Category: Family

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Horse Shopping

Apparently finding the right horse for Claudine and Cisco is turning out harder than we originally thought.

There are lots of ‘cheap’ horses out there and lots of bad ones too.  There are lots of bad expensive horses out there as well.  It aint easy.

For crying out loud we went and looked at one Walker that looked like it was beaten all to hell.  Was missing a shoe and they still wanted $2500 for him.  He almost looked malnourished on top of that.  They thought nothing of having of saddle him up and taking him for a ride to feel his gates even though he was missing a shoe.  (What in the world?)  Of course we declined.  

Of course we’re not looking for just any old horse.  It can’t be too dominant (for Cisco’s sake), and it has to be a gated horse.  We’d prefer another Missouri Fox Trotter, but there are other breeds we’d consider as well.  We’ve looked at a couple Walkers, a Paso Fino, and even a Walkaloosa.  But still no luck in finding the right one.

So if you happen to know of a likely candidate, or a horse that’s gated, of good stocky build, 15 hands or taller, that is sound, and needs a good home let us know. 😉

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Hay! Baby!

Yeah you read that right, no I didn’t misspell it.

We go our share of the second cutting of the hay today from our field. Now we’ve lived here 7 years and it’s been farmed all this time by Mr. Baker the farmer down the road the whole time. Though he’s rented the land because we didn’t have a use for it, or rather, we didn’t have a means to farm it ourselves or the tools to keep it mowed. So we let him farm it and it’s paid the taxes, etc, etc.

Now that we have Cisco, and potentially a horse to be named later. We changed the rules this year. We’re share cropping the field, meaning we get half the hay in lieu of pay. This is good and this is bad. We also share the risk, if it’s a bad year for hay we get half of that bad hay. If it’s a good year, we get half the good hay too.

Our field was planted a couple years ago and is a very rich crop of alfalfa orchard mix. What ever that means. All I know is it has lots of alfalfa in it.

Well the 2nd cutting is the best cutting for horses. It’s the most tender and delicious.

We figure our current loft can hold somewhere between 300 and 400 square bales.

Today they came and baled so we got to stock our loft. Yippee! What fun.

Lucky for us Mr. Baker loaned us a conveyer to get the bales up to the loft so we didn’t have to climb ladders.

Even so, lifting 250 bales onto a conveyor, off of a conveyer and stacking them is no picnic. I had no idea how un-fun this was.

We built our barn big enough for a hay truck to drive in, but the openings weren’t quite big enough for the hay-picker-upper-stacker thing to drop the hay off inside. So that got dropped off at the door. So it was lug the bales to the conveyer, pick them up set them on. Then someone up top grabbed them and stacked them. All the while bits of hay are flying everywhere. Joy.

It was a good work out though. At least I can say that. 🙂

Next year I think I’ll find some immigrants though.

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Gallery Updates…

OK, This whole update to the Gallery was a bad Idea… But in the end it worked out I suppose.

There are new photos today of Cisco Kid in Cisco’s Gallery here.

This is where Cisco hangs out, half in the barn and half out.

And photos of Hazel (The barn Cat). Yes we have a cat, not a stray even, we (Claudine, the one who’s deathly allergic to said species of animals) brought it home and placed this furry kitten into the barn.

She’s cute and all, but barn cats are well, barn cats. They just happen.

She has a gallery too, because she’s not just a barn cat as I’ve been informed. We’re feeding her and everything. You can see more of her here.

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Horse Shopping

We’re currently looking for, or are in the market for another horse. Saturday we took a quick trip to look at a Foxtrotter/Quarterhorse mix.

The current owners, have a pretty nifty farm in northern KY, and they invited us down for a trail ride to check out the horse.

They were kind enough to saddle up “Blackie” and another one of their horses and took Claudine and I (along with a neighbor) on a really nice 1 hour trail ride.

Blackie was pretty close to what we’re looking for. He’s got the right stuff. FoxTrotter smoothness. He’s a little rough around the edges and needs some ground manners. But he’s also a little expensive for a “mutt”.

Cisco needs a partner but we’re looking for a horse that we can ride too, not just a pasture pal.

So if you’re local, and have a nice horse, with no vices, that gates, and isn’t too old and needs a home. Let us know. 🙂

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Roofing, thumbs and hammers

This weekend Michael and I were the super reliable roofers and helped my father reshingle my grandpa’s shed.

It was a perfect day to do a roofing job if there is such a thing. About 75 degrees and the shed was in the shade.

We started around 9:30am, stripped all the old shingles, put down new tar paper and got busy.

About 1/3rd the the way through I got my thumb good, I’m talking full swing with a 16″ Eastwing fraiming hammer. That hurt like hell, and is still pretty sore today.

But we got it done. It was kind of neat having 4 generations working at grandpas house on Saturday.