Horse Cuteness Overload

 The day came and we have returned to work. But before I resume travel posts, I had to share one more blog post laden with cute horse pictures.

And the travel posts may still be delayed a bit longer. We got a new laptop a couple months ago and I've been fighting a battle with Windows 8 trying to get my pictures loaded where I want them off the camera. I'm losing the battle so far. It's very frustrating. And I can't access them, or rather I can't figure out how to, in order to upload them to the blog or facebook. I've been posting pics on facebook from my phone, and then saving them from facebook onto the computer where I want them to be located, so that I could then come post them on blogger. It's a pain and it's frustrating and I know I'm not computer savvy and that's the problem. I do not like Windows 8! What was wrong with Windows 7? I got along really well with it and I'd like to have it back please!

Anyway....

Fancy's little man is growing fast, as they all do! At day three he scarred the living daylights out of me by accidentally jumping the water tank. He was running and didn't have his "stop" down pat yet, so when he couldn,t get stopped he just hopped over it. But I saw it coming and fully expected my weekly disaster, which seemed to be the trend this past month. (I'll fill you in on that later, if I can remember)
Thankfully, Fancy gave birth to a natural athlete full of grace and more coordination than I gave him credit for!

We also have come up with a name that seems to be sticking.
Meet Midas!

Hopefully he'll have that golden touch!

I'm leaning back towards thinking he's going to be palomino, and thus the golden name. We will still have to wait till he sheds his baby fuzz in a couple months to know for sure. But either way, I think Midas has stuck to him like glue, cause that's how we refer to him now.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I got an email from Dawn and Gemma's new owner announcing the birth of Dawn's foal....EXACTLY 24 hours after Fancy foaled.

Another colt, and a very unusual color! Isn't he gorgeous though?

And also a comic?
One thing Lisa (his owner) pointed out right away is how remarkably similar his markings are to Gemma. And she's right! Compare this little guy to his big sister Gemma at that age. Just about the only way to tell them apart is the color, because the markings are nearly identical! He's even wearing Gemma's black lipstick!

Speaking of Gemma....

Last we saw her was in October when we handed her and Dawn off to their new owners. Here's a picture of Gemma late last summer in her yearling year.

Lisa has been working with her and started riding her a couple weeks ago. The report is she's very smart, quick to learn, and hasn't even considered a single buck or trick to unseat her rider! She's everything I had hoped she'd turn out to be, so much like her big brother, Sky, in attitude and brains, but with the looks of a super model thrown in.

I'm glad she and Dawn are in such a good home and I love getting the updates and pictures from Lisa.

 I'm in love with her mane and tail, so long and thick for a 2 year old (at least in my experience). I told Lisa she's going to need to braid that main when she rides. Otherwise she'll have a face full of it when they get going good.

We are hoping that one of these days we'll get close enough to their home where we can stop and visit Lisa and Dave and see the girls. I'd really like that.

Back at home, we finally had to pack up and get back to work. We left on Wednesday. We haven't had a chance to get another pasture fenced off at home, so we had to move Fancy and Midas to a new location. I couldn't take a chance putting them in with Sky, since your not really supposed to mix geldings with mares and foals. Sky is just a love bug and wouldn't hurt a fly, but I wasn't going to take a chance that his natural curiosity and pushy affection caused problems.

It was a problem that I'd been pondering, and then a couple days after Midas's birth, we had some visitors, and I realized I might have my answer.

My sister-in-law came over with her girls, and her sister and nephews, the grandparents, AND her parents.....who happen to have some acreage and a few horses and her dad's a horse nut like me! We all had a wonderful visit and the kids (and adults) all loved Midas, of course! Who wouldn't?

Well turns out, my nieces are horse nuts too, and even my sister-in-law is a bit of one. Funny the things you don't know about the people close to you. I had an idea that my older niece was, but I've learned a lot about my family this spring and summer, and the discovery that I have multiple horse loving relatives was a delight!

Anyway, Midas was a star! Everyone fell in love! And when my sister-in-law's father started talking about wanting to breed one of his mares because he'd always wanted that experience, I started to think this might be a good thing for all of us!

So when my first plan didn't work out the way we'd hoped, I called him up and posed the question to him, "would you be willing to board Fancy and Midas for me while we're on the road?"

And of course his answer was yes! Which worked out perfectly!

So while Malcolm and I are criss crossing the nation, Fancy and Midas are staying at their new summer residence, being totally spoiled and loved on!

I told Malcolm after this, we'll have the most imprinted foal under the sun!

It is so nice to be gone from home and know that everything and everyone is being taken care of. I have no worries at all! And while it does make me kind of sad to miss so much of his growing up, just like I had to do with Sky and Gemma, its great to get so many pictures and updates.

 

 

We got off to work with a bang, which was tiring, but nice after so many months of slow work. We left Wednesday night and we've already run half way across the country and back, from Illinois to Montana, to Wisconsin and now we're back in Illinois waiting to see what's next!

north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota



 I hope there will be more motivation to share some travel posts. I think it will help once (if I ever do) I get this picture thing figured out. As long as it's a battle I'm not going to want to blog much. But maybe Windows 8 and I can come to some reasonable terms and get along. We're going to have to, because I'm pretty much stuck with it!

So that's the latest from Redbud Farm and the littlest of the big four leggeds at our place.

I have a story from the little four leggeds too, from when we were home. I'll share that with you later. Heart stopping moments and lessons learned that I think are worth sharing. Stay tuned.