A check on Brielle's two thriving kits and it looks like they are actually does (one is a tort and the other is my much hoped for broken orange) so I should have two nice juniors for showing this fall.
Andy and Juno's kits were pet quality but oh so healthy and friendly... did not have the heads and ears I was hoping for, for showing but two have already found homes and two are waiting.
Lenka and Segal's daughters who live with my neighbor's three kids are spending time with me while their owners are on vacation. They are looking great and are friendly and cuddly - their new owners have done a great job handling them and caring for them.
Have to restructure the barn as Mercy's minimal dwarf foal Connie is returning to me this September - like Holland Lops, miniature horses carry a normal and a dwarf gene in a "normal" mini and a double dwarf, which would be a peanut in a Holland as I understand it, shows "deformities." A good friend of mine had Connie and her half brother Bodie but is getting out of horses and the condition was they be returned to me and not be sold.
Connie had lax tendons on her right front leg and a short neck and an underbite but she was a fighter and has made it to her sixth birthday, April 4th. Her half brother Bodie, born March 28, 2004, was put to sleep two weeks ago as he had more complications with his dwarfism - his hind ankles were deformed and despite splinting, could not support his weight and he walked on the ankle and side of his pasterns and the side of his hind hooves but he never "knew" he was not "normal" (the sire carried and passed on the dwarf gene - three of his four foals were dwarves and he was gelded after Connie and Bodie arrived). His normal foal was like an oversized Holland but he was gelded as well) Bodie was a character and my friend cared for him well during the years she had him. I had him in my Explorer to get his Coggins test and vaccines done and he enjoyed the breeze blowing through his mane at 45 miles an hour... I am hoping he can breeze in the land over the Rainbow Bridge and not be disabled... although he never knew he had a disability!
It will be good to have Connie home again - like Mercy, she excelled at visiting nursing homes and schools and everyone loved her outgoing personality. When I could not get the trailer out in the winter, Connie rode in the back of my Explorer to visit nursing home residents in January, when not much is happening for them after the holidays.
Weatherly and I are working through the natural horsemanship lessons with a greater respect for one another. The trainer returns to my farm on Sunday to see how we are doing and when I get my new-to-me horse trailer next month, we can travel to work on how we relate to each other off the farm premises.
Denise
