This will be brief, as I'm working, but the Maine Morgan Horse Association calendar is out, featuring pictures of Stevie, Mist, and Maggie in the November page! 

It seems that blogging about the farm is going to be a monthly sort of thing--we're simply too busy most of the time for me to have much opportunity to update farm doings more than that. So here goes.

Ray gets bigger all the time, and boy is he turning out well. See the pics I just posted on the Foals page (scroll down past his baby pictures and you'll find some I took a couple weeks ago). We definitely like what we're seeing, and his foot-handling lessons are coming along pretty well. We were able to add him to the treatment roster prescribed by our farrier--important given the ankle-deep muck that pervades our paddocks. Weaning goes slowly--Ray is more troubled by it than Bessie.

I could say many of the same things about Stevie as I said about Ray. Bigger all the time, behavior/training progressing nicely. Rusty has proved his worth and has put Stevie firmly in his place, and that (plus the companionship) has made Stevie considerably easier to handle. I dare say even that for an 18-month-old stallion, he's got a very nice disposition. Sure, he tests periodically, but overall he's friendly, gentle, good natured, and relatively quiet.

Rusty, however, has picked it up a little--kicking up his heels in the paddock with Stevie has made him a bit unruly. Or maybe it's just that his feet hurt less, who knows. He put me on the ground, hard, the first time I got on him now that he's sound. When my tailbone stops hurting, guess we'll have to do something about that (are you listening, Deb?).

The girls are, in general, fine. Mist's pregnancy continues to go well--I just can't wait till May, it seems so far away! Maggie is doing better under saddle and we're contemplating our options for breeding her next spring. Bessie's date with Bayside Rainman for the spring is something we're looking forward to as well--I'm a little sad that the responsibilities of kids/dogs/horses/chickens won't allow me to go up with them, but that's the breaks. And down in Pennsylvania, Cameo's training AND her pregnancy are both coming along nicely; we're hearing that she's filled out amazingly well in the hindquarters and shoulders with the regular lunging she gets, and Lyn says she's almost ready to be backed & ridden, and I sent down her bridle just the other day in anticipation of that event. Wish I could be there for that, too...