An Emma day....

Got Emma caught today and trimmed her feet and removed the horsemans sign of Fall, LOL Bot fly eggs around here, are always a sign of fall, now I have to deal with the pesky things until we have a good hard freeze, probably toward the end of October. This Slick and Easy block is my very favorite bot egg remover(it is a pumice stone, very soft though), its quick, painless and easy! No more bot knives (useless in my opinion) or razor blades for me! Micky's turn next. Easy runs from the bot flies, so gets very few on her.


I gave Emma food to keep her occupied while I did her feet, it worked for the most part, except for her shaking hay in my hair while I did her front feet LOL.

My tools, apron, clippers, hoof knife, hoof pick, and Sweet tea! the best stuff! I also have two different hoof stands, and various other things, I keep everything but the stands in a 3 gal. bucket.

This is Emmas back leg, I love how the color wraps around her hocks. I have probably taken one of these pictures before :0) You can still see some of the cobwebbing she has on her gaskin, she really has a lot of dun factor, its just harder to see now that she is all roaned out.

And my apple butt Appaloosa LOL with her feet all done and bot eggs taken off. Her tail almost is to the ground, she has a beautiful tail, but not much mane LOL Meghan keeps telling me I should roach it off, but I dont want to.

Emma did good, I had less wiggling and pulling away of her feet, I let her get way to long, I hate that, but all better now! Mickey is next, hers arent quite as long, but she needs bot eggs taken off too, and she needs a hair trim too LOL she has a "Roman" horse hair do LOL The weather is turning now, its wet and rainy and cold, I now think Fall is really here!

Pam and Dublin go to class....

Dublin and I had a puppy training class in Boring, Oregon, at the Guide Dogs for the Blind campus. The classes were on Sat. the 26th, from 1pm to 4pm, we ended up getting done by 3:30pm.
This is how impressed Dublin was with the whole thing, LOL, he slept most of the time. The classes we had to take were, FIR, or Food induced recall, and Food protocol training.

There were a lot of people there! There was also another class block in the morning, but me not being a morning person, LOL opted for the afternoon class, it is about an hour drive for me down to Boring.

Dublin got to be a "Rock Star" LOL he got to do a demonstration for little puppys on the FIR concept, using food to get them to come at this age, basically, Dublin likes this game very much!

Call them and get them to come to you for the treat, bend down so they take the treat between your legs, so they are used to stopping there for future training.

This is a little blurry, Dublin gets all excited about food LOL, but he did very well, we have been working on the potty training protocol at home LOL and have done just a little of this so far, he is coming along very well. He looks so little in these pictures! At home he comes and sits when told pretty consistantly now. The down will be our next project.

Food, food, wheres the food! LOL FIR will really motivate this dog.

They had several older puppys and their handlers do the recall too. They start out on the 4' leash with the little ones and eventually depending on how fast they progress, the 6' and go to a 20' line, so that you can make sure when you give the "come" command they come, or you can reel them in with the line. They dont go off leash until they are very proficient at this.

For the Food protocol part of the class, yes they are two very different behaviors, we had to get up and practice our timing, when a tennis ball hit the floor we had to say "nice" to practice when to say it to the dog, so our timing with the behavior wanted was better. So far they are only using this type of training with problem behavior dogs, and dont want us to use it for the puppies yet. They do want us to be familiar with it, in case our puppy needs it in the future or they decide to add it to the puppy raiser program.

Our neighbor for the class, I dont remember his name, he wanted to play with Dublin so bad, LOL, and was so cute, he kept creeping closer and closer LOL.

And Dublin in his favorite pose for the afternoon. I was really happy with how he behaved, it was our first "down" outing, as he does not have all his shots yet and we dont want him to be down on the ground in a public place yet. Dublin pottyed on command "do your business" every time I took him out to go, and on the pavement! He was a very good puppy!

Thanks to our instructors, they did a very good job! Here they are demo-ing with another older puppy. The classes gave me a lot to think about and some things to practice and a really good feeling about Dublin, I think he really will be a "Rock Star" LOL he seems to have the mind for it, he is very calm and observes everything, meet and greets new dogs very politely, walked on the leash nice, we are still working on some pulling, but he is only 10 1/2 weeks old! All in all he is coming along very nicely. He actually slept 6 hours last night Woo Hoo! So that is coming along too.

Next puppy class with the club on Thursday, will have more pictures then!

Macro Monday....

Spotted Appaloosa hide, and part of her mane.

A close up of one of my favorite horse brushes, the leather handle.

And a mud knot in Emmas tail.

I am late posting my Monday macros, but I made it finally!

To see more go to http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/ Sunday stills and Monday macros.

Sunday stills, signs of Fall....

Oh the signs of Fall, Hubby wanted me to make sure and post a picture of our Fall labors. Green beans and zucchini, we canned 3 canner fulls of beans and squash, hadnt done the squash before, seems to taste just fine! LOL couldnt hurt to try, I have a plethora of zucchini LOL Oh and the Walla Walla sweet onions, they are from the grocery store, but they have a short shelf life and you can only get the real ones in the Fall, the best sweet onions there are! And the only ones I eat LOL


We have some jars of wild Chantrelle mushrooms from last year left too, they are great canned!

My sunflowers, we had some bad wind and I had to tie it up, only helped a little bit, it is probably around 12 feet tall! A beautiful shade of orange for Fall!

Here or some of the flower heads that are ripe, they are small like black oil sunflowers, the birds will love them!

A cluster of 4 blossoms, this plant has a ton of flowers at the top and down the stem, quite beautiful, I hadnt planted this variety before. These blooms are about 10-12 inches across.

And signs of Fall, we have a ton of these all over the patio, and its just getting started LOL we only have one Red Maple tree and boy can it pack on the leaves! Twice this week the thermometer has said 38F in the morning! Fall is well on its way. We should get our first freeze in October.

For more signs of Fall at Sunday Stills go here http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/

Emma and Apples...

Emma loves loves loves her apples. She will stand under the tree and wait for apples to fall, if you are out by the apple tree she will come talk to you and beg for apples LOL silly horse.
I ran to grab my camera because I loved the light at this time of the evening. What I didnt catch was the strings of slobber that she had too LOL.


I love this mare, she is very easy to read, and can be frustrating too LOL. If you are unbalanced or she just dosent want to she will stop and refuse to go forward, we are working on that, I believe it is a respect issue. She only does it in an arena, I have never had her refuse out on the trail, well except for the first time we crossed water LOL, when the other horses went around the bend out of sight, she decided that it was probably a good idea to cross, and she just walked calmly across, little brat.

She wants so bad to be the Alpha mare, but Mickey is much more stubborn than Emma is. Mickey is very passive aggressive usually and wont bite, but they do get in some good kick fights once and awhile. It took the two of them a year and a half before Emma gave up and gives in to Mickey. Mares LOL. Easy hides behind Mickey to avoid Emma when she can LOL that old mare is always one to take the path of least resistance. Here we have the boss coming over to see if Emma is hoarding any more apples, and of course there were more, she loves her apples too.

I still havnt been able to get out on a nice trail ride, darn it.
Didnt get to go pick Huckleberries either. With Hubbys new job and shift work and no time off we just havnt been able to do a lot. Hopefully things will change, Hubby will have some well earned vacation next year.

Macro Monday....

A little bit of history around the house....

Dads cross country skis, from the US Army in 1964, in Alaska. Wooden skis, bamboo poles and leather on the baskets.

Dads snowshoes, also used when he was in the Army. Dad gave them to me a few years back to hang on my wall. The color and patina fit the house perfect. Leather bindings and rawhide lacing on the snowshoes.

These sit on one of my nick nack shelves. In honor of hunting season starting. Old deer tags from 1954 and 1955, they are metal. Hubbys grandfather I believe is the one who harvested these deer. (If not he will tell me LOL) The deer and the memories are long gone, but these remain, and we can only wonder about the fun they had back then.

This is the East wall of our living room, not a macro pic, but had to show you the full picture of the skis and snowshoes. Our house is a 1964 A frame house, the in-laws lived here for 30 some odd years and didnt put anything on the walls/ceiling in the living room. Me it screamed out for all my decorations and log cabin look! LOL

For more Monday macros go to http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/macro-monday-for-9-21-09/#comment-2598

Sunday stills, the color Purple....

Alas, I dont have a whole lot of purple in my life LOL, and all the flowers outside are about done. what I could find is the puppy's toy, has purple.

He loves his rope LOL

And the Dahlia that is my new favorite! It actually is more purple than the photo shows, but for some reason even on all different settings, it still washes out.

So that is what I can come up with for purple, I look around the living room and all I see that is purple is a pair of scissors on the desk. I am more a blues and greens and browns person LOL.

For more Sunday stills, the color Purple go to http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/ I hope they all had better luck than I did!

Dublin goes to the feed store....

I havnt blogged in a couple days, I have been getting a little less sleep due to the new puppy, last night he actually went 5 hours! instead of just 3.
The mares are hairing up good now, Fall is just around the corner! Instead of being let out in the field today Mickey would rather have me scratch and brush her, got quite a bit of hair off of her, not like spring but a bit. She stopped half way out of the gate and asked me to scratch her again, I did LOL then she wouldnt leave LOL Easy enjoyed being brushed too, but she was out the gate like a rocket, typical for her LOL. Emma she was already down in the field, I leave her outside gate open, so she didnt get brushed, I will check her tonight.

Had to go to the feed store today and get grain, some bedding, fly wipe, and a muck bucket. Easy goes through 50lbs of beet pulp in about 3 weeks and 50lbs of grain every 2 weeks, and we were out. I also was out of fly wipe, and needed a muck bucket for water in the pen, the old one died last winter and the big trough that I thought would be great has a hole in in, then the 15 gallon rubber fiber tub I was using, also has a hole in it, ((sigh)) it frustrating to fill up the water and she is out in a couple hours. So I broke down and purchased another muck bucket, the old one lasted 5-6 years, and part of that was outside in the winter.
Loaded up in the old truck for a run to town. Meghan went too.


Here we are arriving at the feed store. Isnt he cute with his little jacket on!

This is the feed store where I worked for 7 years.

Meghan put Dublin on the scale, the little poop weighs just shy of 15lbs! doing good. Another 13 lbs and he can have his Frontline.

He was so good and sat there and behaved himself, he officially is the same size as our old dog Teddy.

Dublin hasnt had all his shots yet so he cant be put on the ground in a public place, so Meghan found a place to put him LOL LOL. This is Nicoletta and Meghan with the puppy.

Home, now I have to unload it! Six bags of wood pellets, love the stuff for bedding! I guarantee you will have 1/3, of the manure pile, compared to shavings! I would like to buy a half ton, 25 bags, so I have it on hand for the winter. These wood pellets are running $215 ton. Well that was our adventure to the feed store this time!

Sara in Iraq...

Here is Sara in Saddam Husseins throne, or one of them LOL She said it was ok to post the ones of her, but there are certain restrictions to what they can show. Any way! my baby is in Iraq!

Love you Sara!

Dublin, part 3.

Amy with Josh and me with Dublin. Josh is going to be a dark color.

Amy, me and Martha, with, Josh, Dublin and McCoy. All the new puppies in our club, Guiding Eyes of Clark County.

This is just so cute I cant stand it, the look on his face and his first piddle LOL LOL
(sorry its a bit overexposed)(Black dogs disappear, white ones glow)

Riding in the car, and no he didnt stay down there, he ended up in my lap! He rode in the car real well.

Meg and Dublin playing.

He is quite the character already!

Jessie, our 8 year old Golden retriever, she plays and plays with him, she is so gentle. He thinks its funny to get her tail LOL and sneaks up on it.

So cute when he is sleeping, or awake :0)