Here are some pictures of new foals by Amor Reto. Both of these foal are out of thoroughbred mares.

For updated pictures of our 2003 foals, click on Concerto LF (Contucci – Weaver of Magic/Wendellin) or Whimsy (Hierarch – Hearsay/Roemer).

We kept our horses in yesterday and they were not happy. Our horses get turned out almost everyday. Anything less is unacceptable to them. The youngest horses have the hardest time the next day. All of the horses want to run and buck but the older horses can control themselves until they reach the pasture. The young ones have more difficulty. Whimsy is my problem child. He is a colt who is comfortable being away from his mom. He left the stall yesterday when one of our girls was cleaning the stall. That caused a commotion. When I take out to his pasture with his mom, he has been trying to convince me that he knows what he is doing and that I should back off! That's a bad combination. Since he is acting like a smart-ass, I have had to accelerate his training. The most important lesson for a young horse to understand is that someone else is always in charge. When he is in the pasture, his mom or another mare is in charge. When he is being walked to or from the pasture, the human is in charge. His job is to walk at my shoulder. If he falls behind he can rear and strike me with his front hooves. If he gets in front he can strike me with his rear hooves. As they say, “been there, done that, not going to do it again!” Horses believe strongly in the chain of command. That is how the herd survives. This colt will understand soon enough why I am at the top of the chain of command. The other horses already understand I am at the top. The most facinating aspect of handling horses is that I will not have to be physical to make him understand where his position in the herd is. The dominant mare uses the same tactics.

Here are some pictures of our new foals and Amor Reto's first foal of this year. Andi is really pleased with this foal Amor Reto and a thorough bred mare.

Here is the pictures of our new foals Concerto LF out of Contucci and Whimsy out of Hierarch.

Hearsay had a colt this morning.  Andi went down to check on the horses when we heard a horse banging the wall at 4 am. We thought one of our horses was cast but it was Hearsay trying to give birth next to the wall. She was having a little trouble pushing him out. It was a big foal. Andi pulled gently on the colt's legs to assist. By 8 am the colt had gotten up and had his first milk. Both the mom and colt are doing fine.I took some pictures but they are all dark. I need better light for my camera.

Our mare, Weaver of Magic, finally had her foal. She was bred to Contucci and was two weeks overdue. The average gestation for our mares has been 350 days. She birthed at 364 days. We are still working on a 'C' name for him.

Today is beautiful. It was supposed to be stormy but that will probably come later. I will try and get a good soaking of the arena while Andi is gone. It's probably time for me to add more magnesium chloride. I'll have to spread compost on some other day. The fields are too wet.

Today I committed myselft to six loads of recycling. Actually it consisted of spreading six loads of compost out on the fields. A load is approximately 9 bushels since that is my manure spreaders capacity. It may weight as much as 1000 pounds. Horses generate a lot of manure and waste bedding. If you wait about six months before you spread it on the fields you can call it compost. It also becomes a lot more dense as the microbes do their job. Procrastination makes it sound so good! It was starting to get in the way so it was time to move it out. Any day that is not bitterly cold is probably a good day to spread compost. The big problem is to make sure you have good traction for the tractor. Cold is good unless you have ice. Warm is good as long as you don't get stuck in the mud.

I spent half the day on the road. The first monday of the month is my day at Habitat for Humanity. I usually combine this with some grocery shopping and other errands. In the afternoon I went back to writing content for Legacy Farm. I ended up scanning part of the ISR editorial about changes in the stallion test. The OCR worked remarkably well. I was writing about my experiences with the stallion selection process so the document is timely. I plan on incorporating it into my stallion selection essay since I have it in html form.

Time to pay bills and catch up on government paperwork. I was disappointed yesterday when I found out that my PIN had expired with the SSA. They seem to really want small businessses to file electronically but expiring the PIN without notice and forcing you to re-apply is not user friendly or efficient. Now I am waiting for the letter in the mail before I can file electronically again.Oh, well!