V-day Update

Sorry it has been a while since I have had a chance to update the blog.  I apologize and will try to keep up better:)

Scooter is growing FAST!!!  I will take a picture when I remember of the stall markers that I have been tracking his height growth on.  He is just sprouting like a bean.  I really hope he just keeps going up up up :)

So when we get the opportunity I like to take Scooter for a walk down our 1/2 mile driveway to get the mail.  It was a bit of a task the first time we did it because Scooter seemed to not enjoy the fact that the dogs decided to come with too.  He bucked and kicked and over all acted like a 6 month out foal with to much energy :P  The only problem with this is the fact that the drive way is icy, obviously, because it is winter.  My heart just stopped in my chest whenever he decided he was going to let the dogs know he was not enjoying their company because I could just envision him sliding around and pulling a tendon or something even worse.  Ekkk.  

Today's walk went a little smoother, he seemed to be less perturbed that the dogs were joining us.  He seemed more fixed on the fact that he was forced to leave his heard mates.  He showed his distaste for the matter by putting on the brakes and protesting to even move an inch.  I resorted to the butt rope, something I have not done since he first day he was here and everything was new and scary.  This did not seem to be that sort of matter at all though.  This was Scooter telling me that he was not going to do what i wanted unless he did not have a choice in the matter.  The little goober decided to show his dislike for the butt rope by nipping at me whenever I was not paying close enough attention to him or what he was doing.  It was not hard, he was just letting me know he didn't like what we were doing.  He seems to be doing a lot of nipping lately when he feels something is distasteful or not to his liking.  I think we might have a stud on our hands, which I am happy about because I have been worried that his man hood would not descend and that drastic matter would have to be taken.

that is all for now

happy trails to you

day off

So I have today off, a rare occurrence for me lately, not that I am complaining.  It is nice to see the horses in the day light :)

Well, everyone had to stay in all yesterday because we had a HUGE snow storm and it was blowing snow all over.  Ugaboo my OTTB gelding was shivering, so I brought everyone inside to keep them cozy and warm.  Scooter was already stuck in overnight ( I don't trust Avante to be out at night with scooter till he is a little bigger and can defend himself more).  So It was a wild morning letting everyone out.  I turned Ugaboo and Avante out, then brought Scooter out.  Avante promptly chased Scooter out of the gate (I only had one strand of it up) and Scooter took that time to expend some of that weanling energy he obviously had stored up from being stuck in his stall for a day and a half.  He ran around in the huge snow piles bucking and kicking out at nothing than ran up and down the nice plowed driveway while I almost had a stroke because under that nice coating of snow is 3 inches of ice.  Of course oblivious to that Scooter tore up and down and I held my breath, imagining the worse case scenario and mental calculating how much I could spend on the vet bill and still afford milk.  When he got close enough I grabbed him around the head, wrestler style and fought a battle of strength (silly I know, fighting a baby that out-weights me by at least 300 lbs) but miraculously I won!  Score for today Nicole 1:  Scooter 0

So as I gaze out the window at my beautiful horses and soak in the fact that I am one of the luckiest girls in the world being able to see them out my kitchen window, I notice Scooter sticks awful close to Ugaboo.  Whenever Ugaboo moves even an inch, Scooter is glued to his side moving exactly in his shadow.  I am starting to wonder 2 things:  is it because Scooter was weaned very early and now he has formed a strange bond with Ugaboo envisioning him as his surrogate mother (this is very possibly because Ugaboo seems to have a strange attachment to Scooter also.  He is distraught when he can not see Scooter or when Scooter is being naughty, aka this am)  or possibility two is that Scooter has figured out that if he sticks next to the boss, he is less likely to get beaten up by Avante because no one messes with the 16.1 horse in the pasture :P    I guess further investigation through out the day is needed

happy trails to you
Nicole

Scooters Pedigree

ok so here is Scooter's Sire side of the pedigree, I apparently lost his damn's papers so I will post them as soon as I find them.

He is not registered quiet yet.  I wanted his injuries to heal completely before I took his pictures for his registration papers.

I have written these 4 names down for his registered names and would love to get two more suggestions.  They are in the numerical order they are in for his papers.

1) 6bucksbetterthangold
2) sixbucksbetterngold
3) 6x better than gold
4) six bucks baby

I got the better than gold idea from a web site you can enter your horses pedigree and any other information that you want and people suggest names for you horse.  I thought it was the best one they came up with because he really is better than gold to me :)

Here is Scooters Sire's pedigree

                                                  China Bill
                                       Cutters Wild Willy
                                                  Miss Poco Sarah
                             Poco Del Sun
                                                  Big Sonsation
                                        Missdelcodypoco
                                                  Missdelcodypoco
Poco Del Hearts
(Palomino)                                 Impressor
                                         Sir Impressor
                                                  Cee Bob Babe
                               Hearts On Gold
                                                  Future Unlimited
                                           Futures Gold Lady
                                                   Betty Bird


since he had Impressor and Poco Del Bueno on his pedigree I called the AQHA and made sure that his stud (poco del hearts) was HYPP negative, which thank the heavens, he is...so Scooter is HYPP negative too :)  We are still not sure if he is negative for Herda but I figured since he came to me with such a horrific injury he must be since it healed ok and actually looks good not. I guess only time will tell if he is truly Herda negative but I am optimistic
                                           

Scooter has been so itchy lately.  He has really learned to appreciate and love being groomed.  He has just been relishing in the love and attention I have been showering him with (I can't help myself, as it is well know to my friends, I have a very weak spot for cute animals, and he is one of the cutest).  It is so fun and rewarding to see the change that has come over him the 3 months (wow!! It is hard for me to believe that he has been with me that long) that he has been with me.  He is so personable now and so loving and actually affectionate.  It is amazing that something so good could have come out of something so sad and horrible.  Don't get me wrong, he was not wild when i got him; unlike his little filly friend daisy(a friend of mine bought her and graciously let me "borrow" her until scooter was big enough and acquainted enough with my big boys to let them be turned out together) whom was very wild and actually hated people.  I felt very very bad for her and tried to befriend her to no avail until she left around Thanksgiving.  It is so hard to see young horses hate people so much and be so terrified of humans that they act out with aggression. It broke my heart to see her go, but alas she was not my horse and seeing that I now had 3 horses of my own to feed I could not afford to buy her let alone feed her too :( 

There I go off track, I was talking about scooter being silly and quirky lately.  He is sooo itchy it is comical.  When I come into the barn in the morning, I see a little sorrel and white fuzzy nose peak over the stall door and a cute little whinny to great me with all the cats of course too.  I give Scooter his scoop of food and do my custom morning check over by removing his blanket and making sure everything looks good.  He usually is eating to this point, but when that blanket is removed, he rubs and stops eating and rolls his eyes back into his head in ecstasy when I grab the curry comb and start brushing.  It is by far the cutest thing I see in the mornings.  He groans and grunts in pleasure.  Then I put his blanket back on and let him finish breakfast while I get everyone else their breakfast, me included.  When I come back out to let him out before I head to work he is so excited to go outside he can hardly contain himself.  We prance and jig and are barely able to slip the halter on.  When I lead him out the door, stopping at the door ways of course because it is a pet peeve of mine when horses run you over in the door ways, he is all energy to get out and romp in the snow.  We walk/prace/jig/jog to the pasture and get greetings from Ugaboo ( my bay OTTTB gelding that is IN LOVE with Scooter) and cross ears from Avante (he is not the most fond of Scooter yet...we are working on that) and Scooter can hardly contain himself to get out there and play.  Now comes the strange part, we get to the pasture and get Scooter's halter off and he tries to escape, every day, without fail and go back to the barn.  Explain that one to me.  I secure the fence again and he usually stands at the gate, just looking at me like, please mama, I want to go back in now.  It is so strange!!  I just don't get it.  I am starting to think he just likes to be free aka out of the pasture and running around.  Maybe he thinks the electric fence is to confining for his taste..who knows.  I drive off to work and look in my rear view mirror at Scooter standing at the gate, waiting to go back into the barn...and I come home later that evening and see Scooter standing at the gate, waiting to go into the barn.  Now don't get me wrong, I am sure he moves away from the gate, or at least I hope he does, at some point during the day, but how would I ever know since I am normally not home during the day.  It maybe one of those unsolved mysteries...

Well that is all for today, off to do chores
happy trails to you

scooter in his blanket

Here is Scooter, in his blanket :)  with the all appropriate snow

-16 outside

So I am off to fix fence, and it is -16 outside, I just check on weather.com Good thing is it feels like -16 rather than -32 like it was last night. Dang horses. That is all I have to say about that

Sub-zero and farm life in the winter

So, I am getting sick of winter already and we still have like 5 more months of this! I have decided I would love to move, or move the horses for the winter. I am sick of dealing with frozen hoses (I am talking about the hose freezing before the water reaches the end b/c there was water already in the hose) and hauling buckets of water to and from the barn and the water tank in the pasture. I am also sick of trudging through feet of snow to get to the pasture and the barn and the water pump just to find that my puppy has ran off with one of my mittens (always the right one) so I have no glove to finish out my chores with. I have to say a good thing that has happened is that I bought a sled for myself (BEST IDEA EVER!!!) it makes doing chores SO much easier, hauling hay is so much easier. Ok, that is my complaint for the blog.

that being said, it seems scooter has entered in to his terrible two's and he is only 6 months old. With it being as cold as it is, you would expect all the horses to be placid and well cold, so they would not want to move. Oh no, not scooter, he is bucking and kicking and just acting out in general. He jumped out of his stall on Saturday, at some point in the night and I found him in the morning running around the barn, getting into EVERYTHING. Then when I went to catch him, he acted out of course and ran and bucked and just had a riot. He looked at least like he was having a blast. This said, he has escaped from his pasture every day for the past 8 days. He either busts right through the poly wire fence, or he climbs through it. I caught him today right when he busted out and he was going his merry little way down the drive way, to Scooter only knows where. Needless to say he is locked in a stall at the current moment till tomorrow morning when I can do some MAJOR fence repair. This CAN NOT happen any more!

That is all for tonight.

oh yes and I broke down and bought a heated 5 gallon pail because all of my buckets are frozen solid and I don't have the energy or the time to crack them out before they freeze solid every few hours :( lets hope the investment proves worth it

Thank you from Scooter

 

this is the goof butt's favorite thing to do lately, stand inside the hay tires

I wanted to send out a HUGE thank you to Shirley Warnick!!! Thank you so so much from the depths of my heart and scooters for your foal blanket! It is still a little big but it is keeping Scooter safe and warm inside his stall. It arrived just in time for the weather to drop well below zero. He is very warm and cozy :) Thank you again! I will get pictures and post them as soon as I can (hopefully tomorrow since it is my first day off since christmas :) ) He is so handsome in his new outfit, even though he was a little skeptical of it at first, he especially didn't enjoy these new fangled things that are leg straps :P I had to coax him for about an hour to get him to actually be ok with them touching his leg, but the blanket is on and he is roasty toasty warm and oh so happy to be dry and warm in this cold weather. Thank you again so much Shirely!! You made Scooter and I christmas and new year Oh So Merry!!

Scooters injuries 2

here are the other pictures I could not get onto the same blog

Scooters injuries

I thought everyone would be interested in the injuries that scooter sustained when he came to my farm. So here they are. Thankfully they are mostly healed now although he seems to be a little off in his left front shoulder and his right hinds seems to have some sort of residual swelling, that perhaps will always be there, but I hope not.

crazy crazy times

Sorry it has been a little bit since I have been able to write. It has been insanity around the farm here. Scooter has gotten out of the pasture every day since I first blogged, and most days more than once. So I have been trying to figure out what is going on that is driving him out of the pasture. I think I finally narrowed it down to my horse Avante (a palomino that I adopted/rescued) that seems to be picking on him. I am just not sure what to do at this moment. I do like Avante, he is a cute horse and although he is unbroke (my project horse) he is very gentle and sweet towards me. He just doesn't seem to like Scooter at all, he actually picks on him ruthlessly. Poor Poor scooty, all he wants is to fit in :( I guess I am lost as to what to do at this moment.