What is MTG? I'm glad it seems to be helping. Some individuals are just more sensitive to things. If those two related, that may be a clue to an allergic reaction.
The sheep all belong to my neighbor. I get hay or meat in trade for my work and the pasture we lease to him.
The flower bed on the south end of the house is reappearing slowly. This is the same one I showed you a few weeks ago when the snowdrift was right up to the corner of the porch. A few tulip leaves are showing, some just with red tips, and some already green! The rose bushes below the porch railing are not showing any signs of life yet.
Two of the retired horses have been put out into the big pasture to earn their own living. Yesterday afternoon I stomped a trail through melting snow to the gate, then dug out the end that opens just enough to let one horse through at a time. It is a wire gate, so the wooden gate stays in the 2 ft deep undisturbed snow held 2/3 of the gate upright while I opened the other end. This morning they were near the gate at feeding time, and I wondered if it was because they hadn't found enough grass, or if they were just there out of habit, so I carried 2 flakes of hay to them. They ate about half of it and wandered away to nibble on shoots of green grass in the bare patches.
While they were eating I took advantage of the frozen snow surface and walked down to the pond to make sure they have water available. No problem, even after a 20 degree night there was a nice little open spot they can reach, and so they are on their own and our haystack will last twice as long. We didn't start the winter with our usual amount of hay and might have been needing to find some to buy at high prices since the hay supply everywhere in the northwest was not normal last year. Many producers held back part of their crop to sell late in the winter for more money.
Hubby was told that our irrigation water will be late arriving this year, delayed because of the ditch that carries it being filled with snow, which is a sign of a good snowpack that hopefully will give us a longer than usual supply. We usually don't get any water until about mid April, so nobody knows how late it will be. Meanwhile, our snow is melting very slowly and all that water is going into the ground to replenish the water table. It's been years since the grass in the pastures looked this green this early. Spring hasn't even officially arrived yet!
The spring that feeds the water tank in the small pasture is running quite well again, so I disconnected the tank heater and the extension cords, took down baracades around the tank that kept the horses from falling into it when they couldn't see it, and still have some of those things to put away. The horses can drink from the entire upper side of the tank instead of just the one corner they used for several weeks. Feeding time is pretty easy for me now without having to clear a path to the tank twice a day. The snow along the fence by the feeders is going away but I still have to watch my step.
Yesterday I worked in the greenhouse removing aphid infested plants and tossing them out into the snow. Every year about this time the aphids get ahead of my control measures. I threw out a big unruly tomato plant that not only had aphids but some kind of blight that made many of the leaves turn brown. It was a very productive volunteer plant of unknown parentage. I picked about 20 nice ripe tomatoes off it, cut it into pieces and carried them carefully to the door, trying not to shed aphids as I went.
Also on the greenhouse hit list was 4 beets that had huge ugly roots but were still making nice tender greens that were another treat for the aphids, and a few old chard plants that were also horribly infested. I had tried washing the bugs off so we could eat the greens, but never could get all of them. I think I need to grow onions with the greens, or maybe garlic. And I need to be more diligent in the future about spotting and spraying the bugs before they take over. The organic or not too toxic sprays I have used might handle a few bugs but not on the scale of what happens when I ignore them at first hoping they will go away.
Recently I read that aphids can reproduce without mating (born pregnant) and from the time they hatch it only takes them 10 days to produce another generation! There was no indication in the article about how many one aphid produces, but my guess is they are more prolific than rabbits.
Some of my ornamental plants have a different kind of aphids, but I do spray those, I am not too fussy when it comes to something I do not plan to eat, but I don't go too nutty about it because I have frogs in the greenhouse and don't want to poison them along with the bugs.
MTG is Mane and Tail groom. It's very oily and has sulpher in it. The 2 are not related though they look almost identical. I have found another horse with the same thing. The buckskin mare. I am using the MTG on her and am watching the others closely.
Looks like it's nearly spring for you. Its was nice here yesterday. DH and I got to do a bit of riding. It was so nice to be astride again. It's another beautiful day today. Should hit 71 and sunny so I am hoping to go for another spin. Got a friend coming over to look at one of the horses. He has asked to raise a foal out of her from his stallion. We'll see.
What kind of saddle do you use on your endurance rides?
Bare patches in the pastures are getting larger and the snowbanks are getting smaller every day, but it is very slow. And I am not too patient. The flower beds on the west side of the house are clear of snow so I could start some cleaning of those.
So far I have not ridden Patch but he does get to come out of the pasture to be groomed a little bit and to eat his grain and vitamins without Breezy sticking his big nose in there. Breezy is the dominant one of the two, so Patch would only get one bite and Breezy would steal the rest. Patch will not be ready for the first ride of the season this year, just 3 weeks away now. I can't ride him without shoes and the snowdrifts in the pasture would just pull them off like mud.
Cajun, I use a saddle that is made for endurance, it looks like a combination of western and English. There are lots of kinds of endurance saddles out there. The one I use on Patch is called Specialized, but that company makes several different ones. Mine has a western style seat without a horn, and the stirrup leathers are a bit more like English, but not really like either one. I use stirrups that have a plastic framework and a 5 inch tread with a cushion for more comfortable feet when trotting for long periods of time.
Because of the high cost of fuel, and the distance I have to drive to get to many of the rides, I will not be going to as many this year. I have ridden over 1000 miles per year for most of the last 15 years, so you could say that I've been there, done that and have nothing I need to prove. Last year I didn't do as many as the previous year and it felt good to have more time to do things around home and not be running in fast forward so much. The ones I go to will be carefully selected. Riding in snowstorms and thunderstorms is not something I need to do anymore.
Lambing is taking up a lot of my time in recent days. I get up at 12:30am to go check them, and usually am home again in less than 2 hours, but then I am wide awake and it takes time to get sleepy again, so then I sleep late. It's a crazy schedule but I only have to be doing it for about a month.
Here is a link to my saddle. On the left of the page click see saddles, mine is the last one on the page. Add stirrups like those on the saddle next to it. The really unique part of the saddle is what you don't see, the foam pannels on the underside can be fitted to one horse, removed in one piece and have another setup for another horse. They attach by velcro. Peel one set off and put another on and it fits a different horse. I have two sets, one for a fat Patch and another for when he is slimmer later in the season.
How cool is that!! Angelsong on DG was asking about the fit of a saddle changing as the muscles developed into riding season. Bet she'd be interested in such a system.
What is the reasoning behind no horn? My DH has those stirrups on both his saddles. He has a partial amputation of his left foot so the extra footing helps him feel more secure.
1000 miles a season. You go girl! Or rather, you stay home girl! LOL You have earned a rest. I am of the same mind as you. I have ridden some wild broncs in my time and I don't need to do it anymore. I want riding to be fun now. Not a job.
Saddle horns are designed for roping cattle, I am not roping anything! They can also be dangerous in rough country if you go up and come down in the wrong place as an acquaintance of mine did last year. She was on a mule that suddenly bucked coming down a mountain, and was thrown up and came down on the saddle horn. The force separated her pelvis by 4 inches and destroyed the pelvic arch. Her husband was riding with her and saw the whole thing happen. He said she came down on that saddle horn 3 times.
She spent about a month in the hospital after surgery that required lots of metal bars, rods and screws to reconstruct her pelvis. She wasn't walking for 3 months. I was telling an endurance rider nurse friend of mine about it and she says she has seen a few similiar cases in the ER and would never ride in a saddle with a horn. Saddle bronc riders don't want them either.
On the home front, things have been quiet. I'm watching the snowbanks shrinking, and I have to say that is something like watching paint dry! Tulips, daffodills and spring snowdrops are coming up, daylilies are getting little green shoots, and I see one or two brave viola (little mini pansys) are blooming near the foundation. Big beautiful pansys are being sold at the discount store but they are 99 cents each, and I left them for somebody else.
Yesterday was sunny with a breeze and above freezing all day and all night too, but today the clouds have come, rain or snow is in the forecast, and the wind is strong and feels cold even with the thermometer registering 40 degrees. When I fed the horses this morning I heard the greenhouse vent flapping in the wind, so I wired it closed again to conserve heat. It opens automatically with changes in air pressure, fine if that change is from the thermostatically controlled fan that is pushing hot air out of the greenhouse, but not when the northwest wind hits it and makes it flap when the furnace is trying to keep the greenhouse warm.
Lamb production is in a lull for now. When I checked the sheep at 1am there were no new lambs and only one the night before. Now that the weather has changed they will probably start again. The barn chart shows only 4 lambs born all day yesterday. They seem to arrive in waves and it's about time for another one.
Paint branding is painless. The paint dries in about half an hour. Sometimes it gets a bit smeared before then, but we usually manage to read it anyhow. All the members of the same family get the same number. Red paint is for twins and blue for single lambs. If a ewe is sick or if the lambs get sick and need to come back to the barn, we know how many lambs we need to find to keep the family together.
It's not your eyes, the picture is a bit out of focus because I was hurrying to get it.
Last edited by Mary on Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Home
FAQ
Memberlist
Usergroups
Join! (free) 
Profile
Messages
Login/Out
