Saturday July 21, 2007

It looks like this summer will not allow me the leasure to write regular updates at this point. I will fill things in as I can.

We are getting a lot done around the ranch. Some friends (Karen and Aud) and Jarred have gotten a ton of fencing done for us and we should have all of our fences secured or replaced by next winter.

We've had three babies born: Desinty's baby (Prize) is a tiny, delicate, beauful girl with a very strong indipendent streak. We have spent more time trying to teach her to lead than with any other horse. She clearly is smart enough to get it - she has just not decided to trust us enough to let a human control her yet. She is, however, coming along.

Echo's baby (Friday) is a big, loving boy who learned to lead in about half an hour. He is handsome and fine and we think he will be big.

Mariah's baby (name still unknown) is the image of Sahara. She is going to be smart, flashy and wonderfully confident. She isn't scard of anything!

We are expecting Flicka and Sky to have babies this week.

Sahara and Onyx are in training and coming along beautifully. They are both exceptional horses who will be coming home next week for two days with their trainer. I will spend two days riding them and working with the trainer and decide them if I should send them back for another month or finish them myself.

We are cutting down on what we have to do around here - sold most of the goats and are probably going to let go of our last three soon. (In the mean time, we are getting over a gallon of milk a day from one of them and loving it!) We are probably going to give away some of the ducks and geese and just gave away the rabbits. I am serious about making this winter more managable than the last.

Dave and I built me a new tack room which we are quite proud of.

We have had many mares here to breed, despite not advertising this year. We expect a number more through the rest of the summer.

Michal (our summer help from Chicago) is doing wonderfully and making a big difference around here. I am finally managing to get the rest I need and starting to feel better, thanks to her constant help. She is talented with the horses and good at getting work done. We'll miss her when she goes home in Aug.