AK Pony Girl's Riding Log

Sheepy Sunday

2011-04-30T23:26:00.002-08:00

Quick Update

2011-04-29T13:59:00.002-08:00

I just hung up with the Medicaid Waiver exceptions person for my mom. Her application was reviewed and she has been approved! The hang up was conflicting information from several different sources in their office. Momma has a trust that all the funds over their "allowable" limit goes into. One person told me I could deposit that amount any time. Because it was such a small amount and I don't go to town every day and the accounts are in two different banks, I usually transferred the money every other month. Now this new guy tells me that was not right. But he can't tell me how much I am supposed to deposit! Her balance after her bills are paid is $138 but the Waiver guy says I have to deposit a minimum of $150 each month BUT......I can take it right back out. Huh? That funds the trust how?

Oh well......hope this guy gets back to me with how I'm supposed to keep $100 in my mom's account and put $150 in the trust with $138. Oh wait......he's a government employee!!!**

**no disrespect to ANYONE who is a government employee who does their job. I know they are out there, just few and far between.

Frazzled Wednesday

2011-04-27T11:42:00.002-08:00

I absolutely hate this time of year. It's not really any one thing, just the combination of everything that really gets to me. this is a period of transition from winter to summer, from no work to overwhelming amounts of work, from mud to grass. This is the time of year all my licenses and insurances come due. And with little work over the winter things are really really tight.

Add to this that my mother's medicaid waiver has been denied due to bureaucratic paperwork. Someone dropped the ball somewhere and I have been wallowing in red tape for the past two months. I'm glad the State of Alaska has a program that will pay for my mother's care over and above the social security and pension funds that she contributes. Financially she makes $150 over what the State allows for the Waiver program. That money goes into a trust that the State will get when she dies. A financial review is done every year. Nothing has changed for the last two years. Yet this year her application was denied. So the house is not being paid. Her supplies and medications have been stopped. Private care for this house is $4,800 per month. My mom's income is a quarter of that.

There's no way that I could give her the quality of care that she receives at the assisted living home. We have "issues" and as much as I love my mom I just can't deal with her. I heard Dr. Laura say once that as caregivers for our parents we don't have to physically do the work ourselves but we must be sure they are being cared for properly. Then we can visit and enjoy the time spent with an elderly parent and not resent the fact that they are taking so much from us. That made sense to me and I found the most wonderful home for my mother. Briar and I visit frequently during the winter and not so frequently during the summer. My mom is on hospice care and has been for over six months. I expect at any moment to get "the call" from the staff. However, my mom continues to defy all the odds. She is now completely bedridden. Both arms and hands are completely contracted due to the many strokes she has had. Her dementia comes and goes. Her ejection fraction is 10% or less and she can't sit up for any length of time. We decided quality over quantity though and pulled all her diabetes meds, don't test her blood and let her eat cake every single day. It makes her happy.

I know that there are lots of people out there with problems worse than mine. (Thinking about and praying for Mrs. Mom and Johnny Reb.) And I'm really glad that I have a place here to vent. Thanks for listening.

Where I Would Rather Be Wednesday

2011-04-19T22:09:00.003-08:00

49 days and 55 pounds

2011-04-13T21:11:00.004-08:00

GOTCHA! You thought it was a weight loss thing, right?! Ha! This is Harold, Briar's market lamb. The top picture was taken at 14 days and the bottom at 49 days. His birth weight was 10 pounds so he has gained45 pounds in 49 days for a rate of gain of just under a pound a day. She hasn't worked with him much since it's been so muddy so he doesn't stack out as nice as the first picture. He is a nice lamb though. Nice topline, excellent bone, good spring of rib. I expect he will make a nice market lamb.

First Trail Ride of The Year

2011-04-03T15:59:00.002-08:00

The snow is still here although it is rapidly melting and running down the driveway. Briar said Mare was depressed so we went for a ride. Instead of hauling to the arena to ride on Sundays we will be headed out on the trails.

Wordless Wednesday - Time Flies

2011-03-29T20:35:00.002-08:00

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-23T12:06:00.002-08:00

Awwwwww...........

2011-03-19T15:38:00.001-08:00

Running of the Reindeer

2011-03-16T10:25:00.002-08:00

Just like the running of the bulls in Barcelona, Anchorage has it's version. People pay good money for the opportunity to sprint down 4th Avenue with several reindeer. It's all part of Fur Rondy - a winter carnival, party, and sled dog racing - held for a week before the ceremonial start of the Iditarod.

Check out this link http://www.adn.com/2011/02/26/1723928/2011-fur-rondy.html for more pictures of this event.

***** The reindeer handler on the far left wearing UGG boots is one of my 4-H kids. Her showmanship project for the State Fair this year is a reindeer.

Update

2011-02-15T14:00:00.003-09:00

The creeping crud that is going around has landed here. We have all been sick and not been doing much except the bare necessities for keeping this place going.

The ewes were due around February 8th and Butterscotch, Loretta, and Greta have been in the lambing jugs since then. I didn't expect any lambs until at least the 10th so we were on Defcon 1 lamb watch (every couple of hours in the daytime). I have been fortunate that my ewes lamb during the day. I read somewhere that if they are fed their grain in the morning they will lamb in the daytime. Works here! Saturday afternoon I could tell Scotch was in labor so I bumped her up to Defcon 2 for the afternoon. Then she quit! We had concert tickets in ANC for Saturday night so I crossed my fingers and told her to wait until Sunday and we went to town. No lambs when we returned.

Sunday morning was beautiful and cold. The warmer (25-30*) temps disappeared and we were back to single digits. Scotch was on Defcon 2 watch (on the hour, every hour) and showing definite signs of labor. We got caught up in some movie and I missed the hour check. I pushed it to the half hour and when I went out to the barn there were two babies, wet but cleaned off and nursing! Briar and I took them in the house for inspection. A boy and a girl, 10 pounds and 11 pounds. I love this momma. She is the oldest and most experienced of my ewes and is a wonderful momma.

Briar and I keep all our ewe lambs as breeding stock since we have a verified scrapie free flock. Our girls are all named according to a theme. The first year we had two ewes. Briar named them for Heart - Ann and Nancy. Next year it was Beatles girls - Lucy, Penny, Rita, and Rigby. This year it will be the Doctor's companions - Pond, Martha, Donna, and Rose (if we have that many). So this one is Pond.

Not much going on with the horses. We have been riding in the arena on Sunday mornings. It has been great to work on stuff that we think about in the summer but don't take the time to do.

We still have 4-6" of snow on the trails and where we haven't plowed. The trails are in really good shape and I know what the footing is like under all that snow. If it would get to above freezing we could go for a trail ride.

I lurk around on lots of blogs and it's good to see that you guys are still hanging in there. Spring will be here soon!

I apologise.....

2011-02-03T00:33:00.002-09:00

for sending all the snow to America. These trees no longer have any snow on them. The snow is melting off the barn roof and has filled two 75 gallon stock tanks. The temperature at 11 pm is 38*. Yesterday Briar wanted to wear shorts and a t-shirt to the store. The horses and dogs are beginning to shed.

We talked about how cool it would be to ship the sleds down and ride in the wonderful snow that everyone else is dealing with. I'd LOVE to get 2 feet of snow in one day.

The marmot didn't see his shadow so I hope we have an early spring. Early for us though will be May. Long after America has flowers blooming in the garden, our ground will still be frozen. Outside plants don't get put out until Memorial Day.

So when you look at the snow you have down there be thankful that it will be gone in a week and remember those of us who live in Tundra Country and will not see green grass for at least 4 more months!

Sometimes I like winter.....

2011-01-17T18:36:00.003-09:00

but not this year. We have plowed twice. Thank goodness for plow contracts that pay monthly. I received an awesome pair of snowshoes for Christmas and have used them twice. The ground is frozen solid and the ice makes it very slippery for the critters. Our water pipes froze - again - this morning and we still don't have water.

On the other hand - the lambs are due starting the beginning of February. The jugs are ready for them and the mommas have all their vaccinations. I need to deworm them this week. My knee is getting better but only about 75%. I'm off most of the pain meds except ibuprophen at night. The wind has stopped blowing but the high temps are below zero and the forecast is for cold temps until the weekend.

Other than that, not much is going on here. January is a slow, quiet month usually. February brings a rush with lambing. State Livestock competition is in March, State Horse is in April, and we hit the ground running in May. There are monthly Poker Rides planned for the summer as well as participation in the Colony Days Parade, Rally Days and Livestock Judging competition. Briar will have her lamb and a goat for market this year as well as working in the Events office at the Alaska State Fair. She has also been invited to travel with my riding buddies to the Fairbanks Alaska CTR - Challenge of the North - in July. The Kenai Peninsula Fair is in August, our fair starts the end of August through Labor Day and then we begin a two month crash course for competition at the Livestock Skill-A-Thon at the North American International Livestock Expo in Louisville the first two weeks of November. Whew! Makes me tired just thinking about all that! I haven't even added in all the work I have to do for my business!

So I am grateful that January is a slow, quiet month. I have a quilt to finish as well as one to start, several books to finish so I can send them to OS, and a couple of other projects to work on. Off now to unload hay and 1800 pounds of barley!

Still here.......

2011-01-10T12:39:00.002-09:00

While all of you in the South are enjoying our "typical" Alaska weather, we are suffering thorough no snow and very cold temps. Last night at feeding time, it was 0.0*F. The digital thermometer can't decide if that is above or below zero and shows it both ways. Anchorage has had ice fog. It leaves beautiful hoarfrost on the trees but it's nasty on the roads. There have been several fatality car accidents due to the horrible driving conditions.

With that, Briar and I loaded the horses and trailered to the indoor on Sunday. We had an okay ride. My knee is still bothering me and I felt very unbalanced. There were 8 horses in this indoor and Voosh took exception to the way Ned (the horse) was loping circles. She got very "excited", crowhopping and snorting. My first instinct is to whoa her down and make her stand still. My riding buddies yelled at me to keep her moving forward and I did! She settled okay and we worked on the leg yielding assignment that we were given a couple of weeks ago. The assignment is to work a 20 meter circle at a trot with her nose tipped in and yielding off my inside leg. Then we are to spiral in and out using leg only. Mostly we can do that but our circles are not round.

Our group has exclusive use of the arena from 10:30 am until noon. I have left as late as 2 pm and no one else has been in the arena. Yesterday though at 12:02, in came a Friesian stallion, 2 mares with their handlers and a foal. The foal was haltered but had no person on the end of his leadrope. It came in and ran around helter skelter. One mare kicked at the stallion and the whole crew, people included, were just not very well mannered. We left at 12:05.

My knee is not as swollen. I can move easily but it sets up overnight and if I sit too long. I am planning on snowshoeing with Wild Horse Annie and her crew on Saturday. The sheep need to be dewormed and vaccinated with CD & T tomorrow. I also need to get hay and a ton of barley. There's lots of other stuff to be done before next month when the ewes start lambing.

Thanks for all the good thoughts.

2011 WAS off to a good start.......

2011-01-04T12:59:00.002-09:00

until the aliens that attacked OS came to Alaska and got me!

The temps here have been unseasonably warm: 40*F. That means that what snow we had melted, then froze as slick, nasty, treacherous ice. I haven't cleaned the horse pen because poop creates traction. I threw sand all over the pathways from the barns to the pens. I missed one spot behind the barn and that's where those aliens pulled my feet out from under me and I smacked the ice really hard with my right knee and shoulder. I laid there for 5 minutes trying not to pass out or throw up. It's been 10 years since I fell on the ice and 4 since I've come off my horse. I have been very lucky.

Once I got to my feet, I hobbled into the house and Briar brought ice for my knee. Soon it was so swollen that I couldn't bend it. Straighten yes, bear weight yes but bend? No way. Ibuprofen and ice helped.

This morning it is still extremely swollen but I am able to gimp around. It is exactly 5 weeks before my ewes start lambing so I have 10 ewes to inject with BoSe. Briar will help hold but I have to do the injections.

I was supposed to ride today, snowshoe on Saturday and ride again on Sunday. Guess I better just cowgirl up.

3rdAnnual First Saturday Event

2011-01-02T14:00:00.007-09:00

The 3rd Annual First Saturday was held on Saturday, January 1, 2011. Wild Horse Annie invited me to attend again this year. This year we had twice as many participants as 2010 and just as much fun. This event involves the mountain and

this bunch of women. I knew half of them and the other half worked with Annie at her telephone company job. Most of us had snowshoed, hiked, climbed, or skiied before. Annie and I are the only horse riders in this group though. I'm on the far left and Annie is the second from the right. She was our leader and trail breaker and I rode drag.

Part way up the mountain she turned to look back at us and burst out laughing. She says we reminded her of the pictures of the train of people going up the Chilkoot Pass during gold rush days.

Once again we timed it just right. As we reached the highest elevation (about 1100') the sun broke through the clouds and gave us what one girl said was "God clouds". I am so blessed to live in this area and have such awesome friends to share this with.

We walked about 2 miles in 4 hours and climbed about 800' in elevation. I received an awesome pair of snowshoes for Christmas. They are MSRs and really aggressive with serrated edges and sharp crampons. Our highest point was at a place we call Aspen. It's one of the P&R stops for the Bald Mountain Butt Buster.

PS - I stole all the pictures from Annie's FaceBook page.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T10:13:00.003-09:00

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, both male and female reindeer grow antlers. Although adult males grow the largest racks, adult females can have some very impressive antlers making it difficult or impossible to distinguish the sex based on antlers alone. Bulls generally shed their antlers in winter between November and December. Pregnant females will retain their antlers until after they have their calves in late April and May.

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

We should've known…...

only women would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

*****************************************************

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/reindeer.asp

http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/santasreindeer.php

Wild Windy Wednesday

2010-12-15T20:33:00.004-09:00

While many of you in the lower 48 are experiencing below normal temps, the Matanuska Susitna Valley is in the throes of a nasty high/low wind battle. We are being battered by hurricane force winds and the temps are in the teens. What snow fell last weekend has all been blown away.

From the National Weather Service: ... Wind and damage reports from the Matanuska Valley...

Strong winds affected much of the Matanuska Valley late yesterday and
today. Damage reports received so far include a semi-trailer truck
blown off the Road near Wasilla Lake... several signs blown down or
torn off buildings in Wasilla... and scattered power outages
throughout the Valley. High winds have also been reported to have
damaged area home roofs and blown covers off airplanes at the Palmer
Airport.

Below are the highest reported wind gusts from this event as of
4:30pm today. With the winds gradually subsiding throughout the
valley tonight... these numbers will likely stand as the highest
recorded winds from the event.

Location wind gust time
-------------------------- ---------- --------
between Wasilla and Palmer 87 mph 6:00am
Palmer Airport 81 mph 10:53am
Wasilla (public report) 78 mph 12:35am
Wasilla Airport 63 mph 4:56am

The trailer above is at our local Walmart. This is a known wind tunnel. When the Walmart was under construction several years ago, a contractor parked a flatbed of rigid board styrofoam insulation in this same spot. The insulation was strapped down but not tarped. As soon as one board broke it created a chain reaction and soon the woods behind the trailer were full of pieces of styrofoam. This is not the first time a trailer has been flipped in this exact same spot.

This tractor trailer was a double with a flatbed trailer behind the van. The flatbed was on it's tires and the company hauled it off quickly. The van and the trailer stayed there all day. Just before this accident there was a full size pickup truck camper upside down on the same side of the road.

Briar and I drove out to the Wasilla airport and found one light plane standing on it's nose. Pilots here are pretty smart though and many of them had parked a truck in front of their plane to disrupt the airflow.

Voosh and the Mare have stayed in their barn all day. Hailey doesn't have a real good wind block but she wears a heavy winter turnout blanket. Unfortunately when she turns her butt to the wind the blanket rucks up around her neck.

The sheepies have hunkered down in the pen. Their wool is at least 4" thick. Not much bothers them.

This wind was supposed to have stopped this afternoon. Now the weather guys are saying *maybe* Friday. I can deal with the cold. This wind though is the pits.

PS - OS: It was the competition, not one of your guys.

Out My Office Window

2010-12-07T12:07:00.008-09:00

It snowed on Saturday and that means I had to go to actual "work" as opposed to sitting in the office. We have a couple of commercial parking lots that have to be plowed when the snow reaches a depth of 2" and before they open in the morning. On Saturday we started plowing at 5 am. The picture above was taken at sunrise - about 10 am. It was my fourth parking lot.

I don't remember where I was for this picture but it is typical of the side roads I have to travel to get to the residential driveways I plow. Sometimes I get the driveways plowed before the State or Borough gets the roads plowed. Then I have to rerun my route and get all the berms out of the way.

This is heading north in Palmer, Alaska. My daughter's guitar teacher is in the building to the right and one of the best Italian restaurants I have eaten at is in the building on the left.

We have really short days here until my favorite day of the year - December 21. This was taken about 11:30 am.

This picture does not do justice to what a beautiful sunset it was. For a phone picture though it's pretty good. Sunset is at 4:00 pm or so. We are down to less than six hours of daylight.

My poor sheep get so confused this time of year. I feed on a 10 am to noon and 10 pm to midnight schedule. They are used to being fed when it gets dark. That's great in the summer but about 4 pm it gets real noisy in the sheep pen. So now I feed the sheep and the horses three times a day - hay morning and night and mash for the horses and more hay for the sheep about 4 pm. In three more weeks the sheep will get grain in the afternoon because they are due to lamb in February.

Hope you enjoyed take my blogger friends to work day!

Something to Share.....

2010-12-06T11:45:00.002-09:00

Winter in Alaska can be dark, depressing and dreary. I have made it a point each winter to get outside and DO something. But when it gets dark (at 4:30 pm) I want to get into my jammies, stoke up the fire, watch tv and munch on whatever goodies I can find. I was determined last winter not to gain the 5 pounds I usually did.

I didn't gain 5....I gained 10!!

My Wranglers were just a little too snug. I had a difficult time getting on my horse, especially on the off side. I rode almost every day this summer, bucked hay, worked with the sheep, and general farm stuff. It didn't make any difference.

I lucked on to http://inthenightlife.wordpress.com/ from several different blogs I follow. What a great source of information and inspiration. Because of my particular lifestyle I was able to incorporate some of the tenents of primal eating. I already did many of the "exercises" as work around the farm.

Long story short - I've dropped 20 pounds. My Wranglers are loose. We rode Sunday and I could step up (both sides!) on my horse easily. And I feel good too!

Feeding Time!

2010-11-30T11:01:00.003-09:00

Snowy Sunday

2010-11-28T22:28:00.005-09:00

Quick Update

2010-11-24T12:46:00.002-09:00

The weather here has been crazy.

First it snowed about 2" on October 23. We frantically got the plow trucks ready to push snow on our commercial parking lots. At 2 am when we left to plow it was all melted. The asphalt was still warm enough to melt the snow.

Then it snowed another 2" the first of November. We plowed the commercials but not the residentials unless they had a paved driveway. I learned the hard way that you DO NOT plow a gravel driveway/parking lot until the third or fourth snowfall. When you drive over the snow and pack it into the gravel, you set a base so that when you drop the plow on the gravel you don't plow the gravel off the driveway and into the lawn. Many hours raking gravel off the grass and back into the driveway taught me that lesson.

Now we are dealing with freezing rain and ice. Monday there was a temperature inversion and the snow that was falling through the warm air turned to rain and then froze when it hit the already icy ground. Schools were cancelled, the bases had only mission critical people at work, and my sanding truck ran 12 hours on Monday and another 12 hours on Tuesday.

I had not cleaned the horse pens so they had some traction. Voosh and the Mare stayed in the barn but silly Hailey stood out in the freezing rain. I had Briar put her blanket on then switched it our for a polar fleece cooler. Hailey stayed dry. The blanket was more for me than for her. She has a shelter but chose not to use it.

I'm sitting in the office with a lot of invoicing to do and procrastinating by catching up on blogs, Facebook and just dinking around. I hate paperwork with a passion and will do almost anything to get out of it. Unfortunately I'm the only one that can do the invoicing and the banking stuff. Since this is my income you'd think that I'd be getting it done sooner than later.

I'm not cooking dinner for tomorrow. My friend's husband works on the Slope and he left today for two weeks. She is an excellent cook and loves all the hoorah. So Briar is off to spend the night with her and they will cook for tomorrow. Fritz and I will just go over when it's ready to eat.

Forecast is for two and poosibly four inches of snow. So it looks like I will be plowing on Friday.

Hope your holiday is peaceful.

Snowy Sunday

2010-11-14T18:26:00.002-09:00

Wordless Wednesday

2010-11-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

Road Trip!

2010-10-21T12:08:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago Briar, Christy, Lyssa and I went on a road trip to Anchor Point, Alaska. There was a horse we were interested in for Briar. His name was Shorty but that didn't deter us from heading out for a 5 hour (each way!) drive on a beautiful day in October.
Briar is 15 now and has her permit so I let her drive part of the way. We were hauling the stock trailer so she didn't drive in any traffic. As you can see we pretty much had the road to ourselves. Above is Turnagain Pass. By December there will be feet and feet of snow and the parking lots will be full of campers and snowmachines on the weekends.
This is Cook Inlet and the range of mountains you can see through the haze is part of the Pacific Rim Ring of Fire. There are several active volcanoes including Mt. Redoubt that erupted in 09 and Mt. Spurr that erupted in 91 or 92.
The wildlife is amazing. We saw about 50 swans on this trip. Many of them were on Potter's Marsh just south of Anchorage. These are in a pond at the junction of the Seward Highway and the Sterling Highway. We have so few major roads in Alaska that they all have names.

Here we are almost back to Anchorage. Briar snapped this picture as we were zooming along so it's kinda blurry and really doesn't do justice to the beautiful sunset.

And this is Shorty. We hauled him back to Wasilla for a week trial period but he really did live up to his name. Briar is about 5'7" so she really needs a taller horse. Shorty was a good horse but just not a fit for Briar.

There's another horse we looked at though. That story will follow soon!

For Funder

2010-10-12T16:05:00.004-08:00

This is the container that we used for Briar's cow, Alice. I have 9 more just like this one and one that I have already modified for the rams.

My plan to to put two cans together with the open ends facing with an alley between them. Then we'll roof that alley way so I can put their feeders under cover. The fiberglass sides will be cut out (leaving the aluminum supports) and the sheep will be able to use the cans as three sided sheds.

The weather in October has been beautiful except for one weekend of 100 mph straight line winds that had many people without power for up to 2 days. We have a generator, wood stove, gas lanterns and a gas cook stove as well as several stock tanks full of water so the power being out didn't affect us. The sky in these pictures is what we have had for the past week. However, the downside is that the high temperatures are in the low 40s and it's been below freezing every night. Termination dust is slowing marching down the mountains and we will have snow on the ground in less than a month.

Where has the time gone?

2010-10-07T17:18:00.002-08:00

We are frantically getting ready for winter. There is so much to be done in a short time. First all the landscaping jobs we have been contracted for must be finished. Then the equipment can come home and begin working on getting the snow plowing stuff ready.

My sweety's plow truck has been stored all summer behind 8 cargo containers from Alaska Airlines. They were not air worthy so the containers were going to be crushed. They will make perfect sheep houses so I drug 11 of them home. To get his plow truck out from behind them we have to clean up where the chickens were and build a gravel platform for the feed shed to be moved so we can clean that area and move 2 containers to make a shelter for Briar's cow Alice. The 2 sheep pens need to be cleaned and platforms made for 4 containers to be moved for sheep shelters. The other 2 containers will be spotted in the yard as storage for my big Ferris mowers. All that work to get his plow truck out and ready for winter work.

The winter horse pen will be built as soon as the ground freezes. Then the horses will come to the upper lot for the winter. I must say that I really enjoy having the horses 27 feet from my front door. It makes feeding at 40 below much easier.

"They" say there are three seasons in Alaska: winter, getting ready for winter, and road construction.

Lots more going on. More posts to come with pictures!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-09-15T10:52:00.002-08:00

Back in the Saddle Again!

2010-09-09T11:14:00.005-08:00

Whew!! The Alaska State Fair is finally over. While it was not without it's share of drama and awful weather this year's fair was worth attending. I took my 4 month old lambs for the open shows and the 4-H shows. Pepper (the ram) took first in his class, Rigby (the ewe) took first in her classes, Floyd (the wether) took first in his open class and Best in Division. The three lambs were also shown in Get of Sire and received first place. I got second in sheep showmanship.

In the 4-H shows Floyd and Briar took 4th in the market class. Briar was second in sheep showmanship. She also showed the 2 wethers and a ewe in the get of Sire class and won first. She was allowed to show Pepper in 4-H because he is under 6 months. He took first in his class as did Rigby in the ewe lamb class.
This is the Get of Sire entry. Floyd is on the left, Wolly is in the middle and Supreme is on the right. They are all the same age but Wolly's dam and Supreme's dam are crossbred Suffolks and much taller than the registered Suffolks I have.

In the market lamb class Wolly was Reserve and Supreme was Grand. The young man showing Supreme chose to market his turkey instead of the ewe lamb. She's coming over to be bred this month.

Now that the Fair is finally over I can get back to "normal" life. I haven't ridden since the middle of August but have a ride planned this weekend if the weather cooperates. We had no summer to speak of this year and I'm afraid that we will go directly to winter. The days are much shorter and I'm putting on a heavier jacket to do chores in the morning. No ice in the stock tanks yet.

Hopefully I will be back to posting more often. Thanks to everyone who checked in while I was gone.

Rain Rain Go Away

2010-08-05T11:37:00.002-08:00

Sorry I haven't been around but we are in the process of building an ark. July 2010 was the seventh wettest July since records have been kept in Anchorage. My horse "dry" lot is a muddy, mucky, nasty mess. Over half of the first cut hay is still standing. The poor sheep are almost to the point of shrinking.

We've been riding - in the rain - and even had a poker ride last weekend. Everything was wet but the rain stopped for several hours during the ride. This ride even had drama. We had two riders go through red "do not go here" flagging and ended up way off the trail. Both are good riders but really unfamiliar with our trail system. They finally retraced their steps and returned to the river. The drag riders (me) had come through and pulled the directional arrows so the two lost riders had to figure out how to cross the river. I didn't pull any flagging though so they were able to figure it out and get back to camp.

The next six weeks are full of things to do. The Kenny Lake Fair, then a Poker Ride close to the Matanuska Glacier, our Alaska State Fair in Palmer and finally PENDLETON! I haven't booked my flights yet but plans are for Briar and I to attend the 100th Anniversary RoundUp with my Unlce Chan. I'm so excited!

On another note: Wild Horse Annie had a really bad trailering accident with her TWH gelding. He has a dropped hip and will require stall rest until October 15. The vets say that if he makes it until then he should be 100% healthy and useable. Please keep them both in your thoughts.

I'll get pictures of the ark as we work on it. August doesn't look any drier than July.

Bald Mountain Butt Buster 2010

2010-07-19T18:14:00.002-08:00

I should have lots of pictures and plenty of stories for this post after the CTR I have been working towards since the first of the year. But you know what they say about the best laid plans........

July 10 and 11 I rode the dress rehersal and final timing for the CTR. Vooshka was great - 21 miles on Saturday and 19 miles on Sunday. She rode with horses she hadn't ridden with before and even stayed with me when the horse we were riding with decided to leave his rider at the P&R and head down the mountain. Voosh and I were left at 1200' by ourselves and had to ride down a gnarly deep brush trail in bear country. The absent horse and rider were reunited and finished the ride with us.

At the very end of the ride Voosh came up lame on her right front. We walked home and I didn't plan on riding her until Saturday the 17th. We were supposed to be drag safety rider for the Novice/CP division.

Saturday dawned clear and bright. I was at ride camp by 7:30 am and had Voosh saddled by 8:00 for an 8:30 departure. My trailer was parked right by the timer's tent so there were 50 horses and riders gathered in the presentation area beside us. Long story short, Voosh lost her mind with all the activity and energy level. She did the best impression of "airs above the ground" that I have ever seen. Thank goodness there was someone to take my place as safety rider because there was no way I was getting on that horse.

I actually did ride her later because she couldn't get away with that nonsense. I rode the Mare after lunch for the PM trail.

The rest of the weekend I was camp go-fer. I used the wheeler to set signs and mark trails. I got all the ribbons and prizes organized. I picked up trash. I helped enter data into excel spreadsheets. I brought the judges their dinner (smoked prime rib, baked potato, green beans and corn on the cob, chocolate cake).

Although it wasn't the CTR I imagined, I still got to participate in some way. And I will get to ride more because all the flagging has to be taken down!

Riding in Alaska

2010-07-08T12:38:00.003-08:00

So we have this competitive trail ride on July 16, 17 and 18. This past week we have been flagging the trails with bright surveyor's tape in four different colors so that the riders can follow their designated trails. Our Trail Master is super organized and has color coded maps for us to follow. On Monday evening our group of four set out to mark Saturday afternoon's ride. All went well until I couldn't find the field marked "Clover" on the map. So we didn't mark that and continued to the P&R location. The Open ride went one way and the CP/Novice went the other so Christy and I took the novice flagging while the other two riders did Open.

This ride is on trails we only ride on every other year. I don't know all the specific trails and there were times Christy and I backtracked taking down flagging, then re-flagging correctly. We finally met up with the other crew who had the same problem on their Open trails. It was getting late so I said that Briar and I would finish the flagging on Tuesday.

Tuesday was rather hectic and we didn't get on the trail until almost 8 pm. We got to where I thought "Clover" was but the field was full of an excellent stand of timothy hay - not a clover in sight! Thank goodness for cell phones. When I called out Trail Master she said I was in the right place, that the field was full of clover 20 years ago when they named the field. It's a 2/3 mile trot around the field into the P&R. So we trotted!

Then I second guessed myself and unflagged to reflag. I KNOW better than that. So I had to unflag the reflag and put all the flags back. ARRRGHHHH. By this time Briar was tired, my horse was tired and the poor Mare (who is not in shape at all) was tired. We got all the flagging completed and will do a dress rehersal this weekend to see how well we did.

Our at the most two hour ride became a four hour ride. We got home at midnight.

Here's Briar and the Mare. I took this picture with my phone so this is really what it looked like - no flash or artificial light, Can you guess what time it is? 11:30 PM!!! Now do you see why I am so tired in the summer? When it is daylight until midnight or later your perception of what time it is is very flawed. Moms in Alaska in the summertime do not tell their kids to come home when the street lights come on.

Wild Horse Annie is STILL mad at the beavers!

2010-06-28T15:54:00.003-08:00

It's worse......much worse. The beavers have extended the dam along one of our trails and the flooding is taking out a trail junction that has been our main river crossing for years. Christy decided to take matters into her own hands after our last ride. She pulled out enough of the dam to create an outflow. We knew the beavers would just rebuild it but hoped that with the pressure of all the water it would at least drop the pond level some. Nope....made it worse.

It is three weeks until our Bald Mountain Butt Buster CTR. The trails have been tentatively set and the goal this week is to finish getting accurate mileage. On the weekend of the 10th and 11th we will have a dress rehearsal with the point and drag riders.

I had dentals done on both horses this weekend. What a difference! Now I feel so bad that I didn't have them done sooner. There are only a few vets in our area and only one who has a special interest in dental work. He is recovering from shoulder surgery and has been unwilling to do dentals. So this week he brought in a woman who has 13 years experience. I've been waiting for a spot in one of her clinics for two years. She was very patient in answering all my questions and letting me put my hands in the horses' mouths to feel just what was going on. I must have the best horses in the world because even with points, hooks and prows of ships in their mouths they have been willing to do anything I have asked. Can't wait to see how they act now!

The theme song this week has been Rain, rain go away. Typical gray, rainy Alaska week. Farmers are doing the no rain dance because it is time for first cut and there hasn't been 5 days in a row with no rain. I'm down to my last seven bales of hay. I do not want to buy outside hay but may be forced to.

100!

2010-06-23T12:47:00.002-08:00

I have been anticipating this 100th post since it seems to be a milestone for so many bloggers. However I couldn't think of a subject "worthy" of my 100th post. And it seems as though there is much sadness in the lives of several of the bloggers I follow.

So I thought I'd just post a picture and tell everyone who reads about my adventures in Alaska how cool it is that people who don't know me read about the things I do. If you want, post a comment and tell me how reading about my life in the last frontier has changed your perception of Alaska. Can't promise a prize but you never know!!

My Least Favorite Day of The Year

2010-06-21T08:43:00.008-08:00

This is typical of this summer - black clouds and sprinkly rain. Our ride in celebration of my least favorite day of the year started out this way. The group dithered about riding on the mountain. We've had three days of good soaking rain. It's great for the hay crops but bad for the footing on the mountain trails. Our CTR is in 30 days though so we needed to be sure the trails were clearly marked for riding.

We increased the parking at my under construction shop and lost my arena in the process. However, we can park more rigs there now and since ride camp is 660 yards from here it makes a good starting point.

There were seven of us riding Sunday - two young horses, four seasoned trail horses and one I had not ridden with before. I'll tell you right now I'm picky about who I ride with. My mare is a great judge of character and lets me know her opinion.

The trailboss for the CTR had bushwhacked a new river crossing so the first thing we did was cut moose browse and saplings to create a trail. Then we hauled a log out of the river to make the crossing easier for the Novice horses.

Then we headed up the mountain. At the cabin the younger horse's riders opted for a shorter ride and turned left to run up the Aspen trail. Our group of five then turned right and went out East Baldy.

I've been trying to figure a way to post the map of our trails. Even google earth doesn't show them and I'd really like you to be able to see the scope of where we ride. I'll get it figured out soon.

Our day cleared off to be sunny and nice. The trails were rather slippery and Voosh had trouble negotiating some of the hills. She almost fell a couple of times but managed to scramble her way up. It was good for her though. At the top of the picture above you can see a shiny strip - that's Knik Inlet. The little white dot in the middle is Poka. That's with no zoom.

That's zoomed. I had the GPS with me and forgot to check elevations at this point. Christy and Lyssa are on a trail called Mary and we are checking out the loop called Secret. This time it WAS a secret as we got lost a couple of times bushwacking through ferns that were wither high to the horses. Did I need to remind you that this is bear country?

We rode to the end of our mountain trail system, joined Christy and Lyssa and headed back down the mountain.

The whole ride was 14.8 miles with a moving time of 5 hours and 15 minutes, average 2.8 mph. It was a little slower than our normal 3.0 due to the footing on the mountain.

Oh yeah....the title of my post? It's Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Sunrise at 4:21 am, sunset at 11:42 pm, and dusk inbetween. Ninteen hours of daylight! Wait! The downside? The days get shorter, starting tonight, until my favorite day of the year Winter Solstice when there's only 4 hours of daylight but the daylight hours start to increase!!

What A Difference......

2010-06-16T17:41:00.007-08:00

Remember this? It's the view down my driveway in December. I posted it in the blog about watering the horses.

This is the after! Check out the time stamp. One minute after 11 PM! If it wasn't so cloudy right now it would be this light an hour later. The sun actually doesn't set in the same place each season. In the winter picture you can see the sun is shining from the south. In May the sun actually sets behind those mountains.

*****************************************************
I've been remiss in posting. It's not that there has been nothing to post about - I have been so busy with riding, Rally Days and the Colony Days Parade not to mention that I have three crews working now.

Colony Days celebrates the time when people moved to Alaska at the request of the government during the Dust Bowl time. It was 75 years ago that the colonists first came to Palmer. Colony Days is a three day celebration with a big farmer's market, a farm family of the year, bed races, rail hand cart races and lots of other things including a parade. This year there were 91 parade entries. Our 4-H club (Winner's Circle) decided that we wanted to participate. So I hauled the 24' flatbed trailer to Palmer and we decorated it. Then all the petting zoo animals rode on the float and the alpaca, donkey and horse walked behind it. The kids had a blast and they all want to do it again next year. Our position in the parade? 90. We were next to the last. But we staged close to the beginning of the parade and were able to see the entire thing!

*************************************************************************

I was hoping that I would be able to post about a Guiness World Record attempt for the ACTHA ride. Unfortunately the person putting on the ride in Alaska bailed so there was no official ride here. We rode though and scored ourselves on the ride. Another 10 mile ride on mostly the same trail but counterclockwise on the loop instead of clockwise.

The weather here has been cloudy, rainy and COLD! We had fresh snow on the mountains yesterday morning.

Now I need to do some work in the office so I can go play some more.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-09T14:07:00.000-08:00

Lions and Tigers and.....

2010-06-04T20:53:00.003-08:00

Picture isn't that good since I swiped it off my friend's Facebook page. Bear couldn't decide if it wanted sheep, goat, horse or ..... when my friend's husband shot it. Her middle child was standing right where this bear was about 5 minutes before.

Mikey, want to swap bears for snakes?

Details

2010-06-01T08:50:00.006-08:00

are about all I see on our rides since I ride drag.

From my APHA log for Ride America:

May 21 - 1 hour (by myself, a huge accomplishment for me)
May 23 - 2 hours with my husband
May 26 - 1.5 hours with Briar
May 28 - 3.5 hours with friends bushwacking new trails because of beavers
May 30 - 4.5 hours with friends
May 31 - 5.5 hours with friends on the mountain!

On the Memorial Day ride I remembered the GPS. These details are for Funder. I didn't mark waypoints, just the whole ride all together.

10.8 miles, 3 hours 38 minutes moving time, 3.0 average speed, elevation change from 516' to 1008' in about 3 miles

I saddled Vooshka at 10:30 and left my place at 10:45 am to meet up with my friends Nancy and Katie. I rode to the river just upstream from the beaver dam where we bushwacked a new trail to get around those pesky beavers. Nancy and Katie weren't there yet so I dismounted, undid one end of the reins and let Voosh drink. Silly horse stepped on her reins and busted her headstall. Because I carry a lot of stuff in my trail bags, I was able to fashion a repair and continue my ride.

This is the view up the mountain from where we had lunch. My friend Wild Horse Annie's dad lives here.

Headed back down the mountain.

Just after crossing the Little Susitna River. Can you believe tank tops on Memorial Day in Alaska?

Check out the background in the picture above. That water to the right of Nancy just past the spit is the beaver dam. It is so bad now we may lose that river crossing. Six adult beavers were trapped this winter but I don't think we made any progress in getting rid of them.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a wonderful summer of riding. I'll keep you posted.

Can you tell what I've been doing?

2010-05-31T17:26:00.002-08:00

Details to follow but we've had glorius riding weather!!!

Oops......

2010-05-17T10:06:00.002-08:00

I missed the start date of this blog. I knew that it was sometime in May but couldn't remember. Got something planned but will have to wait for a bit. Maybe combined with the 100th post thing.

So much has happened this year. I'm glad I started this blog because it gives me a perspective on what happened last year. That's exactly why I started this! Nice when a plan actually works.

A Sad Ending

2010-05-15T13:18:00.002-08:00

We euthanized Dusty yesterday. After 120 days there was no real change in her attitude and I couldn't trust her. She had extremely painful heat cycles and seemed to have a rotten attitude during that time. The final straw was when she went after my 14 year old daughter totally unprovoked.

When I was younger I thought I could save everything. As I got older I got wiser - in some things. I learned that I can't save them all. I'm sad that she didn't work out but relieved that no one got hurt while we were trying.

Lazy Stars 4-H Hippology Team

2010-05-01T19:04:00.002-08:00

From left to right - Jacob, Paige, Jenna, Allison, Briar and Annelyssa

State 4-H Horse Competition results

2010-04-29T12:01:00.003-08:00

Sorry that this has taken so long. I have been waiting on pictures but decided that I needed to post these results with the pictures I had.

On April 16 and 17, 2010 our Lazy Stars 4-H Hippology Team traveled to Juneau, Alaska for the State 4-H Horse competition. There were three competitions: Quiz Bowl, Presentations and Horse Judging. Each member of the team had to participate in two events. Three of them participated in all three.

The team has been together for three years now. Some of them are competitive by nature and most of them are not. However, they all want to go to a national competition and are willing to work learning all the stuff you have to know. One of the books they learn from is a three inch thick Horse Industry Handbook.

Horse judging was on Friday. There were four quality (or halter) classes and two performance classes. The kids had to place each class and give reasons on one quality and one performance class.

Presentations and Quiz Bowl were on Saturday. There were five teams in the double elimination quiz bowl. Our captain pulled a bye for the first round. The Lazy Stars did great.

Team Judging:

3rd Place - Lazy Stars Team #2 (Paige Martin, Annelyssa Massie, Briar Thurmond)

4th Place - Lazy Stars Team #1 (Jacob Kern, Jenna Kern, Allison Wandell)

Individual Judging:

Overall Horse Judging Champion - Paige Martin

High Performance Class Judging - Allison Wandell

Intermediate Level:

1^st Place - Paige Martin

3rd Place - Annelyssa Massie

4th Place - Allison Wandell

Illustrated Talk/Demonstrations:

Team: Juniors:

1^st place - Jenna Kern & Allison Wandell

Individual:Juniors:

1^st Place - Paige Martin

Seniors:

1^st place- Briar Thurmond

Horse Bowl:

Team Awards:

2nd Place - Lazy Stars (Paige Martin, Allison Wandell, Jacob Kern, Jenna Kern, Annelyssa Massie)

Individual Awards:

2nd Place - Paige Martin

As with any group activity (especially one with teen girls) there has been some drama that may break this team up. They have been under a lot of pressure from each other since October of last year when we first started studying for this competition. I'm burned out too from weekly and twice a week study sessions when some of the kids don't want to study but to socialize. I not sure if I want to spend the time, effort and energy to take them to Nationals if they are not going to be competitive. The plan is now to take the summer off and just ride. We'll meet in October for a decision on next year.

Wordless Wednesday - early!

2010-04-20T21:35:00.001-08:00

ARRRRGH...........

2010-04-14T21:17:00.002-08:00

I feel like Charlie Brown - everything is conspiring against me!!!

Between computer crashes and extremely slow internet, I have been unable to post about last Friday's ride and I even had a picture. Now that I have a decent internet connection I have no time!

We (the Lazy Stars 4-H Hippology Team) leave Thursday morning for state competition in Juneau. I guess that the kids are ready. I have been holding weekly study sessions since October. I have two kids who are not interested in competition. They just want to hang out with their friends. I have three kids who are interested and knowledgeable and one who is the driving force behind wanting to have a competitive team. I think she's going to be disappointed. Last year one of my teams came in fourth out of fourteen. She was the captain of that team and upset that they didn't try harder and finish better.

If I can find internet in Juneau I'll post results Friday night for horse judging and Saturday for quiz bowl and presentations.

Our ride on Friday was great. Voosh almost dumped me when she spooked at the sun shining on the snow. Thank goodness my saddle has 16" swells and I can brace my knees against them like a seat belt.

Lyssa rode Dusty again and both of them did really well. They have made a lot of progress in a short time. We'll see how it goes next week.

When we got back to the barn, Lyssa untacked Dusty and put her in the paddock. Dusty's paddock is 10 feet wide and about 40 feet long. There's a freezer for grain storage beside it. Dusty laid down and rolled in a space 10' x 12'. She got cast. The good thing is....she didn't panic. Lyssa was outside the pen and caught Dusty's front feet. Her hindquarters and rear feet were against the freezer just past vertical. She was stuck. I grabbed a leadrope and got in the pen. I looped her bottom rear foot and pulled hard. Lyssa guided her front feet and Dusty rolled right back over. She stomped my feet pretty good when she scrambled up but not on purpose. So that is another plus on her score sheet.

This morning (Wednesday) we woke up to 4" of snow. It has snowed all day and we now have about 6" of the nasty fluffy white stuff. Yuck!! Can't plow it because the ground is thawed. At least the temps are in the 40*s during the day so it should be gone soon.

If all of that isn't enough............two ewes haven't lambed yet. All indications are that they will probably lamb while I am gone. Usually I have at least two backups. Of course, with the way things are going, my vet is out of state, my first back up is in Juneau with me, my second back up is in Florida at a conference and my third back up is at the hospital with her husband doing chemo. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they lamb tonight or wait until I get back.

So goes life in Alaska. I guess it could be worse. I could be living somewhere where there are too many people!!

Another Friday, Another Ride

2010-04-02T19:55:00.002-08:00

I picked Lyssa up from school and we went trail riding again today. The temps were in the 40s and the sky was mostly cloudy. The snow on the trails was more rotten this week than last and Voosh had trouble walking in it. She would put her hoof on the snow and as she stepped forward, the snow would give way and she would fall about six inches or so. It wasn't enough to be dangerous, just enough to be really annoying. She got frustrated several times but never got ugly about it.

Lyssa rode the Mare for the first part of the loop. It takes about and hour to an hour and a half to complete the loop.

Just like last week, our plan was to ride the loop with the Mare and Vooshka then go back and get Dusty for the second part of the ride. This time though I was going to ride the Mare and pony Dusty while Lyssa rode her. I love the Mare! She is so solid and nothing bothers her. Dusty was rubbing her head on Mare's hindquarters and all Mare did was pin her ears and glare at Dusty.

Dusty never did relax on this ride. She didn't do anything wrong exactly but you could tell that she just wasn't comfortable with something. I did notice that she's in squat, pee and wink heat. She's been on Breeder Pak since she's been living with me.

With this ride today, I'm hoping that she will settle down and relax on the trail. Only time will tell.

First Trail Ride of the Year and A Dusty Update

2010-03-29T12:02:00.004-08:00

On Fridays I usually get Lyssa from school and we haul to the arena to ride. Last Friday was so beautiful that I convinced her we needed to go for a trail ride.

Lyssa rode the Mare since we are not confident enough to let her ride Dusty. We had a plan though. First we would ride Voosh and the Mare around to break trail and see how our horses would be on the first trail ride of the year. The snow was belly deep on Voosh on the trails in the woods. You can see that on the snowmachine/snowshow trails it's only about fetlock deep on the Mare. We took a mile long loop that took us about an hour to complete. We had to stop several times to rest from trailbreaking. I forgot where the ditches were and got Voosh into an area of snow that was midchest high. She panicked for just a minute but worked her way through it.

When we got back to the house, Lyssa worked Dusty on the ground for a while just to get her attention. Then Lyssa got back on the Mare and ponied Dusty in the pen for several minutes while I explored our options for leaving the house. I led Voosh down the driveway. It had been plowed and sanded all winter so there was gravel in the center but glaze ice on the edges. Voosh wouldn't stay in the middle and almost fell several times as she scrambled to maintain her footing on ice. She never did go down.

So the option of going down the driveway was out. We opted to retrace our trail from earlier.

As you can see, the two horses got along well and Dusty ponied like she had done this before. We rode for another half hour. An added benefit of riding in the snow was that the horses' feet and legs got really clean. It was nice to see Dusty's white socks gleam.

The days are getting longer and with DST it's light until at least 8 pm. I can't wait until we can ride in the evenings.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-03-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

I Missed Wordless Wednesday........

2010-03-18T23:01:00.002-08:00

Oregon Sunshine - This One's For You!

2010-03-11T23:03:00.003-09:00

My Saanan/Alpine crossbred goat named Toonie (actually Petunia since her mom is Clover) was bred to my registered Alpine buck Mr. Ritter. She was due to have her babies about the same time as the sheep since goats are easier to milk than sheep if I had a bummer lamb. The sheep all lambed with no problems. (I pulled Loretta's twins but only because I can't stand to watch little feet go in and out more than five times.)

Anyway, last Wednesday went I went out to feed I found two solid white bucklings in the pen with Toonie. They were dry and their mouths were warm which meant that they had nursed. They were up on their feet and bouncing around.

Moral of the story - they CAN do it on their own. Don't worry so much. And if you need help, you have my numbers. Call me.

Unfortunately, these are bucklings and of no use to me. When they were 24 hours old I put them on craigslist. Buy one get one free $50. They went to a good goat home where one will remain a buck and the other will be wethered.

Not So Wordless Wednesday

2010-03-10T23:29:00.002-09:00

Things have been rather hectic here for the past week. It snowed twice - 6" last weekend then a foot yesterday (I think). When it snows and I plow. my days and nights get so turned around it's not funny. On top of that my daughter is in Youth Court training every afternoon and my sweety and I had to go to a pesticide certification class Tuesday and Wednesday. And the goat kidded last week so I am now milking twice a day.

We did ride last Friday. Dusty did well under saddle but we have found that she is terrified of trucks, cars and skid steers. Just something new to work on. She's smart though. Lyssa wanted to work her over some ground poles in the arena. So she pulled out some white poles and proceeded to walk Dusty over the poles. Counterclockwise was perfect - stepped over the poles with no hesitation and no ticks. Clockwise - spook and back up. I don't like horses that back up because I'm concerned that if they don't get the release they are seeking from backing they will go up. Lyssa worked and I watched. Over and over with the same result. Voosh walked both directions and Dusty finally followed her over the pole. Turns out it was her SHADOW!

It's almost midnight and I'm running on about 4 hours sleep since Sunday morning. But I wanted to post my Not So Wordless Wednesday while it still was Wednesday!

Going For A Walk - A Story in Pictures

2010-03-03T13:33:00.005-09:00

Dusty

2010-02-24T15:20:00.002-09:00

A quick update on Dusty: while there have been times of disrespectful behaviour, Dusty has not once offered to bite or kick a person. She fence fights with the Mare and Vooshka but that is ok. We have hauled to the arena twice. Lyssa rode bareback with a rope halter both times. It's obvious that Dusty had been trained by a knowledgeable person. She will move off pressure and has the basics of collection. We still get some testing, especially if she doen't particularly want to do something. The only thing we have found is that she has to be pushed hard to lope on the line. Because of that Lyssa has only trotted while riding. She says the mare is smooth and responsive. Next step is to get the chiro out to see if her loping problem comes from pain or obstinance.

On another note - lambing has begun. So far the count is even, 1 of each sex. They are singles though so already I am going to have to disappoint some 4-H kids who were hoping for market lambs this year.

Watering the Horses - A Story in Pictures

2010-02-15T15:43:00.009-09:00

The View From My Office Window

2010-02-11T14:17:00.000-09:00

Meet Dusty

2010-02-05T12:57:00.005-09:00

About a month ago, I picked up this nice little Appy mare off Craigslist. She comes with a story. Don't we all?

I pick up odd jobs throughout the year to help pay for my critter habit. I have all sorts of trucks, trailers and equipment so there are lots of things I can do. One of the most steady jobs is moving hay. There was a post on Craigslist: Wanted - someone to move about 200 bales of hay and restack in barn. So I rounded up some 4-H kids and off we went to move hay. When we got to the barn we were told not to go near the pen the Appy was in because she was a known biter. I saw the 4 day old bruise on the owner's back and kept my distance from the horse.

The owner told me that she didn't know what she was going to do with the horse. She felt the horse was dangerous because the bite on her back was unprovoked. I mentioned that if the horse was that dangerous maybe she should be euthanized. The owner said she had considered it. Several people had come out to look at the horse but they were all put off by her attitude.

A couple of weeks passed and I had a message on the answer machine. "Do you know a musher who wants some dog food?" Turns out the mare had gone through a hot electric fence to attack a nine year old girl. The attack was allegedly unprovoked. I say allegedly because I wasn't there. I made some phone calls but none of my musher friends were in town or able to deal with the horse. I called the owner back and told her what was going on. She said she had someone coming out to get the horse.

About a month later I saw the horse back on Craigslist for $700 or best offer. This time I couldn't not do something. My friend Christy and I went over and looked at the horse. This time we messed with her and pushed her around some. Although the horse pinned her ears and acted pissy, there was something about her eyes and the way she held her lips. Two days later I traded a saddle and a dollar for this horse - registration papers and all. We loaded the horse up and brought her to my house.

We changed her name from Destiny to Dusty. She's a completely different horse. I can brush her, blanket her, pick up all four feet. She leads and loads. She moves off pressure. A wave of the hand pushes her off the hay. Today we hauled to the indoor where it was 40* in the barn (which was 20* warmer than outside). My friend's daughter rode Dusty bareback with a halter and lead rope.

Some stories have a good ending. I'm really pleased that this one is heading that direction.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-02-03T13:09:00.002-09:00

Pioneer Peak from the Parks Highway in Wasilla. See that big white patch on the right side? That's a landslide caused by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake.

Alaska Car Wash

2010-01-27T18:18:00.000-09:00

Congratulations to The Waffle Stompers

2010-01-21T21:53:00.002-09:00

"Four Fairbanks, Alaska high school students are riding high after winning first place in 4-H Western Roundup Horse Bowl in Denver, Colo. The intense national competition tested equestrian knowledge in a “Jeopardy” style format. The girls are Molly Callahan, Elly Blake, Hanna Sfraga and Kira Freeman, all members of the Starlight Flyers 4-H club. The girls competed at nationals after winning the Alaska competition. They answered questions ranging from veterinary care and anatomy to horsemanship. Way to go girls!"

Not my Hippology Team but we've competed against these girls for two years. What a great job to go from Alaska to national competition at the Western RoundUp and win!

Pictures

2010-01-21T14:11:00.003-09:00

My daughter got to spend a couple of days with her friend at their cabin. It's a snowmachine ride in from the road system. She took these pictures on her phone camera.

The cabin - a typical recreational cabin in Alaska. It has a loft for sleeping with living room and kitchen below. It's heated with a woodstove but has a generator for electricity. The girls got to watch movies and the mom of my daughter's friend even gets to quilt on the machine!

The mountain is called Anthracite Ridge and is located about just above Weiner Lake off the Glenn Highway at about mile 100.

Not much is going on here. Except I got a new horse. I traded a saddle and a dollar for a registered Appaloosa mare. She had some issues with her owner but seems to be ok here. If the weather holds Friday I'm going to haul her and Voosh to the indoor.

Even though I haven't posted I've been following along on lots of blogs. Mugwump's latest post made my head hurt from thinking too much, Mikey makes me laugh, TBFriends has me being amazed at the generosity of horse people. Everyone's pictures are soooooo much better than mine that it almost makes me not want to post pictures. Love all the images from around the world. And we won't even talk about the food blogs. I read them before I read Cowboys Love Fat Calves.

Weather Report - High Wind Warning

2010-01-11T16:01:00.003-09:00

Statement as of 3:51 PM AKST on January 11, 2010

The High Wind Warning is now in effect until midnight AKST
tonight.

A cold airmass over the southern Alaska interior coupled with an
area of low pressure over the Gulf of Alaska is producing a
strong pressure gradient across the Matanuska Valley. Northeast
winds of 40 to 55 mph with gusts to 70 to 80 mph will continue
through the evening hours. The gradient will weaken later tonight
helping winds to subside.

*****

The wind has been blowing since last night and causing all sorts of damage. Power is out in many places due to trees falling on the lines and debris taking out other lines. Luckily our power only went out for a bit at 1 am. My sweety was watching a movie though and really wanted to see the end so we drug out the generator and the extension cords. Just before he pulled the cord to start it the power came back on.

These high winds create hard packed snow drifts in any bottle neck. So far we have plowed our driveway five times, the neighbor's twice and the drivethru lane at Wendy's constantly. I really wonder about the people who do the site planning for some of these stores. They must not think about the wind and where it blows things. When we put in a driveway in the summer as part of our landscaping business the first question I ask is where are you going to put the snow when you plow? People don't even think of the simplest things.

At least one semi tractor and trailer blew over today. That usually makes the news.

My horses have opted to stay out of the barn. They are standing together with their tails to the wind. The goats are bedded down in their barn. The sheep are bunched up, laying down and chewing their cud. The dogs are sleeping on the couch in the house in front of the wood stove.

I have pictures and video but no time now to post.

Once in A Blue Moon - Finally

2010-01-06T23:11:00.000-09:00

On A Clear Day.....

2010-01-03T19:20:00.004-09:00

you can see the Knik Glacier!

My friend Wild Horse Annie got me interested in snowshoeing last winter. We snowshoed alot in the river bottoms where our horse trails are. She also snowshoed on her mountain behind her dad's cabin. Last year I had conflicts each time she asked me to snowshoe on the mountain. This year she called me on Friday and asked if I wanted to go with her on Saturday. I said Sure!

This is what she posted on her SparkPeople page:

"Today, January 2, the first Saturday in January just like 2009 on the first Saturday of January I am going as high as I can on "my" mountain behind my house. Last year I went by myself and it was -30F that day. This year I am trying to set a trend and an annual event and have at least 4 brave souls who are going with me. We are leaving at first light (about 11:30 this time of year!) The temperature warmed up to 15F but we have about a 15 mph wind to deal with! Not sure how far we will get (certainly not to the top), but its more about getting out and setting a monumentous statement about our commitment to taking care of ourselves throughout the year, camaderie and celebration of our environment and enjoying this great State of Alaska even in its harshest weather."

We had a blast! We left the cabin about 11:20 am, just as the sun was peeking out from the mountains to the east. The temperature was about 10*F and there was no wind. The sky was blue blue blue. I had my GPS and kept track of the time. mileage and elevation.

The first bit was pretty easy for me. I was wearing a good pair of Sojurner snowshoes with cleats and the snow was about 5' deep. Annie was our leader since she knew the way. After we crossed the creek we started to climb. Annie and Kathleen had mountain climbing snowshoes with serrated edges that helped them climb easier in the powdery snow. Margaret and I slipped several times. I had no traction with the smooth aluminum frame of my snowshoes. Next time I will wear my Sherpas with lacing around the frames which should help with the traction. I was dressed correctly (remember what I said about the Michilin Man?) and didn't get cold at all.

Annie took the picture above at my halfway point. That's me in the middle, Kathleen on my right and Margaret on the left. We ate a snack, fed the dogs, drank some water and rearranged our packs. Then we started down. As usual, I ride drag. So everyone else was down the hill and around the shoulder of the ridge when my feet slipped out from under me and I "sledded" through the alders. By the time I got stopped I was in a place where it was easier to go down than up. Then my cell phone rang. It was Annie, Margaret and Kathleen on the next ridge over! I told them I was headed down and would meet them at the cabin. So I hiked down down down to a snowmachine track and headed back to the cabin. The other girls showed up about 30 minutes later.

The final results were that I hiked 2.25 miles in 4 hours with almost equal moving and stopping times and we climbed just over 900 feet in elevation.

If you want to read Annie's version and see where they went after I headed back:
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?
blogid=2687515

Bunny Boots

2009-12-30T23:16:00.002-09:00

On December 21 I posted about my 6th anniversary and how Carhartts and bunny boots were part of my wedding ensemble. These boots are so common here that I took it for granted that everyone would know what I meant. (I know oregonsunshine got a laugh out of it!) So I had my daughter snap a picture of my footwear of choice for Alaska winters.

"U.S. Government cold weather Mickey Mouse boots with valve are made for U.S. government troops in arctic conditions down to -60 degrees. Rubber design keeps the wool insulation dry. White Mickey Mouse boots are great for snowmobiling, ice fishing, or outdoor workers, etc." from the Army Surplus store description

We call them bunny boots. I heard it was because they make your feet look really big like bunny feet. Mickey Mouse works for me too.

I wear Outdoor Research gaiters over my boots because I cannot stand to get my jeans bottoms wet. With the gaiters on I can walk in snow up to my knees and still be comfortable.

When I first moved up here and got into all the outdoor activities I went shopping for boots, gloves, hats and snow pants. Everything I tried on made me look like the Michelin Man. So I bought the Gucci snow resort gear............and froze my butt off. I learned first hand that function trumps pretty any day.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-12-30T00:09:00.000-09:00

Reindeer Facts

2009-12-23T22:58:00.003-09:00

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

We should've known…...

only women would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

*****************************************************

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/reindeer.asp

http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/santasreindeer.php

Wordless Wednesday

2009-12-23T12:20:00.000-09:00

My Favorite Day of The Year

2009-12-21T01:19:00.004-09:00

Finally.......after six months of watching the daylight dwindle down to a mere five hours, Monday December 21 at a little bit after 8 am, it's Winter Solstice!! There will be a 9 second gain of daylight. That's not so dramatic but soon the gain will be measured in 5 minutes. In June just before the Summer Solstice, my least favorite day, the sun will set somewhere around 2 am and will rise around 4 am. There will be no dark just dusk. How cool is that?

The biggest advantage to that is that we can begin a ride at 7 pm, ride for at least 4 hours, and be assured that we will be coming home in the daylight. It does take some getting used to though. Anyone remember Northern Exposure? There was a great episode about this.

The other reason that this is a favorite day is that December 21, 2009 will be our 6th wedding anniversary. We had a stealth wedding and didn't tell anyone except the friend who performed the ceremony. My wedding dress was a ratty old Carhartt jacket and I wore bunny boots and fur mittens. We had a blast.

Random Stuff

2009-12-19T13:42:00.007-09:00

I mentioned to a fellow blogger that the reason I had for starting a blog changed soon after I started the blog. But, like so many other bloggers, I found that I enjoyed writing on my blog and reading others. Now I feel as though these blogs are more like "letters from home". I'm old enough to remember when long distance telephone calls were very expensive and most communication was done by letter. When I was in junior high school I had several penpals and my cousin that I wrote to on a weekly basis. This blogging feels very much like that. Thanks to all of you for reading and commenting on my blog.

*****************************************

After almost 4 days of continuous snowfall, the totals in this area went from2.6 inches in south Anchorage to 63.5 inches in Valdez. I am so glad I don't live in Valdez. Here in my barn lot the totals were about average. My 1 ton dually hadn't been moved since just before this last round of snow.

On the hood is a yard stick:

11 and 1/2 inches of snow

Parked just behind the dually is the flatbed hay trailer and the horse trailer is behind that. Neither one of those have been moved or shoveled since it started to snow in November. We haven't had any days above freezing so the snow total is pretty accurate for the whole winter.

Seventeen and a half inches of snow!

I think I might need to get the snow shoveled off the roof of my trailer. I can't wait until we get the big shop finished so that I can store my trailer inside during the winter. Hopefully I can trailer to the indoor arena after the first of the year.

My favorite day of the year is fast approaching. We will have a bonfire to celebrate.

My animals have been so neglected. My daughter feeds morning and night and checks water. I go out with a flashlight to count noses and check the critters before I go to bed. Until last night I think I got a total of 6 hours of sleep from Sunday morning. Because we have several large parking lots that need to be plowed before the stores open, we generally plow from 3 am to 9 am on the commercials then start the residentials. That's at least another 6 to 8 hours depending on how much snow we have. This past week we plowed four times in 5 days. Some of the residentials only got plowed three times. One place got plowed twice in the same day.

The forecast now is for cold temps so hopefully we won't get another storm like this one for a while. We have plowed in this week half as many times as we plowed all of last season. I heard that in Wahington DC the snow was falling at a rate of 1 inch per hour and the plows couldn't keep up with it. I can so sympathize with you.

Words on Wednesday

2009-12-16T12:04:00.002-09:00

Today
Snow. Snow accumulation 8 to 12 inches. Highs 5 to 15 above. Light winds.

Tonight

Numerous snow showers. Snow accumulation 1 to 4 inches. Lows 5 below to 5 above. Variable wind 10 mph.

Thursday

Numerous snow showers. Snow accumulation up to 2 inches. Highs zero to 10 above. Light winds.

******************
This is on top of the snow that's been falling for the past two days. My sweety is chomping to go snowmachining. All I want to do now is sleep. We've been plowing since Sunday afternoon. I have a church parking lot to do for evening services tonight. Then we'll start all over at 3 am.

Maybe this should be Plowing Log since I'm certainly not getting to ride!

Happy Birthday to my sweety!

2009-12-13T11:34:00.005-09:00

Today is my sweety's 49th birthday. He is a very non-horsey person and this is one of the few pictures I have of him horseback.

This is where he would rather be.

Or here.

Lilly just finished whelping 10 puppies. He thought she deserved Haagen Das.

Happy Birthday, lovey.
Wait till next year!!

Tough Day Today

2009-12-03T16:35:00.004-09:00

One of my long yearling Suffolk ewes died. Her name was Thirty (because I couldn't think of a name and her ear tag number was 8430) and she would have been 2 years old in January. She's the one in the middle. She came home from the Alaska State Fair in September underweight and unthrifty. I worked extra hard with her as far as feeding away from the rest of the flock and hand feeding grain. She was dewormed, had access to a sheep mineral block and finally was completely separated from the flock and kept in a semi-heated box stall. I called the vet in last week when I couldn't think of anything else I could do by myself and Thirty's face started swelling up.

The swelling was caused by edema and is known as bottle jaw. Sheep get it usually because of a parasite overload. The first thing I noticed was a swollen left ear. I thought it was frostbite but when the vet came out she said hematoma. We pulled fluid and it was just edema. Then the space under Thirty's jaw got bigger: more edema and the diagnosis of bottle jaw. We pulled blood and a fecal and sent it off to the lab in Washington. (Another drawback of living in Alaska - no lab.) Meanwhile Thirty is getting weaker. We thought pneumonia so I started a round of antibiotics and probiotics. She didn't get any better. Last night she was lying flat out so I called the vet who said she would come out this morning to give some steroids to see if we could get some of the fluid off Thirty.

I plowed from 2 am until 5:30 am. Thirty was still alive at 5:30 but when I checked on her at 7 she was gone. The vet came out at nine thinking she was just going to do some injections but our plans changed. So she did the things she had planned and came back about 1:30 pm to do a necropsy. Boy did I learn some interesting things. Briar took pictures. No, I didn't post them but they are on my photobucket if anyone is interested.

Bottom line? Thirty died of congestive heart failure. Why? We don't know. Her lymph glands were swollen, there was bruising on the tissue in her throat and heart, and her heart was abnormally formed. There was a lot of fluid in the heart cavity as well as the abdominal cavity. The rumen was working fine. We found no signs of parasites, a blockage, or a foreign body. The bloodwork hasn't come back yet so we're going to ask for another test to determine Vitamin E and selenium levels.

I have a long list of things to eliminate to get to the bottom of this. Meanwhile, I have eight sheep that are fat, happy and hopefully five of them are bred for late February lambs.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-12-02T11:27:00.003-09:00

When I went to bed at 2 am it wasn't snowing. When I woke up there was 3 inches of the white stuff. Off to plow again..........

Let It Snow.........

2009-11-29T22:50:00.003-09:00

Although it took a long time for the snowing to start, it didn't take long for it to resume it's winter cycle: freeze, warm up, snow, plow, freeze, and on and on. When it's really cold (like below zero) there's little chance of snow. When the temps go above 20*F and the weather pattern comes across the Aleutian Islands, it can snow many inches.

Thanksgiving Day was nice with just a dusting of snow to make everything look nice. I have a friend who cooked for us as her husband was working on the Slope and she had no one to share dinner with. We supplied the turkey and the dessert and she cooked everything else. Oh my goodness what an awesome turkey we had. I ate lots of turkey and mashed potatoes.

On the way home it started snowing. First it was just little flakes then they got bigger. When it finally quit snowing there was over a foot of snow in Anchorage and over 100 accidents. Here at my house we had 9" but in Wasilla there was anywhere from 2" to 5". We started plowing when the snow quit. At least this time Fritz was here to do his plow route. Even so we plowed until 2 am Saturday then again until 1 am on Sunday. We have several churches with large parking lots that we plow before services on Sunday. I had two schools and a commercial parking lot to plow today. Tomorrow (Monday) I have to plow three apartment complexes because the tenants don't move their cars for me so I have to wait until they go to work.

I have a sick sheep and the vet was out on Saturday also. Turns out the sheep has bottle jaw and has edema in her left ear and lower jaw. We pulled blood and took a fecal to see what is going on. The vet thinks maybe some pneumonia so I get to do sub q injections for the next few days. The rest of the sheep look good and the vet is pleased.

Saturday night we went to the fireworks show in Palmer. Briar took a good video and I'll see if she can post it for me.

Not much else going on now. This time of year we live by the weather forecast. I'm getting pretty good at reading the radar. I really want to ride.........

What A Difference A Week Makes

2009-11-23T16:02:00.003-09:00

Monday at noon in the shade the temp was 33*F. The forecast is for more of the same this week.

Not much goes on here when the temps are as cold as they have been. Mostly we worry about the everyday things: keeping the water flowing and the fire going.

My office is 100 feet from the house and they are on the same water line. We drip water in the house and office but sometimes the line freezes somewhere between the two. So Fritz has to get the welder hooked up and thaw the pipes. The water is dripped into 5 gallon buckets and hauled to the stock tanks. Pretty labor intensive but at least we have running water.

The wood box on the porch was filled and refilled by wheelbarrow several times during the last week. Yesterday Briar and a friend spent several hours splitting more wood. It's almost impossible to split the amount of wood we need before winter is here. So we have a good stash in the wood shed but more is always needed.

The critters all survived this cold snap. The horses are so fuzzy and fat. I never did blanket them, even at -20*F but the dent in the hay barn is substantial. The little goats will come in the barn next time but the buck and doe will stay where they are. The sheep all have really nice wool coats on and the cold doesn't bother them.

The poor dogs though are real "house" dogs. The puppies crates are by the wood stove so they don't get a real good winter coat. Momma dog sleeps on the waterbed or the couch. They don't go out for very long.

If the weather holds and the wind stops blowing I am going to ride. Now I just need to find someone to ride with me. Any takers?

Wordless Wednesday

2009-11-18T13:47:00.001-09:00

Now THIS is Winter

2009-11-16T14:33:00.006-09:00

Sheep stock tank.
It now has a sheet of foam covering most of the water so that
all that heat doesn't get lost in the air. At these temps ice forms no matter what.

The view down my driveway

The barn.
You can just see the horses in their side of the barn. These pictures were taken just before noon. The sun hardly gets above the trees this time of year.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-11-04T15:50:00.000-09:00

This 'n That

2009-10-31T19:17:00.001-08:00

Today I learned several things:

1. You cannot stretch chain link fence by yourself.

2. A new wood stove is not necessarily a good thing.

3. I love my Stihl chain saw!

4. If you don't gather the eggs soon enough they will freeze.

5. No matter how much you save it is better to get your tickets from the airline and not Orbitz!

Wordless Wednesday

2009-10-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

Doing Chores the Easy Way

2009-10-26T14:33:00.004-08:00

I have been wanting to clear the dead trees and stumps from the horse's winter pen. Finally the stars aligned (the equipment was home as well as my sweety) and the work was begun! First the trees were felled. One needed to be roped off with the MTL but since I was manning the rope I didn't get a picture.

Then the stumps were pulled from the ground. This tree had been dead for several years and was pretty rotten. Also trees in Alaska do not have a deep root system. It's more like a pancake. So the stump came out easily.

Then the stump was picked up and piled on the other stumps ready to be hauled off. I made a bonfire with the tree tops and all the little pieces that were in the pen. The logs will be cut to add to the 11 cords I already have stacked up.

Next step is to stretch chain link fencing on the spruce posts and put wire on the fence panels to create the sheep pens. Off to do that now!

Two Rides and an Update

2009-10-25T15:22:00.005-08:00

Two Sundays ago I got my friend Renee to ride with me. The weather here has been so awesome that it seems a shame to waste it. We rode for 3 hours and by the time we were back to the barn Renee was d-o-n-e. She hasn't been riding in several years though so I guess that's a decent excuse. She rode the Mare who was good as usual. Renee is really height challenged so I had to rack the stirrups up almost as high as they would go. It still wasn't comfortable for her so she mostly rode with her right foot out of the stirrup. All through the ride she was telling me that the saddle was sorta leaning to one side but that it wasn't uncomfortable. Finally about a quarter mile from the barn I really LOOKED at the saddle. Oh my goodness. Poor Mare. The saddle was slipped to the left alot. So I stepped off Voosh and tightened the cinch. Would you believe I pulled almost 6 inches of latigo? Arrrrghhhhh. Mare is such an awesome horse she never complained, never stopped, just kept on plodding along.

I had some trouble with Voosh on the water crossings. There was ice on the surface but the leaves were moving under it. Once she stepped on the ice and broke through she was okay.

On Friday I rode with Christy (Polka), Lyssa (Handy) and Paige (MJ). Yes, we are bundled up because the temperature was about 45 degrees but the wind was blowing. Once we dropped down Dead Horse Hill into the river bottoms we were out of the wind but it was still cold. we rode for about 3 and a half hours. The last mile home was on the road but at least the wind was at our backs.

The beavers have been busy in the week since Wild Horse Annie decided to pull the dam apart. This was taken while we were standing in the river looking upstream. The girls followed me around the beaver dam headed toward the far bank. Because of the beaver damage we have to cross the river, head upstream about a hundred yards then cross back over to continue on the trail. While Lyssa and I were crossing a salmon swam out from the beaver dam, between Voosh's legs then turned and headed back. Good horse didn't even notice it.

Lyssa in the lead and Paige behind crossing back to continue on the trail.

Not much else happened on the ride. The horses each had an "issue" with something along the trail. Voosh decided that she was going to rush the ditches and water crossings. Unfortunately I let her get away with too many and now she needs to be schooled.

We did see wildlife: one salmon, one bald eagle and two moose. That's pretty good for this time of year. I told Christy that all we needed now was a bear. She said that she'd pass on that one. On the trail back we did find an interesting pile of scat. I thought possibly it could be bear but Christy said young moose. Maybe next time......

Wordless Wednesday

2009-10-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

Wild Horse Annie is Mad at the Beavers!

2009-10-16T11:30:00.005-08:00

Wild Horse Annie is my neighbor who lives across the hay field that you see in the picture of the termination dust and the moon over the mountains. Her family owns several hundred acres including the river bottom where the beavers live. Our main trail crosses the beaver pond and can be quite deep at times. On the few days during the summer when it's warm enough the beaver pond is a swimming hole for horses and kids.

The beavers hadn't gone too crazy with tree cutting and building until this year. Now it seems as though they are building a home to go with their dam. They are cutting numerous trees and creating some major destruction. Last week when we rode they even had a tree leaning against the power/telephone lines.

This is a cottonwood tree that they cut about two weeks ago. Now the stump is the only thing remaining. The beavers have stripped the log of bark, cut it into manageable lengths and put it in the beaver pond.

This is the dam they have built. Two days before this picture Annie's husband had taken a large excavator to the pond and ripped out most of the dam. The beavers rebuilt it even better! You can see on the down river side of the dam they have put logs straight out from the dam. We used to have a place to drop into the river just to the left of the dam and we could ride about 10 feet from the dam. Now there's too many places to catch a foot in the logs.

Annie is usually tolerant of the critters but now the beavers are taking down her favorite trees on the side of the river. It's also becoming a hazard if the river floods again as there will be no trees to prevent the river from making a new path. I think she's going to have a cousin come trap the beavers.

Our weather is fantastic: blue skies, upper 50s for temps, no snow! We are planning to ride this weekend and as many days next week as we can.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-10-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

Pictures!

2009-10-12T21:37:00.004-08:00

I finally got all the components (memory card, transfer thing and daughter) all in the same place to get pictures downloaded from my phone!!! I won't slam you all at once with pictures but here's a couple.

The grey paint is my mare Vooshka. My friend Stefanie rode her up and down the powerline hill for me. This is the hill our friend Nancy was coming down when she came off her young horse and was injured pretty badly earlier this year. It's a great training hill and I have ridden Voosh up it several times myself.

The weather is incredible for October. The highs have been in the 60s and the termination dust is almost gone from our mountains. We all know that the snow is coming. We are just taking advantage of this weather and riding alot.

Sunday I rode with my friend Christy. We rode for about 4 hours. Both horses did great. We rode a trail that hasn't been ridden for at least a year. I was told that there were some impassable creek crossings but I figured we could always turn back. The only place we had trouble was where a tree had come down at a real tight ditch crossing. The horses had to drop down into this ditch, bend around between a brush pile and the tree, then clamber up a steep 3-4 foot bench. Voosh was great! She put each foot where I wanted it, bent and moved off my leg around the brush pile and waited until I told her to go up the bank. She gathered herself and took the bank in two big steps. Then she hesitated at the top and walked on. What a great feeling that my horse is actually listening to me!

This picture of my friend Christy was taken earlier this summer. The jumble of sticks behind her is the beaver dam. More on them later.

Global Warming?

2009-10-10T12:55:00.002-08:00

"They" say there are really 4 seasons in Alaska: break-up, construction, winter and getting ready for winter. This year I think we are enjoying a real Fall. The temps are unseasonably warm at 55 degrees. The termination dust I posted the other day has been washed away by several days of rain.

I read several blogs from all over. I was surprised that Horsetrailriders in Nebraska has more snow than we do here! What's up with that? The bloggers in Canada have snow and frozen pipes but that is within reason. Crazy weather!

I am going to take advantage of it though and load my horse up for a ride this afternoon.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-10-07T12:12:00.000-08:00

Short But Worth It

2009-09-28T21:03:00.002-08:00

Briar and I took the horses out for about an hour and a half this evening. We bundled up including hats and gloves. It wasn't too bad until we dropped down to the river. Then it got chilly.

The beavers have been working on their dam. The water in the pond is very high, higher than before. The river is only about 10" deep. I actually saw one of the stinkers tonight. He dove as soon as we rode up so Briar didn't get to see him. I like taking her on rides because nothing ever happens when she is with us. She hasn't seen the bears, moose or porcupines. No one gets bucked off and the horses all behave. She says it's boring but I kinda like it.

Termination Dust

2009-09-27T21:46:00.003-08:00

It's not the best picture but I wanted to share with you that Termination Dust is finally here. Usually we get a dusting of snow on the mountain tops that comes and goes several times between Fair and the time it snows and stays. This year it snowed down to the 2000' level on September 21 and I don't think it's going to leave.

Termination Dust used to mean the end of the summer construction season. Now with the ability to tent and heat, building construction continues throughout the year. Landscaping and road construction are coming to a screeching halt with contractors frantically preparing for the snow that is coming. My company has almost all of it's jobs completed. I have one yard to winterize and two yards to mow for the last time this year.

Then all the equipment comes home and my pens get re-gravelled, the leftover landscaping stuff gets junked, the sheep barn gets walled in and the goat house gets moved to it's new location. YAY! All the fences at the house need to be pulled before it freezes and reset for winter.

My 10 acres is set up for winter and summer livestock use. In the winter, all the animals are at the house. The horses are 27 feet from my front door. It's easier to have everything consolidated when it's 40 below in February and I have to haul water from town for the house and critters. Not to mention feeding at those temps with 4 feet of snow on the ground.

We're still riding. I took a clinic with Hugh McPeck last Sunday. Hugh is a local trainer who has a great way of communicating to his students. My friends have been training with him all summer and this new clinic had a couple of openings. We are working on suppling, collection, and communication. There's another post in that.

This time of year is kinda crazy getting ready for winter. I really want to ride but there's less than 12 hours of daylight. The critters are all confused. They expect to be fed when it gets dark which is at least two hours before they are supposed to be fed. Oh well. Wait until there's only 4 hours of daylight every day!

Wordless Wednesday - Soon we will

2009-09-16T08:58:00.001-08:00

be riding in the snow! No termination dust yet but it's coming soon.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-09-09T10:14:00.003-08:00

Lambs at the Fair

2009-09-03T23:17:00.001-08:00

I had the deck stacked in my favor in the market lamb class yesterday. Of the six lambs entered, four were of my breeding. I had Grand Champion, Reserve Champion and 5th and 6th place. Not too bad for my first lamb crop! I had two more 4-H kids ask to be on my list for next year.

Showmanship was today. While I did not agree with all of the judge's placings, it was a good year for our 4-H showmanship classes.

I have no pictures since I was the ring steward for all the classes. I'm hoping that some of the other parents took pictures and I can get copies. I love being ring steward and working with the judge. I learn so much and can share it with the kids.

The auction is Saturday. I think I'm gonna take Friday off from doing anything at the fair except to feed tomorrow evening. It's Friday and what employees I still have need to be paid.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2009-09-02T00:22:00.004-08:00

What do you think this is? It's the biggest one I have ever seen and the vet put it on his Boone and Crockett list.

A Quick Update

2009-09-02T00:18:00.002-08:00

The lambs were weighed today and 4 of the 5 made weight for the auction on Saturday. Briar's lamb is 110 pounds. Wednesday the market classes start at 3 pm. Can't wait to see how my lambs do.

More Winners!

2009-08-30T22:50:00.003-08:00

At the sheep show on Friday we showed several Suffolk sheep. We won lots of blue ribbons - mostly because we had the only Suffolks entered! However, the judge doesn't have to give you first place just because you are the only one in the ring.

Anne and Nancy were entered in the 2 to under 12 month class. I'm not sure which one was first because they were pen judged. I didn't feel like rodeoing them in the ring. Then we showed 7 and 30 in the 12 month to under 24 month class. 7 was first and 30 was second. John and Rider completed our entry. They were in the market, produce of dam and get of sire classes. Rider beat John in market but they placed 1st in the other classes. Each first earned a premium of $20 and second was $15. I actually made enough to cover my fair admission and parking pass!

I placed second in sheep showmanship mostly because of the fitting.

Tomorrow I am taking the morning off from the Fair so I can do my other job. Then we'll be back at the Fair for the petting zoo. Tuesday the 4-H lambs will be taken to the scales to be weighed then moved from the big pen to their own small pens. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the kids have many competitions and classes. Then on Saturday is the auction.

I love this time of year but it is very hectic. I haven't done anything with the horses except throw them hay and fill the water trough. Maybe some pictures when I can get them downloaded.

A Winner!

2009-08-28T16:22:00.002-08:00

I have one stinky registered Alpine goat buck named Mr. Ritter (registered name is Heavenly Peace Hewa Hewa Ali'l). Today was the American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA) show at the Fair. The girl I bought him from encouraged me to show him so off we went - no bath (bucks stink no matter what) no grooming (bucks don't care and they stink) but I did wash the blood off his face from the scurs I ripped off his head. I have never shown a goat but I've watched while my daughter learned to show goats in 4-H. She's won Grand Champion Goat Showmanship twice.

So any way, we went in the ring for our class and won. Then we went back in the ring for Grand Champion (all the first place bucks). HE WON! That earned the first of three legs to get his permanent championship. We had a good time and, although I won't continue in a big way with the goats, I will finish his championship.

The sheep show tomorrow and I need to get back to the fairgrounds to groom them.

Wordless Wednesday.........almost

2009-08-26T09:48:00.003-08:00

Today is check in day for the Open Livestock shows at the Alaska State Fair. I'm taking 4 ewes, 2 wethers, and the stinky buck. The buck has to go for vet check and then come home as bucks are not allowed to stay at the fair. This is my first time ever to show sheep. It will be a real learning experience. I have really nice sheep but they are not "show" groomed and they haven't been trained to show. This is gonna be fun....................