Meet Kirby! or Willie! or Buster! or Little One....

Yep, I'm the Best Husband In The World.

I bought Sara a horse for our anniversary. It was easy, really. She had been looking for a new project, and this one came along at precisely the right moment (read: I hadn't a clue what else to get her).

He's 18 months old, nice and stocky build, and nice and quiet.

We picked him up Tuesday nite. He's never been on a trailer but walked right in. He hauled quietly and stood quietly when we stopped for gas. Sara worked with him a little last nite and he's a quick learner.

Should turn out to be a nice little horse. Just gotta find him a name. He came to us named Diego, and we're not too keen on that one. Any suggestions?

Dog Days of Summer

Ok, I've been lax. I need to make more time for the blog, but hey, it's SUMMER. I'm not huddled in the house in front of the computer hiding from the frozen tundra. I'm outside doing summer stuff, like mowing lawn. Of which I have too much. So this last weekend I made the decision to re-do some fencing and make a pasture bigger to eat up some of that never-ending lawn.


We currently have two large pastures. That's not enough for proper pasture rotation. When completed, we'll have three pastures and a dry lot. Hank and Honky will probably live most of their time in the dry lot (fatties), with the young athletic types out on any one of the grazing pastures. I'm hoping that this will be a better plan than the one currenlty in place. This should allow for the pastures to have greater time to "rest", allowing the grass to grow and the manure to dry up so I can drag it out and hopefully keep the fly population down. All of the fencing that faces the house will now be wood post and rail, and the rest will be electric.

Excavation for the new barn is underway. The new driveway and parking lot are starting to materialize (less lawn!). All of the topsoil has been scraped off to the side and all the fill has been hauled in. We are just waiting for the dozer to come and smooth out the clumps.

Looking from the house toward barn:

Looking from shed across parking lot:
Looking west up barn aisle:

Parking lot & stalls:

Spent a day and half this week hooking up the water line to our well and trenching in new water lines. Everything was buried at 7' to ensure nothing will freeze. The water line and electric conduit have been roughed in, and the new hydrant was installed behind the big shed. The barn is scheduled to be delivered next week, but we just got a letter saying they bumped us back a few days. Still trying to find the reasons behind that.

Much like everyone else, this summer has been flying by. With shows, 4h kids, the building mess and all that damned lawn we haven't gone on as many trail rides as I would have wished.

What Goes Bump in the Night?

Ok, last week I had a creepy dream that I was walking in the kitchen in the middle of the night and I saw someone walking in the yard. All I could think was that it was a burglar headed for the shed. It freaked me out so much I woke up and went to go look out the window, only to find it was 5:30 and time to feed the horses.

Kinda forgot about it.

Then last nite I woke up at 3:19 and heard a car coming down the road, slowing like it was gonna pull into the driveway. I layed there looking out the window, watching the headlights on the grass along the road, waiting for them to sweep across the lawn. Right about then I remembered that spooky dream. The car slowed to a stop right in front of the house, and I bounced outta bed to get a better look. The car pulled off right away, and there wasn't much to see. It didn't stop long enough for anyone to get in or out of the car, and it wasn't the mailman. More heebie jeebies. So I shook it off, called myself nuts, and layed back down. But I couldn't stop thinking about that dream from the other night, and I just layed there listening for any noises out of the ordinary. I thought about where the baseball bat was, where the gun was, where the spotlight was...

A few minutes went by, and a car came up the road from the other way. Sure sounded like the same car. It droves past the house and slammed on the brakes, tires squealing. Luci growled at the window. Well, I got up in a flash and headed to the kitchen window. I didn't see a thing, not even tail lights. So I thought either killed the lights or went in the ditch. I grabbed the spotlight and headed outside, shining it at the tack room, up and down the road, at the gates.... Everything looked normal. No car in sight.

I layed back down, followed by Luci. All the windows were open, so I was sure that between the two of us we'd hear a prowler if there was one. Finally got up to feed at five. Saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Normally a car slamming on the brakes would make me think it was avoiding a deer, or worse, a horse. But that creepy dream kept gnawing at me.

Some videos from the shows

Western Pleasure (2nd place):




Hunter Under Saddle (2nd place):




Energy Conservation (1st place):

Let it show, let it show, let it show....

Ahhh, the show season is upon us. This has resulted in no time for me to post, so here's a re-cap of the last month.

Sara and Jin started off the year at the Silver Classic open show at Heartland Stables in Custer. After a hectic morning of arguing with a truck that hates wet weather and pulling in just as the show started, they ended up doing very well. Senior High Point winner of the day in fact. They got 1sts in showmanship, junior horse walk trot, english equitation, and a handful of other classes thru the day, placing in 11 of their 13 classes. And not least important was their 3rd in egg and spoon, a goofy class where you balance an egg in a spoon and ride around as the judge tells you to until all the participants drop their eggs. Silly, yes. Fun, yes.

The next weekend we were off to the Wisconsin Paint Horse Club APHA show in Jefferson. No egg and spoon there. This was serious stuff. This is where you show for points, not little $2 ribbons. The points go on the horse's permanent record, and earning points raises the value of your horse. That is if you were going to sell it. Anyway, there we are, small fish in the big pond. The big fish are world champs, or if not yet, soon to be. The big fish seem to have unlimited wealth to buy them the best horses, trucks, trailers, saddles, show clothes, custom spurs, chaps, and bits. We have a good horse, a used saddle and tack, a dented truck and a bit from Fleet Farm. And undaunted as they were, Sara and Jin held their own against these fish earning a 1st in horsemanship, 2nds in english equitation and hunter under saddle, a 3rd in western pleasure, and 4th in showmanship.
Not. Too. Shabby.
A highlight of her day came when one of the big fish trainers complimented her horse. She smiled so big I thought her head was gonna crack. It was a good weekend, then we found out that they won the Novice Amateur Weekend Highpoint. That made it a really good weekend.

Two weekends later we were back in Jefferson for another two day show. This was a much larger show, being dubbed the Paint-O-Rama. This drew the best APHA horses from a 4 state area. Many of them were using this show as a warm-up for the upcoming Pinto World and Paint World shows held later this month in Oklahoma and Texas, where the best in the nation compete. Again, Sara and Jin did very well with a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in showmanship, a 2nd, and two 4ths in western pleasure, and a 2nd and 3rds in hunter under saddle. Taking second place to horses of the caliber that were there is a huge accomplishment. Getting a first in showmanship was huge for the two of them. It's one of those classes that Sara just loves to do, and her hard work payed off that day. These placings resulted in Jin earning his first ROM's (Register of Merit with the APHA) in Showmanship and in HUS.

Luci goes with us to the shows. Her job is to guard the trailer.