Skeeter's Baby Pictures

On some of the FB pages I follow, I've seen that people are able to find pictures of their horses before they were rounded up and I got curious to see if there were any of Princess Skeeter.

I went to the Piceance/East Douglas FB page to see if any of their photographers had managed to capture her, but their page only goes back to 2011 and she was rounded up in 2010.  I was bummed, but determined.

I remembered that I had seen a YouTube video of a gather (this was while everyone was up in arms about the Wyoming Checkerboard gather), so I decided to see if anyone had videotaped her gather.

They hadn't.

However, the BLM produced a "pre-gather" video explaining the necessity of the gather, so I watched it and there she was!

Her blaze back then took up most of her face (she's grown into it), but you can see it's the identical "Unicorn facing to the right" blaze (thanks for that description Funder).  Here's the video, let's see if you can find her:



There's a lot of talking, but I found her eight times in the video.  I'll post in the comments where I found her, so you can enjoy your scavenger hunt.

When It Rains, It Pours

So.

Tomorrow's the big day (as if you didn't know), but there will be a couple more "big" days in the very near future.  Tomorrow, I go to get chosen by a mustang.  This, I have been planning for weeks.  Maybe even months, ever since I found out that Audubon didn't take.

I was talking to Mom and Bill on Monday and they suggested that maybe I should consider getting Jay a horse - a thought which had crossed my mind repeatedly - but I wasn't sure he'd want to start a mustang.  While he likes horses, he's not interested in starting one.  He'll ride with me if I ask, but doesn't really feel a burning need to ride like I do.

I left it with, "if he finds a horse who he falls in love with, we'll pick one up for him, too."

Twenty minutes later, when I got home, I had a message waiting for me from Bucky's wife that Sombrero had some "oops babies" and would be giving them away.  She gave me the information and I went to take a look.

Oh.

My.

Lord.

Seems that Mr. Lightning from the Sand Wash Basin that borders Sombrero's winter pasture took a liking to some of the very fine mares that Sombrero owns and had hisself a grand old time.  Now there are some oops babies.

I have a soft spot in my heart for oops babies, since both of Mom's mustangs are oopses from the same area.  At first, I tried talking Jay into taking a baby for his birthday/our anniversary, but he was having none of it and that's okay.  I don't want to force my horse habit down his throat.  One of the reasons our marriage works is that we each have our own interests and some that overlap - we don't have to be in each other's back pockets all the time.

This morning, I told him he could give me one of the babies for our anniversary instead and he just shook his head in defeat.

After round-up, I'll go to Longmont and chose the baby I want.  Compass has been kind enough to offer up space until weaning time, so the mare can stay with her herdmates at the livery.  My sort-of plan is to put some basic ground manners/halter manners on the baby and just let it be.  Over the winter, I'll send him/her/it down to winter pasture with Mom's horses to learn more horse manners and by next spring it should be big enough to continue with human manners.

The long-term plan is that by the time the mustang is finished, I can start on the baby.  I'm not quite sure why I need two horse projects at the same time, but this feels right and good.

To recap:

• Tomorrow - go get chosen by new mustang
• Next week - delivery day (I don't know which day yet)
• By the end of May - new oops baby

Back to the Drawing Board

It turns out I did jinx myself by posting the Baby Daddy.

Audubon didn't take.  Not the first nor the second time.

She's of prime breeding age, healthy, and has been successfully AI'd with Baby Daddy in the past, so I was confident she would take.

Unfortunately, I was a bit over-confident.  I was sad when I got the message from Ida - more sad than I thought I would be, honestly.

However, it's okay.  Sometimes God just says, "not now" and that's that.

I had the equine love of my life and I know that she was one of a kind, I'm blessed to have had her in my life.  She taught me so much and helped me find strength I didn't know I had.

I always said my next horse was going to be one of Ida's or a Mustang.  Well, now that "one of Ida's" is out of the question, I'll be looking for a Mustang this spring. 

Since I don't have the set-up to adopt one directly from the BLM, I'll have to find one ready for reassignment.  There is a Mustang trainer not far from here who won the 2012 Fort Collins Extreme Mustang Make-over and placed well with both of her horses at Mustang Million last month.  She's currently working with her newest horse for Mustang Magic in January.

What she does with her horses is nothing short of astounding and I hope to get to take some lessons from her next year.

The beauty of Audubon not taking is that I can be back up on the trails a couple of years sooner than if she had taken.  Of course, I'm not overlooking the possibility that she'll take in the spring.  If she does, I'll still go forward with my plan to find a Mustang.  By the time the baby (if there is one) is ready to ride, the Mustang should be a pretty good husband horse, don't you think?

Goosebumps

I just got off the phone with Ida (Estes' Other Mother) and she's already got the mares at CSU.  Looks like they'll be ready for breeding by Friday or Saturday.

Now that the contracts have been signed and I know it's a done deal, I'll share the sire with you.  Allow me to present Gooitzen fan 't Wyldpaed (Apollo).

Photo cred: Excalibur Breeding Center

He's a handsome fella, isn't he?  16.1 hh, so much bigger than Her Highness.  I'll adjust.

Here's a picture of the new baby's full sister, Digger, from 2010.

As I was talking to Ida, we were talking about gestation period and Ida mentioned that Audubon will be due in early July.  It crossed my mind that if the stars align correctly and Audubon goes into labor exactly eleven months after being bred, the baby could be born exactly one year from the day I put Estes down.

Goosebumps, right?

Or, I could have a birthday baby, since my birthday's the middle of July.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

And don't forget about my give-away!

A New Chapter

I've got one more post I'm working on about preparations horse owners should make, but I'm going to skip it to share this news with you first.

3 Generations:  Meeker, Audubon, Estes (April, '10)

One of the things that was most heartbreaking to me when I put Estes down was that I felt like her line died with her.  She wasn't a big show horse, nor was she worth lots of money.  Hell, she was a Quarter Horse/Morgan mix, she certainly didn't have any "pure" bloodlines, yet she was the beginning of Ida's foray into breeding.  From Estes, she got Meeker; from Meeker, she got Audubon; from Audubon she got one of the fillies I absolutely fell in love with a few years ago.

I don't know which was Audubon's, I suspect it's the one on the left.

There have been more off-spring, but Estes-Meeks-Audubon make up the direct breeding line.  Ida bought a Friesian mare (the mother of the other baby in the picture) and has been concentrating on breeding that line for the past few years.

Today, she called me and offered to breed Audubon for me so that I would have one of Estes' babies. 

Y'all, I couldn't stop crying.  I might have freaked her out a little bit.  Certainly she knows how much I loved Estes, but I can't put into words how much her offer means to me.

Ida has a Friesian stallion that she likes to use, and is going to breed her Friesian mare, so I'll pay for the semen and the AI for Audubon and Ida will have them done at the same time. Considering her last Friesian colt sold for more money than I'd ever be able to spend for a horse, I'm getting a great deal.

I told her I had to talk it over with Mom, but who was I kidding?  I was going to do it and we both knew it.

I called the Lodge crying and almost couldn't get the words out, I'm pretty certain Mom thought horrible things had happened.

To say the whole family is excited is an understatement.

I've looked up Baby Daddy online and he's beautiful, but I'm afraid of jinxing everything if I post him here.  Once CSU has the semen in hand and we're set up for the AI, I'll put him up here.

(I posted him on FB and am afraid that I've already jinxed it, but I can't undo that, so I'm hedging my bets here.)