaving him in the stall and run again today to keep an eye on him.

Pierce got his first hoof trim today and did a pretty good job! There were a few moments of not wanting to keep the hoof up for Pat, but he never got unmanageable. I was proud of him!

My gosh, Thanksgiving is just around the corner...are you ready? What are your plans? We're staying home and will be hosting dinner for a dear couple who will be staying for the long weekend. Lots of food, beverage, games and laughter is ahead!

I'm Published!!!

My first published photo!!!

What an honor it is to be selected as one of the 12 pages for the American Quarter Horse Association's 2013 calendar!

You might remember this photo from a Wordless Wednesday post back in April titled Curiosity.

My Man riding Whiskey as we sort out pairs for the 3J Ranch.

AQHA had a photo contest earlier this year on FaceBook, so I thought what the heck...send something in, it wouldn't hurt. So, I chose this one, and I titled the photo this time: "No, I'm not your mother."

About a month ago, I got an email asking me for a copy of the photo with a higher resolution. I sent her what I had, but this photo was taken with my old point 'n shoot camera I carry on the trail and was afraid that it wouldn't work for them.

Then I forgot about it.

Tuesday, there was a notice in my PO Box that I had a large envelope from AQHA...it didn't click in my brain. When I picked up the envelope at the PO on Thursday, I thought to myself they must be sending calendars to members this year, because that was about the size and feel of the envelope.

As I was driving home, it dawned on me that this could be from the contest...and they couldn't afford to send every member a calendar!

I sat down at my desk and started with January...slowly looking at all the photos. They put one large photo for each month and each date space that didn't have a number, they filled with small photos.

Hoping that my photo would be in one of the small date spots, you can't imagine my surprise when I got to July and there was my photo...the BIG photo!!! They had a wonderful write up in the front cover of the calendar that told how they had conducted the contest and that they had received hundreds of quality photos and how hard it was for them to narrow it down to the top 12. By then I was in tears~

My Man is visiting his family in Missouri, so I had to call him. He's so excited to get home to see the calendar! He comes home tomorrow!!

All of the photos in the calendar are just awesome (really professional looking stuff)...and the calendar is 12x24 inches (opened up) and printed on really nice paper. Here's a link if you want to buy one...or two...Christmas is coming and they'd make a great gift!

Quarter Horse Outfitters

Thanks for letting me share my excitement with you!! As you can tell, I'm just beside myself!

And, if I hadn't started blogging, I wouldn't be dragging a camera with me everywhere I go! Amazing what a lil' blog can do!

The Snotty Nose Kid

Poor lil' Pierce has ended up with a snotty nose and a cough. It's just a virus, but he had a temp of 102* on Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, it was down to the normal range. He's also a bit lethargic.

The beginning of the snotty nose on Monday mornin'

So, to keep it from turning from just a virus into a bacterial infection, I've put him on SMZ's.

Last evening his snotty nose was all cleared up, but there still is a bit of a cough.  It's only been three days of the medicine, so I'm pretty confident the cough too will pass.

The cause is most likely the stress from weaning, but the fluctuating weather temperatures aren't helping either. No other horses or foals have any problems from the ranch he came from.

We're waiting to hear from his damn's previous owner what type of vaccinations she had had. Once we know that, and Pierce isn't sick, he'll get his first vaccinations.

On Monday, Pierce graduated to the round pen! He enjoyed stretchin' his legs!

I've re-arranged everyone. Pierce gets his stall, run and the round pen. Colt is behind the barn on the outside of the round pen. Whiskey is in the rim pasture. I think the next stage will be to put Colt with Pierce in the round pen and see how they get along. They have such a size difference, and Colt loves to play...I'm concerned he'll play too rough. Lots of supervision!!!

Oh yes...the white on Pierce's forehead...it's permanent...I really did try to wash it off, but those are white hairs and the skin under them is dark (not pink). Pierce wants to be just like his brother Colt!