Sweetie's Pasture

It has been a very busy spring at the ranch.
Sweetie has arthritis in his  right front knee and because the land the pintos graze on, it was decided that he needs to live in a flat area.  John Schmidt  http://www.jschmidtconstruction.com/   and his wonderful crew fenced in the flat area of our back meadow.  Below are photos of Sweetie and Majestic checking it out yesterday.

Also John and his  crew did a wonderful job building us an arena near the holding pen so we can work with the horses in a larger contained area.

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!

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.

Fence Is Being Built!

Now that is a lot of cement!  Here are just some of the supplies.

                         

Here the posts are being layed out.  The sticks are markers for where the posts are going.

The posts are being put into the ground;

So we are well under way. 

The Fence and Update on the Pintos

I am now the proud owner, actually I don't like that word, the new guardian of the 7 wild pintos!  My neighbor where the horses lived, had to sell his land and  his only choices for the pintos was to find them a new home right away or they would have had to go to auction.
Since the horses basically adopted me about a year ago (see older posts below), there was no way I was going to let them go to auction or leave this area. They have become the local celebrities of  Point Arena and I am touched by how many people care about these lovely animals.
As you can see from the above photo, the fence line is down between the two properties and we don't have any fencing on our property, so we need to build a fence to keep them safe from wandering around the neighborhood or getting onto the highway. I will be posting pictures of the fence as it is being built.
Presently, I never know when the horses will come over from the other side of the fence.  Sometimes every day and sometimes not for several days. While we were in the middle of the paper work transferring the horses to me, they showed up!  It is as if they knew!
Several local people have offered financial help and have given suggestions, for which the pintos and I are very grateful.  It is a large project and if there is anyone else who wishes to make a donation please email me at pa@photographycreated.com . Any amount is appreciated and because we are not a foundation, your donations will not be tax decutible.  You can also purchase pinto cards at my website http://www.photographycreated.com/ the profits from these cards goes towards the pintos care.