Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Suki and the New Fence - Thunder


Suki has been very curious about the fence. He is now 9 months old and is not quite as black as his father Thunder. He is more of a chocolate black. He is a real sweetheart and I can always pet him and hug him.

Suki was really enjoying scratching himself against the fence.

Since his dad is the lead stallion, Thunder has been the most cautious about me. However we have made great strides, he takes carrots from my hands - that took many months. For the past few days he now takes squares from my hands, which means he is actually touching my fingers! We have an interesting relationship. He is always the most excited to see me, the first one usually to run up and he will follow me very closely. He watches me touch Suki and I can see he would love to allow that to happen to him. Hopefully patience will win out and someday I will be able to hug him too!

Polka Dot


Suki's mom looks pregnant again. Any guesses about how far along she might be? Horses gestate for 11 months. Suki was born the end of last July.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Feeding Time!


For the past three days the horses have calmed down enough that they decided it was time for them to go through the gate from next door and come up to get food. I feed them at the bench so they are waiting for me to show up. They have been here 2 times before since the fence was built but they weren't too happy about being fenced in here. Today they have been around all day.

There are alfalfa squares soaking in water in the bowl. Suki and Lady, the older mare, both can eat out of the bowl. It wasn't until today that Sweetie and Little One became interested in the bowl, which I am excited about since I eventually want to feed them some grain which they will have to eat out of a container.

Our wonderful neighbor

We received an unexpected and delightfu suprise. We are very fortunate and grateful that the new owners of the land next door loves the pintos! This is the land that the pintos have lived on all of their lives. The owners could not take responsibility for them as they live in Southern Californa and will only be up here occasionally. He is fixing his fence (same wonderful crew who built ours) so the horses can still roam on his land from time to time. This is a great news for the locals who love seeing these horses from the highway and consider them the local celebreties!
We have put in a gate between the 2 properties so they can go back and forth at times. Here you can get a better view of the field fence.
Here you can see the horses grazing at our neighbors. It has been tricky to get them over here because  there has been so much acitivity the past weeks with the building of fences on both properties. They have needed a period of adjustment to all the changes. The above post will show images of the pintos finally coming back up to our place for food.

New Fence is Finished!


The new fence is all done! . It looks great and the wonderful men who built it even worked in the pouring rain. This image is the area where we feed the horses.



This is part of the fence that runs on the south side of the property. This fence is a field fence as it goes between the 2 properties and we wanted to make sure it was strong enough for the horses in case they decide to go back over to the other side.

This is another area of the fence for the horses- the old fence posts in the front have been here for a long time and fence nothing but I love the vintage look of the old posts. You can see the south side of the fence near the phone poles. The tensil wire and twisted wire (non barb wire) can hardly be seen between the posts.