Quick update

It's definitely feeling like winter here - the wind has died down to be replaced by near freezing temperatures. For us whimpy Northern California types that's darn cold! 

We're happy to announce, Leelee (Las Doradas Blazing Beauty), one of Little Kings Bay Ablaze daughters, will be off to her new home in the next week.  

Honeybun, (Las Doradas Buckeroos Honeybun) will be leaving this week as well to her new home as well.

Both mares are bred for 2012, Leelee to Buckeye WCF Dance All Night and Honeybun to Little Kings Dream Demon. I'll be looking forward to seeing what they produce for their new families!

Off to Oz!

What's with this wind?  OMG!

It tore the tarp off one shelter into shreds - one of those can withstand mega wind type tarps!  Apparently it never was meant for the winds of Winters! LOL!

It also destroyed a rubbermaid storage building - lost the roof and a door - what a waste, then a stand of decorative pots went flying and shattered across the deck.  Bleah!

Hopefully this will pass by tonight, I think I wore more hay then the horses got to eat sadly this morning too.


On a brighter note:

The grass is growing, horses are healthy and it's sunny if not warm!

Our newest puppy,  Pup-Pup (yea we're so creative with names at times), is doing great.  She's already wanting to be a watcher with Auntie Noomi.  Pup-pup is a 3/4 Pyrenees 1/4 Maremma sweetie.  Here she is with my daughter Anya.  She's 12+ weeks old and loves to be outside.  A bit skeptical about the horses though as she's been chased by a couple and bit by one.  But she has a nice bark on her already.

Mini News:

I hope everyone read the news on AMHR half-price for hard-shipping from AMHA in 2012!  I know I have a couple that will finally get done!

We did reprice some of the horses on our sales list, and will be working on updating our website this month and adding more.  I finally came to the conclusion if I only want 25-30, ALL the rest need to go on the sales list then!

Happy Holidays

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, it's been a rough 2011 for many, but I remind myself - we that live in the USA are still better off than a high percentage of the rest of the world.

I'm thankful for all I have, even though I may whine a blue streak and have some random pity parties, I'm sincerely thankful for what I have in my life.

Heading towards the New Year, we're still working on reducing the herd, but in this economy I'm not pushing the sales very hard.  Too many people are in financial predicaments, and I hate to see someone take on payments that can easily get away from them.  That and its hard to compete with the number of low quality horses for sale on Craigs List for $200, makes selling registered good quality horses hard.

But considering my life circumstances and the changes coming in the next year. I don't have options but to keep working to find good homes for the ones that need to move along.  My goal is to get under 30, which means half the herd has to leave in the next two years.

It's going to be hard, but that's the goal!  So, I need to get all the horses that are for sale on the sales list - bleah! Not a fun project, but its time.

I've also decided as I want to get to a certain number, I'm not breeding in 2012 and may not in 2013 depending on how life works out.

Fortunately it's been raining so our hills are green - got to love Northern California winters - and the horses are loving the extra pasture.

A couple of the sale colts:

Wesco Farms Bamboozler

Wesco Farms Best Guesstimate

 Wesco Farms Twist of Fate

Finally weaning the babies

We're finally weaning the 2011 foals - Baily (Wesco Farms TC Ascended Allure), Cricket (Wesco Farms TC Defiantly Different) and Jitters (Wesco Farms TC Up All Night) - much to their annoyance.  

Cricket is pretty much self-weaned, as her dam.  Chiclet (Cricket's grand-dam) has always had very independent babies, and apparently Annie is following suit.

Bailey is still very much a momma's girl, so I think she'll take it the hardest.  But considering she's the oldest at seven months I think it's time.

Jitters falls somewhere in the middle.  He's not dependent on his dam, Val, but does like to go to her when he feels the need.

Callita, and Rose are in their as support - they've been with the foals since birth and Sarah and April are there as well - until I'm sure April is not going to relapse with her colic.

Colic time

It's heading into winter and with the weather change, I always anticipate some mild colic as the horses get upset stomachs.  We have something on our property (we've yet to locate it in 11 years), but something that the horses get into in the Fall that guaranteed a few will come down with a belly ache.

This year it was April, one of our two year olds that I do have to watch at this time of year - she's an acorn 'ho, so we keep her locked up in the Fall.  Being one of our smallest Minis at 26.50" we do keep a careful eye on her.
.

Wesco Farms April Sunshine BB

I saw her up on the hill above the house laying down (wrong time of day - late afternoon/early evening -  for my horses to be napping).  As her and her dam are good buddies and never far from each other, I dragged her and Sarah down the hill and into the backyard.

Sarah - Wesco Farms Tricked Me Tina

Checked April and I could tell she wasn't feeling great so started treating her. She was insistent she was going to 'die' so we kept an eye on her and treated her throughout the day.  She was still not a happy camper when I gave her, her last treatment at midnight, but calm and hanging with her dam.

The next morning at 5:30 a.m. in the dark, I go out to check her.  She's of course missing. I  began the search - all the gates are closed, no holes in the fences for her to squeeze through, I even looked in the swimming pool, thought maybe she'd jumped in! No April, so I'm wondering where in the @%@% did you she go?

Finally I look under our deck and see her.  She had rolled/crawled or I don't know what but got herself about 6' under the deck.  Mind you this is not that high of deck, she couldn't stand up straight without bumping her head and I'm not a small person (besides having just the day before been given the okay from hernia surgery to resume life), so my the thought is this should be fun!

So, I crawl under the deck to check her and she's acting miserable.  I can't get her up to walk out, and she to far away to roll like a barrel (yes this occurred to me!), so I grab her by her back legs and start backing out dragging her on her back.  She's really not thrilled, but the options were few.  Move, drag, get kicked in the shins, move, drag, kick... rinse and repeat.

As soon as she was out, she called for her dam and runs off. I'm thinking how sore I'm going to be the following day (and I was!), but I still need to deal with her as she's not 100% yet.

Apparently it did the trick though, as I gave her another colic treatment and she began farting and pooping and was grazing with her dam within 20 minutes.  She's been fine since then for the past two days - the little stinker.

Minis they don't make life boring and OMG can they find the most interesting things to get into.

Week in review

Fairly slow week.  The horses are hairy and settling in for winter.  Tomas (farrier) surprised me this week  - yes I write down our appointments - but look at the calendar ... NO!

So, we got the boys all trimmed and de-wormed.  Stallions are so much easier to trim than the mares.  I was hoping to geld a couple more of the boys, but I don't think the funds are there at the moment sadly.

A recent addition to our family - Noomi's niece (out of her sister Jaz) joined us.  So we're going through puppy-hood again!  We're still trying names on her and haven't settled on one.  She's 3/4 Pyreness and 1/4 Maremma.  She's already bigger than our Mini Aussies.

The other exciting news - Anya passed her DMV test, so I'm officially off taxi duty!  Now I don't have to worry about her driving me, just her driving solo!  She's having a great time and is off on daily runs.  Nice to have someone that can run to the store for milk now - lol!

Testing the new Blogger features

Winter is coming, or should say arrived this weekend.  Okay so it's suppose to be Fall, but it's in the 30's at night so feels very wintery here!

The horses are doing great and don't seem to mind the chilly weather.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to grow a lovely thick coat of insulating hair - lol.

We've been doing maintenance around here (the never-ending job) on fences and gates, as well as looking at setting up a new foaling paddock.

I'm hoping to get back to maintaining this blog a bit more - life's been overly busy the past couple of months, but will hopefully get back on track!



Testing out the new blog features on Blogger and incorporating Google+ - fun stuff!

September and finally back

Well I've been AWOL for a bit, but it's been a fast and busy few weeks.

I had to deal with the death of my dog.  You know the dog that is your gaga, super-buddy, can't think what you'd do with out pet - yea that one. Sweetie was accidentally ran over in front of our house, and I felt horrible for the worker, as I know it was not intentional.  But still knocked me out of commission for a few days.  I did find out one useful thing, I can't self induce a heart-attack, as I tried - yes I was that upset while burying her.  On top of that we've had my car in/out of the shop, my PC died, house repairs and I finally had surgery to repair an umbilical hernia.  So fun times!

The horses though apparently are thriving on neglect, as other than feeding/watering and checking them they've had zero entertainment or interaction, well other than some scratches.  As I'm still out of commission a few more weeks, hooves are getting long - not too creepy but definitely due for Tomas time!

Other than the personal fun though, the horses are doing well, still chunky, although it looks pretty sparse on the hills they're still waddling down.  Silhouette injured her eye (fully recovered now), so has been in the backyard for a month.  She loves to hang there and has enjoyed her daily browsing on peaches, roses and all the green growing grass.  She know looks oh eight months pregnant and isn't.  

The foals are all old enough to be weaned, but I think I'm going to wait another month or so.  Jitters and Cricket are pretty independent now, but Bailey's still a mommas girl.  I'd rather wait until it's a little bit cooler weather.  Their dams, Val, Annie and Swan are all resembling 'normal' horses as they've trimmed down quite a bit.  I'm not looking forward to weaning, maybe look at the Farmer's Almanac and find the good times for the next couple of months!



AMHR Nationals start today (September 8) and run through the 18th.  Show info available at Horse Show Online's site.  Best of luck to all everyone that is competing.  Just going is a big deal, IMHO, so hope everyone has a wonderful time!  According to the pie chart on Horse Show Online - 12% of the exhibitors are from Texas. 4% from California - go California - lol!


Google+  I still have invites if anyone would like to try it, send me an email wescofarms@gmail.com!

Upcoming Events

There are a few upcoming horse related events that I'm sharing, between life and life, I'm not attending too many live events, but will be watching the online ones!


AMHA Western Championship Show 

The Western Champions Show is streaming live on iEquine.com.  Show Schedule and streaming video available on the IEquine page.  July 21-24th starting at 8 a.m. PST.



Online auction

MiniHorseStreet.com is hosting a one hour dutch auction Wednesday July 20th 9 p.m. EST.  It is one hour only and will have 40 horses for sale in that time frame.  Should be interesting.  MiniHorseStreet does recommend using Mozilla Foxfire to watch the auction, so if you don't use Mozilla (I prefer Chrome but keep both on my PC), get it!  I love Thunderbird too - awesome way to get all your email in one easy to use place.

Preview Auction lots here.


MSU online classes  

Michigan State University has quite a collection of online classes (some free) that are for non-credit education.  One that I'm attending tomorrow is The Advances in Equine Genetics webcast.  It is live Wednesday, July 20 from 1pm–2pm EDT.  You do have to registered with MSU to take the classes, but it's easy and what a great way to add a bit more to the equine care toolbox!


AREA VII California Classic Show

The Area VII AMHR/ASPC California Classic Show is scheduled for July 30-31, Wilton, CA.  Pre-entry closed on the 18th, but there is still time to enter!  There are even a few non-rated (i.e. no registration required) classes on July 30th.  The show is at the Pacific Equestrian Center, Wilton. CA.  Class sponsorships are available too!!

Real Life Horse Whisperer

Just an FYI Passing this along - local showing in Davis California

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Coming Friday, July 15th ~ Playing For One Week Only

Buck
Buck, a richly textured and visually stunning film, follows Brannaman from his abusive childhood to his phenomenally successful approach to horses. A real-life “horse-whisperer”, he eschews the violence of his upbringing and teaches people to communicate with their horses through leadership and sensitivity, not punishment.

Buck possesses near magical abilities as he dramatically transforms horses – and people – with his understanding, compassion and respect. In this film, the animal-human relationship becomes a metaphor for facing the daily challenges of life.

A truly American story about an unsung hero, BUCK is about an ordinary man who has made an extraordinary life despite tremendous odds.


"In some sense it was beauty that saved Mr. Brannaman, that of his conscience and that of horses, which, having been tied to humans long ago, became companions, workers and for some, as this lovely movie shows, saviors." ~Manohla Dargis, New York Times

Click here for the official website.

Click here for Varsity Theatre ticket prices. (Davis, CA) ** Great theater, I go there often for movies.