Samantha

After she was weaned, she continued to eat sand but I had enough of chasing her in the arena. I got Cloud Dancer, my main riding gelding, got her, and started to pony her. We all survived doing it in the arena so we headed out on the roads. I generally had the roads to myself whenever I rode, so I started to turn her loose once we were away from home. She loved it. She and the dogs were roam around, galloping here & there, while Cloudy & I walked along.
One lovely spring day, early in her yearling year, we headed out during a record migration of Painted Lady Butterflies. We got to the top of a hill, in a meadow setting, and the butterflies were so heavy in numbers that I saw her through a curtain of butterflies. It was one of those shining moments that shall live forever for me.
Sometime during the summer, she stopped eating sand and I was able to put her in the front lot with other horses. More time passed and after doing ground work with her at home, I sent her out for riding training. She arrived there, looked around, found the feed and chased off the other horses & settled right in. Her training went well and while there her person found her from my ads in California Horsetrader. She is still with that person, riding the trails and doing dressage.

The Vulture Convention

When I was about 1 1/2 mi out my road the other day, I came across a vulture convention. There were four of them on two different electric poles and another 3 flying about. After a while, another landed on a pole, then they all flew off.
From a good authority (someone who used to work at a wild animal park), I have been told that they have soft "kissable" heads.

Samantha--Sandeater!

Round about 2 months or so, I found that Samantha had become a Sandeater, and ever worse, a Dedicated Sandeater. She would stroll around the arena, taking in large mouthfuls of sand. I tried moving her to a less sandy pen but she just found the sand and continued to devour it. For the night, in desperation, I shut her & Rebecca into a stall that had stall mats. The next day, I had delivered a truck load of more stall mats. The stall had a 10' x 20' pen off of it and I was going to stall mat the entire thing. The barn supply truck stacked up the mats right near the pen's back gate & I went to work, dragging those 100 pound mats into place in the pen. Once done, I opened the stall door and let them out. Samantha promptly checked for a spot with sand but she could not find a weakness to exploit in her hunt.
Since young horses need space to run, I got her & Rebecca out into the arena twice a day, every day for a run. Rebecca had a good roll and Samantha would run--until she ran off some energy then started the search for sand. Then I got to run after her and get her moving again. I had also started spooning psyllium into her mouth to clean out what sand she had already gotten and what she was still managing to get. The results of the first day of that was dramatic. Her poop the next day was the unique charcoll gray color of heavy sand. She did not especially like eating the psyllium, but did not really fight it either and most of what I spooned into her mouth did go down into her.
So we all survived. She was weaned at about 5-6 months and then I had to figure out a new way to exercise her as I was now doing more running then her.

Samantha

Samantha was the fourth, and the last, of the mating of Clarion and Rebecca. It was a good cross and we had planned to keep doing it, but such was not to be. As the foaling date got closer and Rebecca started to show signs, she was moved to the barn and given free run of the arena. Early one morning, just getting light enough to be able to see outside some, I saw that she had a foal just born. Within 20 minutes the filly was up and nursing heartily. Rebecca happily started eating and all looked well. Later that morning I left for work and asked a friend to keep an eye on the pair. I got home that afternoon to hear from my friend that she felt that something was wrong. There was nothing overt, but Rebecca just seemed a bit dull. The afterbirth had long passed that morning before I had left and she was not showing any actual signs of pain or distress. But something was off. I checked her vital signs and saw that her gums were a bit pale and her heart rate was a bit elevated. So I called my vet.
By the time he arrived, Rebecca was showing signs of pain. After an exam, the vet decided she had experienced an uterine hemmorage. This is usally fatal to the mare. However, he felt that hers had stabilized, likely forming a clot in the ligament and stopping the bleeding. He advised giving her Banamine and keeping her quiet in the stall for 5 days. Poor Samantha had to be locked up in the stall with her mom for her first five days of life.
Finally, on day six, we allowed them into the small pen attached to the stall, and then into the arena where Samantha promptly showed her love of running. Rebecca declined to run with her and was content to watch her from the hay pile. Rebecca went on to be just fine but I was unwilling to risk her life for another foal, so Samantha was the last. Rebecca became my riding horse for a while before moving on to another family to trail ride and ride in parades. Samantha went thru a sand eating stage, but that is another story.

Samantha Flying

SSM C Samantha Ash, foaled 1990 (Clarion of Quietude x Rosemont Rebecca)
Photo taken when she was a late 3 yr old.

Cat Duplex

I had put this bench on the bed so I could vacuum. Once I was done, the cats took over.

The Flicker Family

There have always been red-headed flickers up here but last year and this year have seen a population explosion of them. Last year, I kept seeing 5 of them at a time, all grouped together, and this year, I have seen as many as 8 together in a group. I had a drippy faucet last year, and they would hang out around it to get drinks. One would sit on the faucet and bend over to catch drips. Another would be hanging onto the side of the riser, waiting his turn. The rest would be swooping from the nearby tree, trying to chivvy the ones on the faucet to hurry up. Sometimes, one of the tree birds would manage to drive off a faucet bird and then take his place. All this would be done with much screeching and raucous chittering. The faucet was replaced last winter so this year's family do not hang out there now. I see them a lot on the electric pole outside the back door. They will be clinging to the side of it, sitting on the cross beam up above the transformer, and flying about from here to there. Eight of them are a lot nosier then five of them. It is rather like a group of teen age boys, each showing off to the others. And shouting non-stop. If this group is like last year's, I'll be enjoying their antics well into the fall.