December has joined the herd at the ranch

December was born last December 1st to Thunder and Polka Dot and has been living with them on the property next door.  We brought over to this side of the fence on July 6th and she is slowly acclimating to the larger herd here.  She will probably get halter trained in the Fall when our awesome horse trainer returns - Karyn Shirley http://www.purplesageequine.com/

She is running up the hill at the ranch the first day here.

She has lovely markings.

The first few days she spent a lot of time by the fence visiting her parents

 on the other side. I think she has a lovely face.

I posted this photo of her when she was 24 hours old.  It is fun to compare her then and now!

Majestic and Mystery

Majestic will be a year old in May.  He is an amazing runner and he is already very tall.

Thunder and Mystery have a delightful relationship.  Thunder is very patient with our new colt.  My nick name for Mystery is "Carrot top" because of the hair between his ears. He is very sweet and his coloring is lighter, at least for now.

I love the photos of these two.

My favorite photo of the year!

Thunder has changed a lot over the years.  He is a lot calmer and always very happy to see us.  He is no longer afraid of humans.  We still can't touch him and I respect his boundaries but he comes right up to us with love in his eyes.

Thunder

Thunder is the lead stallion of the pinto herd and has been on the coast for his whole life. We are not sure his age but the best guest is he is over 20.  In the above photo he is standing on the bluff above Highway 1 looking very regal where he is admired by people when they drive by.

When I first met him he had a pretty bad reputation as the fence on the property he was living on was down. He would get into trouble wandering around the neighborhood.  However things have changed for him and so he has changed!  He now lives on a totally fenced in property, gets extra food regularly and does not have such a large herd to be responsible for anymore.  He is much calmer and very happy.  He has adjusted to humans, although we cannot touch him, we can hand feed him carrots. 

I absolutely adore him and he has so much love in his eyes when we are with him. 

He is too old to be gelded so he would die. He still produces babies with the two mares that live with him.  If we took the mares away and brought them next door to our property, he would break the fence down to get to them. Horse instinct to breed is very strong, so in this case we must let nature takes its course.  

His herd is smaller because we have the other stallions from the original herd, now geldings, living on our side of the fence.  When the new colts and fillies are a year old we also bring them over here and the colts are gelded at the appropriate age so they cannot breed. 

Some recent photos of Thunder with his latest son, Majestic

Majestic is 6 weeks old in these photos.

A New Colt

On May 17th Mama gave birth to a new colt, Majestic. We have not had a new colt for three years. Here he is 9 days old and  is very curious and serious.  He is just precious and it was love at first sight for all of us.  He has a special presence and he is going to be very big, thus the name Majestic.   

With his mother.

Majestic's eating with his parents, Thunder and Mama. His legs are so long that he has to spread them out in order to reach the grass. LOL.

Graceful Thunder

I love watching Thunder run, he is so majestic and such a free spirit when he is running.

Here he is running up the hill today after I called out his name.  He came when he saw us bringing food for the herd.  Even though he looks very small here, you can get a sense of the beautiful place he gets to live in.  It was a glorious day today and all the herd was very happy not to have too much wind and no rain. (We had rain and fog the past two days.)

May Brings A New Filly!

On approximately May 24th Mama gave birth to a sweet little filly. We named her "Little Lady" after Lady the old mare who died last March.

She is just a few days old in these photos.
While I was photographing her and her mother, Miss Moonbeam (Missy) and  Thunder decided to get into the act!

Poor Sweetie had to watch all the action from the other side of the fence

Today I started thinking about the other foals that have been born since we met the herd.  Here are images of the earlier babies.

Suki, a colt, born July 28th, 2009.

 Miss Moonbeam born May 6, 2010.

Splash a filly, born July 5th, 2010

ROUND PEN

We are very fortunate to have a round pen for the horses.which came about unexpectedly. It was built by some friends, Eve Larson, Mike Denning and Allan Adams who did a great job with the construction and he used is own wood that he had milled.  It is 50’ in diameter and about 5 feet tall. It turns out we didn’t make it quite tall enough if we want to train horses in it…it should be 6-7 feet high. If we decide to do any more training there, we will need to raise it.  It is attached to the gate that leads into the fenced area for the horses.

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!

Thunder and Suki

It has been awhile since I have written a post. December has been very busy with lots of pinto calendar sales and greeting card orders.
The weather has often been foggy and rainy and so the pintos did not come up as often. Suki is definitly going to be whte and black (rather than brown-for awhile he was looking lighter). He is getting bigger every time I see him. He has a trusting personality and now eats his share of alpha squares and carrots. He allows me to hug him and is a delight to watch when he runs.
Been trying for awhile to get a photo of him next to his father, Thunder and this is the best one so far.

A vote for Thunder

Thunder is such a majestic stallion. I have photographed him many times and it is an ongoing challenge to reveal his true nature in a one photo. He can be very curious, shy, watchful, protective, and intense. When I am feeding all the horses sometimes he stands to the side and other times he gets very close to me. He watches as we pet and hug the colt, and we often get the feeling he would like to be able to allow himself that treat as well. He has only taken a carrot from our hand about 3-4 times in the year that we have been feeding the horses. Each time he was very surprised and startled himself. You know he wants it when we hold the carrot out, because he will nip at another horse if they try to get it. He can seem very sweet at times and of course other times he is clearly in charge!

Let me know which image you like the best in the comments section below.