Spring Sprungs

It's been a while since I've posted but a lot has happened.  We took a quick trip to North Dakota to pick up this, the cutest most gentle little white mare named Jeannie.  She is shedding and the sparrows love her as she is providing plenty of nest material!  When I take the shedding blade to her, it's like it's snowing.  And she closes her eyes and sighs.  It must feel very good.

I think the grandkiddies will like her and I love her!  Jeannie reminds me of this:

Heidi was my first pony.  She was my birthday present for my seventh birthday and she was only about 9 months old when I got her.  She started me down my 'horsey' path.  I was devastated when I lost her 18 years later, she had gotten tick fever and just couldn't recover well from it in spite of numerous trips to the vets.

The trip to North Dakota was interesting and we really enjoyed it.  We discovered we are only about 7 hours drive from the Teddy Roosevelt National Park (South Unit) and we are thinking we need to go ride the trails there one of these days.

Spring sprung early in Wyoming,  early and dry!!  We had some moisture this weekend but not near enough.  We did not get our usual big snowstorm so the grass is really struggling to come up.  The drought monitor doesn't look real good for our neck of the woods predicting we have over a 50% chance of being abnormally dry in April, May, and June.  These are our critical months for pasture growth.

This is after the rain and look how dry it still looks!

Plans to buy some more cows has been postponed indefinitely.  We are now hoping we don't have to sell what we have!

My three guienas have been hard at work hunting all day every day.  I have noticed a huge reduction in mice this spring so between poison in the house and barn and the guienas it appears we are winning the 'mouse war.'  Thank goodness.

Odie is now officially a gelding and I think he is much happier.  He isn't escaping out the gate when we leave trying to get to the mares anymore.  We will finish breaking him this summer and then may offer him for sale. We really don't need another gelding and I have both Trystar and Ember to ride.  My mare, Tyrstar, is 23 this summer.  My goodness!  Odie is very nice and very gentle when we started him so he should make someone a nice saddle horse.

Bound and determined to have chickens and have a coon-proof coop; I set 6 posts today.  My goodness, who made cement so durn heavy?  I feel like my shoulders were going to pull out of their sockets hefting those bags and buckets.  Next will be cement floor on the 4 x 12 coop.   4 x 4 will be for the guienas to separate them from the chickens.  Then 8 x 4 for the chickens.   I have six guiena keets ordered for mid-June and I already have my golden-laced Wyandotte chickens but they have to stay under the brooder for a while yet.

And not last and certainly not least, we almost lost our Dubber to snakebite.  I didn't get a picture of him while he was so swollen but he spent a day at the vet's and had garden hose up both his nostrils.  I'm sure if we had not done that we would have lost him.  Horses cannot breath out their mouths, just their nose.  If it swells shut from snakebite; you lose your horse to asphyxiation.  

Dubber today singing "Nobody Nose the Trouble I've Seen!"  He is feeling much better and his nose is almost down to normal.  Although he is NOT happy about the medication in his oats and refuses to eat them.

And that's the News from Sixty Miles North of Nowhere!  

I am hoping to find the time to sew this spring but it ain't lookin' promisin' is it?