VALKYRIE'S FLASH O' BLUE

Today we brought home the horse formerly named Nelson, who is now called Flash. A friend, Katherine, was kind enough to pull a trailer up to Coquille to haul him home for us. At first I was thinking, UT OH, he might be a problem as he was a little difficult to catch. But then he loaded very easy and hauled home without too much sweat.

When I led him out of the trailer he was immediately interested in Dancer, who was standing in the pasture. We took a minute and let them be introduced over the fence, before I led Flash up to the corral. Janice rode back to town with Katherine and picked up our truck. While she was gone I fed a couple of flakes of grass hay to Dancer and Flash. He started to eat like he hadn't eaten in a week.

 It pleased Janice and I to no end that Dancer and Flash are getting along so very well.

 Flash, as I said before, is a Bashkir or Curly Horse and by looking at his coat you can see why. According to the breed description on line (the one I found) states that the very fine mane and tail hair that is very kinky is preferred. Flash doesn't have a mane and tail, he has dread locks.

 I took the photo below so you can see his curly coat. During the summer his coat will be more smooth like any other horse, but his mane and tail will remain curly. The title of this post is actually his registered name.

After she returned home, Janice took the grooming stuff out and started grooming Dancer. After Janice finished with Dancer I took the curry and started working on Flash. He really liked the attention and brushing. He really needs a bath, especially his chest and belly, as they are pretty caked with mud. Flash really seemed to enjoy us scratching at the caked on mud. I now think he will be an in your pocket horse. He is still a little shy when you go to get hold of his halter, but is already worlds better than when we picked him up.   

FINALLY DONE

We finally got the rest of the stall and gates done today. The picture above and below show the full views of the barn and corral area.

The picture below shows a better view of the whole barn/stall area. There is plenty of room for Dancer and our new fella Nelson. We will be picking him up tomorrow. I think he will like his new digs.

Below is a picture of the other stall that we finished today. It took a couple of hours to get it done but I think it looks pretty good.

Here you can see both stalls. It really looks finished now. I can tell you that it isn't gonna go anywhere either. We build it pretty strong.

To finish off this side of the corral area, Don filled in with some gravel to help stop the mud puddle that was starting to build up and the rains haven't really started yet. Better to stop the puddling before it really starts.

All in all I think we did a pretty good job for two old people.

THE NEW ADDITION TO OUR LITTLE HOMESTEAD

Well we finally did it, we have been getting tired of searching out billies to breed our goat girls to, so we broke down and started looking for a Billie to buy. I looked at several on Craig's List, and nothing seemed like it would fit in up here. I finally found an ad for Crown Hill Goats. I called the owner, who was very nice, and she had a couple of little ones that sounded good. So we finished putting the box back onto the trailer and drove to Central Point to the goat farm. We had called ahead of time so Donna was home, though her husband was away at first. The Crown Hill Goat Farm was set up very well, the barn had been a turkey barn back in the 1940s. Donna was kind and showed us all around the place showing her Nanny's and Bucks. We then concentrated on the babies, she had two that would have been good, one with a little more white than the other, but we liked the the other little guy.

Both were very friendly and loved the attention, although we had to be careful with  the petting, after all these guys were little boys of breeding age. I don't know how much you know about goats, but lets just say the breeding males have some truly gross actions, and these two were pretty stinky.

After we chose the one we wanted Donna took him into the laboratory room, vaccinated him, wormed him and trimmed his feet. During this time Donna's husband came home. He was equally personable and welcoming. Anyway while there Donna asked if we knew how to draw blood for the CAE test, we didn't, So it was time we learned. Donna got the clippers and cleaned a spot on his neck just above his chest and prepped it with alcohol, she had also gotten out two 3cc syringes. Donna very carefully showed us how to find the two main arteries in the neck, how to insert the needle and how to draw the blood, She them handed me a syringe and said OK now it is your turn, she said you don't know how to do it until you've done it. Since my left hand is still bunged up Janice (had been doing all the holding) used some surgical rubber tube to bring up the vein. I followed her directions and inserted the needle and drew some blood, really not hard to do. Donna went ahead and tattooed his ear after we chose a name with his registration number, and filled out the paperwork for his registration.

We drove home and it was late when we got home, and we completed chores quickly, After chores and getting the stall door to a point where it opened, we went out and brought Grizzly into the barn. He was nervous and the girls really sniffed him like he was wearing perfume.

We feed him some grass hay and water and left him for the night. This morning Janice went to the Barn and released Grizzly into the general population. Well that didn't work very well, cause Brownie started to chase him around Janice kicking his little butt.

We discussed that situation and decided that maybe out in the pasture it may work better. Wrong again, Poor little guy could not escape the wrath of Brownie, so we took him back to the stall for a while to let the girls get used to him being around. He will be housed up in the new corral with Dancer when in the rut anyway. We will keep trying to introduce him to the herd and as the girls come into heat and they are bred by him they may change their minds about how useful he is to have around, we will try to keep you posted.