It's getting closer and closer

Portia is on day 312.

Alanna is on day 313

Grania is on day 330.

Maggie is on day 336.

I have no photos of poor Rachel but she is on is on day 321.

They have all been partaking in the joys of mud as is obvious and they all still have most of their winter coats.

I have made it a practice to take side, rear and udder photos of the mares daily towards the end of their gestation so that I can compare the development year after year. I find that it helps me to judge how things are going.

Diane

Fun stuff ... and some not so fun stuff

My computer and I have been going through a difficult patch in our relationship. I believe that it may be time to part company. We've just had too many arguments of late. I jinxed our good weather too. I was speaking with a friend of mine in Ireland and mentioned that we had survived our reasonably mild winter and were enjoying some very nice spring days. A few short days after that we managed to accumulate 2 to 3 inches of snow. Alas, all good things must come to an end. At least we were fortunate enough to have warm weather the next day which helped the snow to disappear fairly quickly.

Horse things seem to be going well. The mares are hanging in there, the boys are happy-go-lucky and the young fillies are enjoying themselves. I visited Rachel at the clinic today and she is still quite large but content. She is outside the majority of the time because the barns are too warm for her. She's used to the 24/7 joy of the great outdoors in Iowa.

I also went to visit Tristan and was able to watch Jess work with him. I think the boy looks wonderful. He seems to just get better and better every time I see him.

The Boys

I had a short burst of energy and decided to measure the yearling boys. Kieran came in at 15.1 hh and 863 lbs. Brody is 15.2 hh and 876 lbs. The Spiderman is 15.1 hh and 938 lbs. No surprise in any of those numbers.

Tristan rescued

I thought I'd start with some drama in the headline. :-D My talented, problem solving sister Pat came up with a great idea for Tristan while Sarah's on the mend. We ran the idea past Sarah for her approval first of course. Mr. Tristan has now been placed into the capable hands of the western trainer at Crystal Creek. His first day with Jess will be Monday and the plan is to have him started under saddle with basic skills until Sarah's ready to take over again. Tristan will be kept busy with a job to do and lots of new things to learn and I'll be less harried trying to watch four expecting mares & work with a young stallion in my "spare" time. Pat came up with a solution that's makes everyone a winner!

Maggie

Miss Maggie has reached day 320 of her gestation. Day 320 is the time when I start watching a little more closely unless I've seen something earlier than that causing me to start earlier. If you can see through the mud and winter coat, Maggie looks fabulous for pregnancy number 10.

I've moved the pregnant ones to the area that attaches to the barn and moved the fillies to where the mares were. Rachel is at the clinic. She has given birth as early as 318 days so it was time for her to move. Her diet can be closely monitored at the clinic as well, which is a major plus.

Diane

Exhausting day

Poor Mr. Tristan. I'm now officially in charge of himself for the next 6 or 7 weeks. His trainer Sarah requires some surgery and will have to stay resting and away from horses for at least 6 weeks. So I went to Crystal Creek today and worked Tristan with Sarah's advice and observations before her surgery later in the week. She mentioned that I needed to challenge him some so that he doesn't get too bored. I didn't tell her but I thought Tristan was being challenged just having me lunge him. ;-D

Lunging isn't my thing so to speak I am very weak on having the horse go left because I can't see what the horse is doing. There are few things that I've had trouble with after losing my eye and lunging horses to the left is one of them. (I also tend not to want to stay in one place while lunging but that's a different story altogether).

So I think Tristan may have worked me harder than I worked him today but we got it done. I'm exhausted and am hoping that I'm not too sore tomorrow. It is going to be a very interesting couple of months.

Diane

It's foal watch time!

We've had at least 3 inches of rain the past few days. It fell on ground that is still frozen so we have lots and lots of standing water and some mud. The horses are not very happy about the situation at all. I think that even Maggie and Portia would accept staying inside -- that means it has to be horrid because neither of them likes to be inside.


Maggie and Grania are the mares that are "due" earliest and both are very large. I can't tell if they are waddling yet because of their size or from the water they are living in. Grania is the largest I've seen her but it's only baby number three. Maggie is pregnant with baby number 10 so I expect her to be large -- she has to have been stretched out some! Grania and Maggie are expecting the first foals from our Tristan.


Rachel is very large but then she's large all of the time. We don't currently have a Jenny Craig paddock so she just eats and eats and eats some more. Since she experienced a dystocia last year, I'm playing it safe and planning to take her to our vet's clinic for her birth this year. Rachel is expecting a Silver Granite foal.


Alanna is due at the end of April with a Silver Granite foal. She isn't very large at all but still definitely looks in foal. She had one other pregnancy where she never got very big -- I'm thinking that it was the gestation that resulted in her filly Lia (Padi's Classic Design).


Portia is humongous -- she is so much like her dam it is remarkable. She carries her babies the same way as her momma did. She if very wide and her belly is sinking down. She has been uncomfortable all winter. This foal is wild and very active. Poor Portia has taken a real beating and actually stopped eating for a short time until she was able to reposition the foal at least three times. I am putting my neck out and predicting that she has a big colt. She is due the day after Alanna with a Tristan foal.


Another year and more foals. My favorite time of year.

Mountain Pearl update from Ireland

Cathy sent an e-mail and photo 2/24:

"I thought it was about time a sent you a recent picture of pearl (taken today) so you can see how well he is looking. He is full of beans these days, he's up to weight and apart from a bit of spucing up he's ready to show off at the stallion parades. Cavan is the 2nd of April."

Jasper jumping

Jasper started jumping in November 2008 with Sarah Hauschild. Between then and this video he had about 10 lessons with a couple time gaps due to the holidays. Turns out he's a chip off the ol Mountain Pearl block when it comes to jumping - both in form and enthusiasm.

Spider

Here's Spider mid-winter and a video from last fall.