Taking the Girls for a spin!

Well Aunt Lisa brought Lizzy and Grandma over for a little while, and first Lizzy and I took Gabriel and Colby with us to Tractor Supply and Lowes to pick up some stuff and then came home and took Heidi and Bahloo for a ride. 

Lizzy hasn't been riding in a little while she tells me! 

I gave her Bahloo as Bahloo is much better trained. 

Heidi and I had to lead out at first.

Went around Alfie's yard and then headed out back to go around the barn. 

The barn was a mistake- the clover was high enough the two were giving us hassles getting their heads up and leaving the feild.  Opps!!

Us chatting on the way back- and my legs were killin me!!  I know better than to wear shorts/Capris riding but it was just so hot out. 

Went past dad and the camera and up to the road, and rode down the road to the Roarks, Abby and Nathan have been eyeing the horses, I figured to set them up on Heidi and walk them around.

Heidi was an angel (I look past the whole head down grazing while in the saddle- that bit is my fault, I let both girls do it before-unteaching is a bit more difficult).  Bahloo must have not liked the girth, she's all hot and sweaty from standing in the sun, she just stopped and plopped herself down in the Roark's front yard.  Short way down for Lizzy to get off, but I was worried that she was heat stroking.  I yanked her back to her feet, we walked back over to the water faucet, dropped the saddles on the ground and cold hosed both girls down.  I knew it was getting hot and both girls are black. 

I hope Lizzy had fun!  It was certainly very nice to have someone that loved horses as much as I do to go riding with! 

Who's next to go with me??

New Calves!

Well for starters, Dad found the ad for calves in Aberdeen last night, about 45 minutes after he had posted them.  He had calves started on feed and a few others, bulls and heifers. 

I remember Aunt Lisa telling me she had wanted a nice spotted holstein heifer for breeding in the coming years, and oen of the calves started on feed was a holstein heifer. I looked at dad and said, call him, I'll pay for her- it came out of the money intended as payment for Heidi so it'll work out in the end. 

We talked some last night on our drive over to Lisa's.  Originally we were just going to take the goat go-for.  But we were unsure of the size of the heifer, and he had $60 jersey bull calves also listed.  Dad wanted to see them before commiting after Red and Amy I understand.  They are only 10-14 days old but I figured I could give 'em a wing. So we picked up the trailer instead- knowing full well that 3 wouldn't fit in the goat go-for- and if we had that instead we couldn't get any of the jersey's if they looked okay.  It was late already so instead of making dad change the ball on his truck in the dark, we took my truck to go get the trailer.

My truck pulled it with ease, just the lack of shocks kept us bouncing a little bit. 

So this morning, we both got up early I got the horses and rabbits fed(not enough time for water bottles though) and headed up to Aberdeen. 

He kenw we were getting the Holstein, we loaded her first, while dad and the guy got her out of her pen, I looked in on the 4 little Jersey's.  1 of them didn't strike me very well but the other 3 looked great, and we dad asked if they were promised yet, he said no, so said we'd like 2 of them.  The guy must of thought they were for me or something, he let me go into the pen to pick the two I liked.  3 Came to me, 1 did not.  Out of the 3 that came two me 1 was the one I didn't like, so came the two that came home with us.

The holstein is jumpy and a bit skiddish and leaped straight up in the air when we loaded the two jersey's.  I gave them some Jump start which has vitamins, minerals and a probiotic to help settle their tummy's before we let them off the trailer:

Then after that I just let them wander around my pasture while I ran to Tractor Supply to get the milk replacer and more calf feed. 

They didn't appear to have been fed this morning, so I went out to give them a bottle as soon as I got back with the milk replacer, then after a short romp in the sun I went ahead and locked them up in the barn as I'm scared to death to not be able to get my hands back on the Holstein again and I don't have enough panels to lock them into the front of the pasture.