Spring has arrived

The flowers are starting to come up at Ridgeway farm and we now have daffodils and hyacinths enjoying moments of New England sunshine.

The ducklings are two weeks old and I have learnt some valuable lessons already.
1. Ducklings smell.
2. They poop a lot more than baby chickens.
3. They are messy (see above point).
And 4. Boy do they grow fast!
They are already about the size of 5-6 week old chicks. They do love their water, and have upgraded from the kitchen sink to the pig water tub outside.

My horse Muppet is doing well, and shedding like crazy. Someone please tell me why I have a grey and white paint? Our goal for the year is simple, try and stay sound.

The sheep are enjoying the start of the grass. We are in the middle of changing our fencing all to cattle panels, but hope they will be up soon so the sheep can go out in the bigger pasture. Edward is hoping the shearer will come and visit soon too!

I hope everyone is having a great spring so far. Now it's time to take a certain two dogs out for a walk!

If anyone lives close by and is in need of lambing supplies please contact me. I have a tub of things I will no longer need and would like to find them a home they will be needed at :-)

Finally the rain has stopped

We have had a whole lot of rain here in here in Massachusetts, although I was lucky enough to get a reasonably nicer day for my show last weekend, and today it was nice enough for everyone to be in the larger pasture again.

Ulric and Uther and growing up very nicely. I will start halter training in a few weeks now that I have finished college for the summer.

Ulric is the bigger of the two and has much more impressive horn buds for his age.

He also really takes after his sire in his facial markings. This is Horseradish, and Vladamir our wether who has actually been sold. We are brining in a new wether who I am very excited about. More on him at a later date.

Uther is the shyer of the two, although he is small there is something about him that is special. His horn buds are almost non-existent right now. He should make a nice flock sire if he keeps heading in this direction.

This made me chuckle.

Eliza was asleep in the hole that the lambs normally play in! Silly sheep.

And here is Muppet and I at our first show of the year. It went pretty well with for the first show, lots to work on though. It is nice that he is growing up, he will be 10 years old at the start of next month.

Baby chicks are coming next week. I must start on the new coop this weekend. Hopefully the rain stays away for a bit longer. Lots of change going on in the flock this year. Looking forward to hopefully selling some sheep and brining some new ones in.

I've been busy

Very busy. Showing sheep and my horse, etc etc.

This past weekend was the Bolton Fair. Our very local country fair. I took along my ram and my two ewe lambs to show. My new ram Rad (Horseradish) did wonderfully winning his Junior ram lamb class, and then going on to win Champion Shetland ram at the show.

Eleanor and Eliza entered the ring, forgot their halter training, and promptly threw themselves down on the ground. My poor son had a terrible time keeping Eleanor on her feet, although even with this she did manage to second, and the smaller Eliza did alright and came fifth. Overall very nice and promising for next year. They're not standing well in this picture, but at least they are on their feet.

I did manage to squeeze in some time to watch events. I saw some very cute animals.

Oh, and we added 3 animals to our ever growing family. My son purchased a very young guinea pig (no picture yet) that he has called Teddy Bear. And my partner and I finally bought rabbits. So this is my rabbit Julius.

And my partners rabbit Octavian. We seem to have a Roman theme going on. A proper cage is on it's way.

I also managed to take my horse Muppet to NEDA's fall schooling show. Here's one of the proofs from the event. We also got Reserve High Score with a 68.75 which made me so proud of my horse. Time to start learning the Training level tests.

After all of this, I feel a little like Marcus my puppy.

So what have you been up to?

Soak up some sun

We've had a lot of rain this week and so it was lovely to see some sunshine this morning and the sheep have been making the most of it. The youngest lambs are almost a month old and in a few weeks ear tags, vaccinations and worming will happen. I need to start advertising lambs (and some adults) to sell now that I have finished college for the summer.

I should do some halter training too.

Certain lambs are going to be wethered soon as well :)

And some lambs just lie around looking beautiful.

In unrelated news my horse show went very well.

My horse Muppet was tense but did relax a little by the second and third test. I was very happy with our first outing of the year.

show report (NSR)

Muppet and I attended our first dressage show hosted by NEDA with my friend Alex and her horse Mikey.

We did the Intro test A and B which are basically the first tests and are all walk and trot. It was a fun show and we cleaned up well for it. Here we are warming up to go in the ring (it was very dusty).

Unfortunately Muppet was scared by the judges in the horse trailer at one end of the ring, and took until the end of the second test to calm down . We did improve in marks in our tests coming 6th and then 5th respectfully. I was proud of my horse and look forward to going to another show soon.

In sheep and lamb news the vet and myself are leaning towards chronic heat stress in the lambs. Temps are out of normal range when the weather is hot and hasn't cooled off overnight. Temps go down to normal on the cool mornings. Still no other signs and blood work was all clean. I am hoping for cooler weather soon as it has been a terribly hot, humid and rainless summer. Anyone else ready for Fall?

Happy birthday Muppet

Well another year has passed and my horse Muppet turned 8 today. To celebrate I gave him a spa day treatment and then he got a massage. It took about 1/2 a bottle of blue shampoo to get him (especially his legs) this clean lol. The log was carved by Steve at the barn where I board and I think he did a great job.

Muppet's really doing well in everything right now. I am excited about this summer and hope that we can finally get to a show together. I would like to do a dressage class with him but it will be a first for both of us. This fall we are aiming to do a hunter pace too. For anyone new to my blog Muppet is a PMU gelding who I rescued as a 6-8 month old. I decided on June 1st to celebrate his birthday and every year I buy him a present, he's really rather spoiled. This year he got the lovely black and white halter he's modeling, it even has a spiffy silver nameplate.

Horsey spa day

I have been very busy recently with the teaching the sheep to halter train, looking after the chickens (especially Annabelle the rooster with the gimpy leg), physical therapy for my shoulder etc. But today has been planned for weeks. My friend Alex and I arranged a spa day for our horses at the barn where we board. Bridle and ears paths were trimmed, muzzles, shaved, ears and legs were clipped. Horse boy parts were cleaned (sheath cleaning for the horsey amongst us) and then the boys were shampooed and conditioned. When they were dry they were groomed and polished, and finally pictures were taken.

Here's Alex's horse Mikey looking all shiny.

And handsome.

And Muppet my horse Muppet who really liked everything.

Except for losing grass eating time.

Hopefully the weather here stays nice because this weekend is spa day for the Bolton sheep!

Lazy day (and something for a friend)

It was finally a sunny day when I went to the barn so I took a few pictures of my boy Muppet. He's had about 7 weeks off now and is getting a little bored. 

But today he was very happy to be out on the pasture with his best buddy Basil. They are like the Bert and Ernie of the barn and have their own special whinnies to each other...super cute.

And here's a picture for my friend Alex.

Mikey sends you big kisses.

Hopefully this evening we can do some more halter training at Ridgeway Farm of the sheep showing at the Bolton Fair. I'll try and get some pictures of that too.

Muppet the early years

So I totally missed blogging about my wonderful horse turning 7 on the 1st of June. I even didn't get any pictures of him as my shoulder has been acting up, and my friend Alex got hurt that day too. But to make up for it here's early Muppet.

I got Muppet from The United Pegasus Foundation (http://www.unitedpegasus.com) he is a PMU baby. That stands for a Premarin baby. The drug Premarin being made from pregnant mares urine, the consequence being that each year hundred of foals (the unwanted by product) are sent for slaughter. I was told he was a quarter horse paint mix and this was the picture I saw of him.

Some nice people shipped him to the barn I was boarding at in California for free, and here is what he looked like the day her arrived. Completely wild and ungroomed lol. He was not used to people and no-one could touch him.

He quickly grew to be quite a looker and here he is at a year old.

Here's my first wonderful attempt at clipping him. Luckily even though both of us didn't know what we were dong he felt cooler and happier at the end at that was the main thing.

When he turned 2 he filled out more and you can really see the horse he's going to be around this age a little more.

This is the first time he wore a saddle at 3 and a bit, just before we moved from CA to MA.

Stretching the legs at home in MA.

And this was his first winter at home in MA before he decided to jump the pasture fence and have to be boarded out.

At 5 years old my mum and dad got to finally meet him when they came over on a visit from England. This is one of my favorite pictures of him that my mum took.

Sadly I have not been as good about documenting the last few years, something I will do better at, and this is the last picture of him I took this winter at his new barn with one of his friends.

Hopefully I will do better about documenting year 7 of his life with me. 

In non-Muppet news. Chloe and Celebration left today for their new home with Holly. I think they are going to have a very happy life together.