'Appy Valentines....

Hound Puppies!!

Once apon a time Sandal and Saviour looked like this - so little, so cute!!

But the girls are all grown up now...

Saviour
and SandalSo today they left to go back to kennels...

Introducing....

Eggburt!

Eggburt lives in the stables, he is put in with any nervous horses Mark has to break, once he has bounced round their feet, done the wall of death round their head and crowed loudly at dawn, they are pretty happy just to get out and be ridden. Hopefully we will be getting Eggburt some girlfriends at the poultry sale at Longtown at the end of the month.

It will snow tomorrow... (you never knew I was a weather girl did you?!)

It will.... because Mule and Lizzie are NAKED!!!

Chuffed to bits with how muley is looking - another week on hols then in for a hair cut, a tail wash and back into work. Yay lean mean riding mule!!!

Lizzie is now 22yo and has only had haylage on the coldest and most miserable of nights. I challenge anyone not to like this little mare!

Millie says "hey tubby, your causing a shadow, move it, I'm tanning"

Digital cameras - what did we do before them!

Silks and I go out to check that Lizzie isn't too hot in her rug....

.... and then sat and watched the cobwebs glistening in the sun!

Bridget looking like a stranded space-hopper in the sun!

(.... and awaiting a haircut!)

Just some more photos....

Hound puppy on the horizon!

Lizzie peering out!

Millie looking rather round!
Mule Ears!!

Quincy's Perk

We don't tidy very often in this house, but when we do it's like Christmas! You find things you'd completely forgotten. I love this photo of me riding Quinton in 2005, I miss riding Quin desperately.

But it was like Spring?

The weather has turned!! Glorious on Monday and Wednesday, real Spring days, the grass is growing, the daffodils are shooting through and then...... Wham gale force winds and blizzards.

I noticed Lizzie's rug had lost a front strap and decided I would like to pop an all singing, all dancing, guaranteed to keep a geriatric horse warm in arctic conditions version on her instead. Out I went, not too windy, whipped the rug off her and threw the new one on - didn't even touch her back before it was blown off. Right more enthusiasm this time, I fling the rug on with all the force I can muster and suddenly the world goes black. I'm covered in rug from head to toe and the neck cover is winding its way round my head and slowly throttling me! When I fight my way out Lizzie shivers slighly and is clearly saying "would you like to share the warmth, it's cold out here?"

Into the barn then, Ruby is in best bouncer pose "Its my barn and you 'aint coming in"
"Gerrrrout of it, you **** *****" I mutter (probably muffled through layers of rug)
"Ha ha" mutters Ruby "Fighting talk from the midget in the horse rug" But she lets us in and soon Lizzie is so cosy, only her ears peeping out and off she goes to weather the storm again ("What storm I see no storm?")

Right off to the stables I go and turn Nico out - "Nooooooo its cold out here"
I tell him, I'll be five minutes, he'll barely have time to make a snow angel before I have him tucked up in a nice clean bed with a pile of haylage in front of him.
"Your lying" he mutters, "horses have died of exposure in the time it takes you to muck out, died and been eaten by coyotes I tell you......"