OH MY

It has been forever since I last posted hasn't it. Sorry all...but life got really busy.

My job is going really well. We are extremely busy now and expecting to get busier over the next couple weeks. We are down to 3 girls again as Eve has moved to the night shift. But that is working out really well. We had found, with the 4 of us, that we had lots of extra time on our hands. Down to 3, we have just the right amount of work to keep us busy for the most part.

Home life is going well. Kids are even more settled into their long days without Doyle and I home. Bailey and Shayne have not missed the bus once - which is fantastic. Melissa is learning lots about household management.

Shayne and Melissa both have celebrated birthdays this week. Shayne is now 14...went to take his Learner's License test and missed one too many questions, so has to re-take it on Thursday. Melissa is now 19 and is anxious to get out on her own - the right way this time.

Hyde and Gunner had a good fall at Dale's. Gunner is far surpassing our expectations, especially with his rough start. Hyde, on the other hand, has stalled in his training. Both boys came home last weekend for a 6 week break over the holiday season. It has been great having them home but I can hardly wait to see them back with Dale pushing for show season success. We had Barb Glazer of Glazer Photographer go out to Dale's at the end of November and take pictures of the boys working cows so when I get them back from her, I will post them all over the place!!!

I have a pile of everyday pictures to load up on the website as well as on the blog...so keep checking back.

Carrie

Girls and posing 3

How it all started!!!

Here are the great pics. Keep in mind that my girls don't get a long very often...so these are great to have.

Girls and posing 2

Then came Bailey. The little "Miss Thing" in my house.

Definately wanting to follow in Melissa's footsteps, she has been trying to imitate her as much as she is allowed to at the age of 11.

Here are a couple of her cuter poses.

Girls and posing

First it was Melissa. The webcam became her best friend. She would sit here in front of the computer and just click off picture after picture. Am thinking that ANTM was partially to blame for this newest fad.

when the webcam broke - she took to using the regular camera.

Conceited??? maybe just a bit. LOL But she is a pretty young lady that's for sure.

Shayne is growing up

Well, my kids just keep getting bigger and bigger. Amazing how that happens hey?

Shayne will be 14 in December. He has his first girlfriend - Breanna. Have not met her yet but have said hi to her on the phone. He said they are keeping it "a secret" from everyone at school so they won't get bugged.

He is also almost as tall as me...give him another 6 months and he will be...not that it will take much seeing as how I am only 5 ft 1. But with a mom this short and a dad that is only 5 ft 8...really...how much of a chance does he have???

Here is his newest picture that he had Melissa take.

Hay crop in Alberta

While it looked to be a great year for hay...it actually has turned out to be a bad year.

The first cut grew really well - nice and high and green. Some farmers were lucky and got it cut and baled before it started to rain...but most of it got rained on.

The second cut, however, did not happen. If a farmer did get a second cut, it was very minimal...and it turns out they are keeping that.

Due to all this, I have heard rumor that some farmers have doubled the price of their rained on first cut bales - asking as much as $75 a round.

That is going to make this year another tough one. We have 3 hay guys that we buy from so we are hopeful that they will have enough for us.

The breeding fee confusion

I have been working on setting my breeding fee for Hyde and Gunner and am just confused as to how to set it up.

I know I can't go for the big buck right now even though their pedigrees are fantastic as they haven't reached the show ring yet. But I also don't want to get it too low.

I am thinking of setting it at $750/mare. This will be broken down into $150 for booking fee (non-refundable) - $100 for chute fee (will be paid to Dale) - $500 for actual breeding fee.

What is the consensus? Is that too much? Too little?

Now my next question is: how do I pick the mares that will be bred to them? With their pedigrees, I am thinking we may get more interest in them than what we have decided on for numbers actually being bred. Dale and I talked this over and decided on a maximum of 10 mares each.

HELP!! LOL

My "honey do" list got worked on

As every wife does, I always have a "honey do" list sitting here for Doyle to work on. He also has his own "to do" list of stuff that he would like to work on. So this week, he did a combination of them as some of the items were the same.

It was FENCING time.

He went and got the post pounder from his boss and spent 2 1/2 days pounding posts along 5 lines of fence. He also made a new line of fence which is great.

He has a little more work to do one the new line - which is where the white gates used to be. He moved that entire fence line back about 40 feet. Which will make this winter a lot easier to move hay as he can get the tractor and hay into the hayshed without TAKING DOWN THE FENCE. This new fence is really nice too - 2 plank when finished.




He also repaired a lot of old broken down fencing - took off the old wire - put in new posts and will re-string with wire over the next couple weeks. One of the fence lines he put new posts in will not be wired until spring so that the horses can eat off of the two pastures at the same time. We are really hoping that will last them until December.

Doyle also pounded a post in at the round pen for me - now to put boards up in those two sections and I will be able to use it again.



We also designed our foaling stall for Dolly. She is due at the end of March which up here in Canada can still be pretty cold. It is going to be 24 x 16...with insulated walls and we will put 3 plexi-glass windows in so she gets some light. Doyle is going to get his buddy out with the bobcat to dig out the old dirt in there and then pack in new claybased dirt and then we will put sand down.

We also re-designed our mare/foal pens for when we get to the breeding stage of our stallion ownership with Hyde, Gunner and Molson.

Fuzzy beasts

Winter must be just around the corner. The leaves are all gone...the green has disappeared from all but the really well protected grass. And THE HORSES LOOK LIKE FUZZY DICE!!!

Here are a couple shots of the fuzziest of them all:

Lucky - age 31.



Molson - age 1



Gidget - age 2

Angel is home

On Oct 7, Melissa and I went over to Jay's to pick up Angel. We had been hoping that someone would be there to show us what they had done with her as part of the agreement behind the breeding lease was that they would ride her for us - we are in desparate need of another really good quiet riding horse.

No one was around that we could see so we just went out to the pasture to catch her. She was very easy to catch and load which was a nice change.

After we got her home, we turned her out with Lucky in the small pasture. She could meet and greet with everyone else over the fence - which turned out to not be a great thing as she was rearing, striking and kicking at everyone so we just turned them out together. Things settled down really easy once the others realized that they couldn't just chase her off - that she would stand her ground.

Melissa then realized that she wanted to ride her so spent the next 20 minutes trying to catch her again. But managed to do it without too much trouble.

Once she was caught, Melissa tacked her up to go for a ride...but then the trouble started. Angel was BAD. She kept trying to bolt, refused to turn, and was just down and out hard to handle.

Melissa then put her back in the arena and I went out to try to help her figure out the problems. We tried riding on a loose rein and just using leg aides to turn - but that seemed to make her bolt. So we tried just using direct reining techniques but she would rear. When she did that, Melissa would push her into a lope to make her work harder for being bad. We tried to work on big circles and serpentine curves to see if it was just tight circles that were the problem...but it didn't seem to be.

During the week, Melissa rode her a couple more times with no better success. She switched saddles to see if that was a problem. Switched bits and even went to the sidepull (bitless bridle) to no avail. The one thing I am proud of though is through this Melissa is not giving up...when Angel would misbehave before, Melissa would just get off and put her away.

I called Jay to get an update from him as to what was done with her. Randy, Jay's partner, called and said that they hadn't really done much with her this year due to her having the foal, but he would be willing to come over and help Melissa with her and if Melissa wanted, he would take her back for 2 weeks or so and get her going for us again. He said it sounded to him like she had reverted to where she was last year when they picked her up.

Will keep you updated.