Surfacing

So, uh.  I'm still here?  lol

It's been an interesting couple of months.  I kind of dived head-first into pedigree analysis, to a level that... erm.  Well.  I am an adult and I know when I'm hyperfocusing because I'm stressed out and dealing with it by doing random shit.

And about the time I got done with that, we had a strangles outbreak at the farm.  That's finally cleared up now, but it's taken... god, six weeks?  Two months?  There's a whole wacky chain of how it got on the farm in the first place and how it kept coming back up that involves the neighbors of our vet, breeding season, and two sneaky-ass cases of bastard strangles, so it feels like it was forever to even figure out what the fuck was going on.  I can't say everyone's fine, because the BOs lost a horse, but Cessa and Bishop are fine despite contracting it and Dragon either never got it or had such a mild case that nobody noticed.

But y'all.  Why did no one warn me how fucking gross strangles is?  Seriously.  Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry did not prepare me for this aspect of horse ownership.

I'm going to do some sort of post about some of the stuff I found in various pedigrees, but for tonight... Here, have a baby pony video:

And a yearling picture:

Dragon, why are you as tall as your dam? You're 18 months old and ribby because you just grew again!  Stop it!

And a fed-up mareface photo with her lovely strangles bowl cut:

She is so done with humans poking at her. So done.

TIL, pedigree edition

So... I have been spending far too much time and effort figuring out as complete as I can pedigrees of my kiddos.  And a little money, because spreadsheets were Not Sufficient, lol.

And there's some cool things in there - I'm always delighted to find Man O' War, and I'm terribly amused by discovering all three stallions who've lent their names to random coat spotting (Bend Or, Birdcatcher, and The Tetrarch).

But last night, I discovered something about Bend Or that I had no idea about!  Apparently Bend Or... isn't the horse they thought he was.

http://www.americanclassicpedigrees.com/the-mystery-of-bend-or.html

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/241036/the-real-bend-or

And so this is not 100% text...

...Why is my 18 month old filly so big. lol

Boo, summer

It's hot, y'all.  And worse than that, it's more humid than normal, so it's just... miserable.  There's been a lot of going to the barn, petting the ponies for like half an hour, and then running away to where the air conditioning is again.

Which, I mean.  When your mare has a baby at her side and your other two are far, far too young to even set a saddle on them... it's not like you're gonna ride!  (I mean, I could set the saddle on Dragon, not that I'd do anything more, but... why?  It'll be too big.  And she's a yearling.  It's all good; I can wait.)

So mostly, I'm taking silly pictures of the ponies, giving Cessa some attention, and trying to keep the gang of yearlings (there are six of them!) and the baby from assaulting my husband too badly. lol

Dragon has already perfected mare stare.  And I hear she tried to run the gang of yearlings when Cessa and the baby were pulled up for Bishop's gelding.

Bishop and his half-brother Gryffin.  Two good geldings.  Mouthy geldings, but good ones.

She COULD walk over to say hi.  Or she could just stand there and wait for you...

Three is the magic number

When we realized that Cessa had dropped a black colt, there was a long talk had with my husband.  He's not really... horsey.  We don't actually need a third horse - it's more expense, and if he drops out on me, then I've got three animals to try and interact with.  That's not as big a deal right now, but later when they're all under saddle?  There's only one of me!

Yeahhh, wanna guess who lost that discussion?  Much to the total lack of surprise of my barn friends?  lol

So, Bishop is staying.  He's adorable and mouthy as hell (baby, boy, and seems to be a trait Daddy passes on) right now.  No idea what his registered name is gonna be yet, but the balls come off in about a month.

And now that he's out in the paddock, I can get decent pictures!

If only that stupid weed wasn't there!

Not sure why you're still holding me still...

He's kind of an awkward browny-blacky color right now thanks to the foal coat.

Whaaaat is the clicky thing?

Also... y'all, my mare is almost normal horse-sized again.  lol Still not exactly svelte, but not a complete whale!

Ok, now lose more weight so we can actually find your ribs and something resembling a waist...

Surprise!

 

Well, my morning was exciting - how was everyone else's?  lol

Let me start off with the most important details first: it's a boy!  Earlier than expected!  Solid black, with a blaze like a stick with a crescent moon on the top.  As of when I left, he'd done all the things except pee; he gets his IGG check tomorrow, but at this point he seems to be happy and healthy.  At least at the moment, we're calling him Bishop (daddy has a chess-themed name).

Now... details? :)

First of all, can I just say that text chats when the BOs are nocturnal and you're not and the mare has the baby first thing in the morning are fucking hilarious?  Like... this morning's was a picture of Cessa with a white stripe behind her butt, followed by a series of, "Wait, what?", "Is that... a baby?", "I don't know, we're getting pants on to go check," and "Are you even kidding me?" messages.  Which I'll grant you is far more coherent than the last time, when there were five different "baby"s in the chat, with various punctuation, before any of us managed more words, but still pretty damn funny.

We weren't expecting Cessa to foal for another couple of weeks!  She's been in the barn and under camera for a while anyway, because it's been raining constantly and it's way easier to leave her in the stall for vet visits, and because she passed 320 days about a week ago.

So this morning... the BOs went to bed; I got up.  Half an hour after they'd gone to bed, one of them got up and happened to walk past the cameras just in time to see baby boy sitting up out of the bag.

Cue hilarious text messages.

I called in sick - which I'd actually been considering that before realizing there was a baby, because my ridiculous dog decided to refuse to poop until 5 AM this morning and if there had been a chat bubble over my head, it would have just said "..." - and drove up there, and we all sat around chatting and watching momma and baby do momma and baby things until he'd hit most of the milestones and we were all varying levels of "ready for bed" and "starving."

We were all hoping for a girl, except for my husband, who was hoping for... a black boy.  lol So more to come on whether this little guy gets sold or stays...

Bachelor #3

When I wrote my post about Dragon's ancestry, I mentioned the third stallion at the barn (at the time - there's four now!) and how I didn't have any good pictures of him.  Well, turns out he's the boy that got Cessa knocked up, and we ended up taking pictures of him this weekend.  

So now I have pictures!

As for my girls... Oh my god, Cessa is huge.  Poor baby.  She's decided that the stall where they stuck her for her shots when it was raining last week is just... where she lives now.  ("They bring me food, they bring me water, they turn on a fan... why would I leave?" lol)  She's so big, she can't roll over.  And she's uncomfortable enough that she's actually turning down food sometimes - which, y'all.  The only animal I've ever met that was as food-motivated as this mare is my dog, who was half-starved and 15lbs underweight when our friends found him in their back yard.  Poor mare is miserable.  

And Dragon is currently huge too, but in that whole, "Oh my god, will you stop growing vertically, please?" way.  We haven't sticked her, but she's gotta be pushing 15 hands at this point.  Not quite there, but close.

Well

That sound you hear is me laughing so hard there are tears streaming down my face.

The one year we were not gonna check Cessa for pregnancy.  The one year.

But either Cessa's pregnant and due in June, or she has some sort of really weird parasite that kicked the vet during the pregnancy check...