Surviving the first week

It seems to take more time to write this silly blog than it does to feed, water, train and clean up after the mustangs. Maybe it will get easier. Oh well, here we go. They are still lots of fun to be with, even if they do not stop and talk with me every time that I lean on the fence and start talking to them. But most of the time they will come over, have a good sniff and a enjoy quick head rub, (theirs, not mine). I have been in the ring with them each day and they are really coming around. But one must always remember that they do have a mind of their own and their agenda is not always the same as mine. Please forgive how I am addressing them but we still have not named them. The little one is very friendly and just loves to have you rub her anywhere. But in the ring she is quite different. When I try to get her to trot in a circle around the ring, she will go for two or three steps and than stop and try to go the other way. OVER AND OVER again. With much encouragement she will sometime make it all the way around the ring.

We interrupt this blog for a brief announcement.

I completed this blog last week but when I sent it out, all but the first part, which you see above, was lost. Just making my point about how much work this seems to be. Since then, a lot has happened in their life's and we have even named them so I will just skip most of it and bring you up to date.

The little sorrel is now the proud owner of the name "Ellie". (Sorry Jo, right name, wrong horse)

The black is now known as "Chloe". (Way to go Brant)

And the bay is very excited about her new name of "Sadie". (Nice job Michelle)

Last Friday the vet (Dr. Andrea Boyer) came by to check on "The Girls". She likes them a lot and is almost as excited as we are to watch them grow and develop. She is a little concerned about the size of Ellie and Chloe and wants me to make sure that they get enough to eat. She has given me some feeding instructions that I must follow that includes introducing them to grain. I am to feed them separately, three times a day, to make sure that they do not eat the other's food. Might I remind you that we have them in one 50' X 50' corral. I have been trying to follow her instructions but, did I mention that they have a mind of their own. I ask you: Why is it that the other ones food bucket always look better than your own? Wait a minuet, I have heard of this before, Something like "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". Which also explains why there is still some green spots in the corral and the grass is trimmed short within two feet of the outside of the fence. No more weed eating on this fence line.
Another thing that I noticed is that there seems to be more processed hay now that I have been feeding them more fresh hay. I really enjoy mucking out the corral, but lets see what I am saying about this subject in December, January, February and March.
Jordan came over on Friday night again and we had another great visit. I can not remember why we were so anxious to be empty-nesters. We enjoy the few visits from the kids so very much. On Friday morning Brandon (the horse trainer) came over to check on their progress and spent three hours putting them through their paces. My goodness what a change he made in this visit! Sadie and Chloe are almost ready for saddles and Ellie is almost learning the basic rules of etiquette. Dr. Boyer thinks that Ellie might only be about six months old, which explains why she is so friendly to the touch but is not really into discipline and training like the other two. I have found a farmer who wants to trade some compost for some of my processed hay. Did I tell you that I have been doing with it up to this point? Well, while we were in Texas most of last year, the kids from the trailer court had trampled down our fence and used our yard as a short cut to their friends house on the other side of us. When we came home, I repaired the fence and asked them not to cut through the yard between the barn and the house. But it was OK to enter our property on the north end and cut through diagonally to the south/west, where their friends lived. My concern is that I do not have any doors on my barn yet and it is full of tools that I did not want them to have such an easy access to case them out. That worked well for about a month and then they tramped down the fence again about half way up from the north corner. So when I needed some place to put the very first wheelbarrow of horse manure I dumped it right at the fence line in the middle of where they trampled down the fence. We now have quite a pile there for some reason, the kids are back to using the correct path now. With that said, I will close for now and get this posted. Love, Mom and Dad

Wild Mustang Auction

Hello family and friends,

Thanks to Matt & Michelle, and than Jennifer & Paul, I have decided to try my own hand at this new blog thingy.

As most of you know, I was born a "city slicker". Not just a "city slicker" but a "California City Slicker". But deep down inside I always loved the country side of life. On the other side of this twosome is Carol / Mom who was born in the country, thus the name "Carol-Jean". Although she is very comfortable in the city, she also longs for the country. Most of you kids already know this as we managed to live in out of the way places most of your lives. Anyway, a few months ago I got this idea that it would be kind of neat to go to a Wild Mustang Auction. You know, just for the fun of it. I went on line, found the site, found the date, time and place for the next auction in this area. I read all that I could find about it and just for the fun if it, I filled out the application for adopting. On 18 July of 2008, we went to Archdale to see what these rag-a-muffins were like. Carol came along just to make sure that I did not go crazy. We were both very surprised to see the quality of these animals. They were ranging in age from 1, 2, 3, 4 and a few 5 year old. They had Fillies, Mares, Gilding's and Stallions. They even had little burros. We went home that afternoon with me talking about all of the fun we could have with a dozen or so (they only let you have four at one time). Carol spent all of her time trying to get me to wake up and get some common sense. We could not afford to buy any, we could not afford to keep any, we don't have the time to work with any. But mostly, we DON'T KNOW HOW TO WORK WITH ANY. But I persevered and in the morning we went back to the actual auction (just for the fun of it and to see what they would go for and to plan for the future years [since we are both in our sixty's]). Mom picked out one she liked and I picked out one that I thought I would like. We thought that since we don't have any tack and there is not a lot of room for riding in our back yard, we should look at yearling fillies. You know, kinda like having a big dog for a pet.

When it came time to bid on "Carol's horse", I started to bid at the bottom at $125.00. But someone else wanted it as well so they beet me to it. I went to $135.00 and they went to $145.00 I asked Carol if she wanted to go higher and she said no so I let her go at $145.00. A couple of other horses went by and than it was time for mine. I quickly gave my starting bid and waited, and waited, and waited the next thing I new, I was the proud papa of a yearling filly. A Bay with a spot of white on her leg that makes her a Pinto. She also has a white sock on her left rear foot and a small white star on her forehead. I was told that if you bought one at the auction price you could by a second one (Buddy) for $25.00 so I picked out a dark one and bid on her. No one bid against me and now I had two horses. This one is called Black even though she is just a dark brown but she has the prettiest main and bangs. They moved onto the next pin and I started to go to the table to pay for our new "pets" when Carol stopped me and asked me where here little filly was and when I told her she was already sold, she got very upset and started to cry. She said she did not realize that we were talking about her horse because she could not see it very clearly. Being the good man that I am, I asked her to find another one that she liked and so she took several minuets and finally selected a little tiny baby, (did I mention that it was very small). I wrote down her number and went to the paying table where they informed me that the buddy program only kicks into play after the bidding stops. As with Carols little, little filly. Still, we came out of there with three horses and a $275.00 whole in my wallet. Now the next question, how to get them home and oh yeah, where to put them? I asked around and found a young man who transports horses and is also a trainer and best of all he lives less then three miles from our home. I made arrangements for him to bring them to us on Sunday morning and hurried home to build a rag-tag corral for them to stay in. I called Steve, Jen, Amy and Jordan to ask for help on my new construction project. We now had to build a 50' X 50' corral in just one night. As soon as we got home, I did some quick figuring on material as we started to the lumber yard, Jordan drove into the driveway. While I bought lumber, Jordan and Carol had a great visit in the garden section. I had to make two trips and Jordan helped me unload both times. Next we replaced the bad existing post and then extended all of the rest to 6' in height. It was then 10 pm so we stopped for the night. In the morning Jordan and I did all of the layout for where we wanted the rails and than off to Archdale again to finalize the paperwork so Brandon could transport our three new babies. Now we raced home to put up some rails before Brandon got there. I got out my air compressed and nailer and chop saw and to of my neighbors came to help. Jordan and I measured, cut and hauled while Ronny and Kenny shot the rails to the post on the marks that Jordan and I had already put there. By the time Brandon got here, we had the front up one rail all the way around. He offloaded them and they started right away mowing the grass as if we were not even their. I thought that the air compressor and nail gun or at least the chop saw would send them through the moon but all they were interested in was that nice green grass. By noon all of the fence was up and we were patting ourselves on the back. Now what are we going to feed them. We made a few phone calls and found some hay at a local farmer in the area. I will bring you up to date on our first week in the next blog.

Love, Farmer Tom

Names anyone?

Just to get the ball rolling, Mom and Dad need horse names. They went to a Wild Mustang auction and couldn't contain themselves. And now they need name ideas for females. Dad thinks it would be a lot of fun to have the grandkids submit names for consideration, but really, anyone is welcome to suggest names. When Dad posts his tale, he will include pictures; this should help you in coming up with names. Be creative, we hope to find good ones. Thank you!

Just Getting Started

I, Jordan, helped Dad to get this thing up and running. He should be on shortly with pictures and tales of his and Mom's adventures.