Thursday, December 9, 2010

In memory of Mudpie 1987 - 2010

We had to put one of our old Tunis ewes down this past week. We sure do miss her. When I spoke to her breeder back in the summer she told me that Mudpie got her name because when she was born the ground was so muddy she ended up being covered in mud.

Muddy had a funny personality, and we think she was smarter than the average sheep. Until we brought her sisters home last summer she was the oldest on the place and she always got special treatment. She needed extra groceries and would wait until we called her name to come into the barn aisle to eat her extra ration.

We will miss the old girl, we have kept two of her daughters, Raquel and Toy and a son, Urlich. Urlich may stay on the farm as our second ram. 

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Thanks, to Tunis buyer, Julie

We appreciate Julie Amendola visiting our farm after Thanksgiving and purchasing two of our Tunis ewes. One was a homebred, Tessa, and the other a nice ewe we purchased back in May. We hope that Julie has a nice crop of lambs, since we believe both ewes are pregnant to our new ram, Troy.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Annbirwaves Christmas Birmans


Some of my friend Ann's Birman kittens. Most of them are reserved, but I think she still has a couple available.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Goodbye to Summer... the miniature horse...and Octoberfest!

We delivered our beautiful buckskin miniature mare, Indian Summer, to her new home near Taylor, Texas this afternoon. Thanks, Nina, for choosing her, we hope you will enjoy her!


Here she is taking a look at her new home, at least she is accustomed to llamas, but the miniature donkeys were something new and she was watching them.





After getting Summer settled in, we drove back by way of Walburg, Texas which hosts a great German restaurant. And since it was October 1st, Octoberfest was underway. 



Luckily we arrived early enough to get a table, we found out they do reservations on Fridays and Saturdays during October! We had a yummy German buffet that included some of the best schnitzel I have ever eaten. By the time we left, there was a line at the door and the parking lot was overflowing.


Read more about the place at http://www.walburgrestaurant.com/

Fun Weekend for the Girls

A couple of weekends ago I attended a ladies' retreat with fellow church friends and family. We always have a blessed time and enjoy the Christian fellowship and fun.

The retreat location is near Round Top, Texas, a fun little town that is known for its massive antique market. Vendors were setting up when we were there for the following week. 

Another neat place near Round Top is Festival Hill. They have a beautiful chapel that was moved there. We love to visit it each year. Here is a website that has a panoramic view of the inside:


Thursday, September 16, 2010

Animals Rescued from Flooding in North Texas

I found a post on a blog describing one of the Humane Society of North Texas rescues. Hermine wreaked even more havoc north of us in the Dallas area last week and rescuers had their hands full.

http://challenge.aspcapro.org/profiles/blog/show?id=5376260%3ABlogPost%3A13110

Check out this great photo showing a group of the Tunis sheep being saved. What fantastic temperaments, that's why I love them!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Live Streaming of the AMHR Nationals

Once again this year Flanders Video Productions is hosting the live streaming of the American Miniature Horse NATIONAL show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The show ends Sunday, September 19th.
http://www.flandersvideoproductions.com/Show1.htm
I wish we could be there this year! It is always a great week of fun with friends and beautiful horses!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Rain from Hermine

We have been receiving a lot of rain from tropical storm Hermine. Not as much as many areas nearby though which is a good thing since we have so much fresh dirt and gravel that might wash away. Some areas received 8 inches a day, I doubt we have gotten 4 over the last 4 days. We can't tell for sure because we pulled the post up that held up the rain gauge.

It looks like we have a foot left before the water enters the overflow pipe.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Happy horses

The horses put on quite a show after being cooped up for several days while we had work being done. I caught a little of the action.

Happy sheep


We finally decided to try giving the Tunis free choice hay. We used 4 cattle panels to contain the hay and will be able to push them closer together as the bale gets eaten.

Fall cleaning...

We are so pleased with how the pasture near the barn looked we got out and worked the last two days cleaning up old piles of lumber and increasing the size of our implement and trailer storage area. Thankfully we had fantastic weather!

I guess I am a homewrecker though... all the critters below (plus some) were in the woodpile we moved.




What a difference!

Graves Excavation finished up the tank and wow, they did a GREAT job. Besides putting in an overflow pipe, they created a great spillway. They also smoothed out some areas were rain had eroded big ditches behind the barn and turnout pens. 

Bob planted rye grass on the fresh dirt.


The llamas watched all the goings on from a safe distance.
The horses finally settled in for some grazing after a quick romp around the pasture bucking and kicking after being penned up for three days.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

More progress on the dirt work

More work on the dam on the second day, it is hard to see but there is a huge drop off behind that tree. The spillway has been moved to the near side and the terrace improved to control run off. We had a shower last night and again this morning so I'm not sure if anything will be done today.

Here is a photo of one Blaze's mother, we call her MamaLama. In the background you can see the upper part of the big tank, with the improved dam it should raise the level of the water with the next heavy rain.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

King of the Bale

The minis are getting bored waiting for the pastures to be re-fenced.
This is Bella Donna playing king of the bale.


What happened to August?

Well, it just flew by, I guess, since I didn't even have time to post on the blog.
We have been fairly busy around the farm while trying to stay cool in a record breaking hot summer with loads of 100+ degree days. But we did have a fair amount of rain so the pastures held up better than normal and hay is more plentiful. In the photos below you will see we still have green grass (weeds).

We have been trying to make some improvements about the farm, grading the gravel drive was way overdue and while the dozer man was out we asked him about repairing the dam of our biggest stock tank. He got right on the project of putting an overflow pipe in the dam and creating a new spillway that will stop the erosion on the back side.
Here is the tank on Monday of this week.

Yesterday it looked like this.

I can't wait to see it this evening. I will try to get an "after" photo tonight.

Of course to do the project we had to pen the horses up and pull up the cross fencing. I guess it will be a good time to revisit the layout of the pastures.
The llamas are loving a bit of extra freedom to visit the other areas of the farm. This is Blaze down near the front gate. Doesn't she look regal, I just love their attitudes.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Another satisfied mini owner

Unicorner Rowdy Jazzmatazz
Phaze 1 Lone Star Rowdy x Unicorner Golden Jasmine
This was JazzmaTaz when we sold him several years ago. 

Here he is all mature and taking his little owner for a ride.

Isn't that so cute!

Miniature horses are fantastic! Thanks, Amber for sending the photos!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Unicorner Bella Donna

Unicorner Rowdy Batman x Unicorner Dusty Heather
Bob was out taking "headshots" last night for an online photography course he is taking. Here is one of Heather's filly.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Captain has a new home

Captain America, our little orphaned foal has a new home. Thank you to buyers Thurman Self and Jean Hale. We hope that you enjoy the little guy!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

A Tribute to Libby

Lucky Harts Magic Libby
Brewers Dark Magic x Lucky Harts Little Lily
5/31/1995 - 6-30-2010

It's hard to understand why bad things happen. We lost one of our favorite minis, our little Lucky Harts Magic Libby. I had just posted a photo of our little boy, Captain America this week.  Libby was 15 years old, and in what we thought was good health. She never showed any signs of being in distress or out of sorts, until Tuesday night when she didn't come in with the herd at feeding time. Bob was late feeding, it was after dark so he took the truck and spotlight out to look for her.

He found her standing under a tree with her colt, just standing, like it was mid-day and she was cooling off, no sign of colic or pain, but he knew she wasn't well.

He led her to the barn where the light was better, and she just stood where he let her stop. No interest in water or food, but kind of moving her mouth funny, slow and as if she really wasn't sure what was going on. No wobbles, no major symptoms and temp was 101. However her respiration was dramatically slow at 20/min, so he called our vet and left a message for him to call us back.

He couldn't entice her to drink so he cupped a little water in his hand and tried to get some into her mouth. She moved her tongue a bit but didn't try to swallow. He gave her 1cc of Banamine (in case it was colic) while waiting o the vet to call. She stood in the same place for almost an hour, before finally moving over to try and nibble on some hay. Even that seemed labored, slow and out of sorts.

We didn't get a return call from our vet, and there are no other equine vets on our side of town, so after watching her for about 2 hrs, her respiration became more normal and we went to bed.

Bob checked on her about 5 am, breathing was normal, but she still appeared lethargic, so he gave her about 5cc oral B12 solution. Most dribbled out but we hoped she would absorb some.

We finally got a call from the vet about 7 am, he said to drop her off at the clinic and he'd check her out after his morning run (as fate would have it today was his farm call day). He didn't call until late afternoon, and Bob could tell by his voice the news was going to be bad.

His prognosis was she most likely had an abscessed liver, blood work showed many very alarming indicators. Her liver function was very low, kidneys starting to shut down, and he said she most likely had become so septic it had affected her brain (and that was what was causing the problem chewing and swallowing).

He gave her less than 10% chance of survival, and said if she did she would probably have severe liver and possibly kidney damage, so we made the decision to have her put down.

One good thing her colt IS eating well, but of course he doesn't understand where mom is. He seems certain she is still in the barn or that trailer.

Here's to Libby, we will miss you, Sweetie.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Our smallest foal...


Unicorner Captain America
Unicorner Rowdy Batman x Lucky Harts Magic Libby
"Captain" is our smallest foal this year and our only colt (male). He was born April 17th and his mother is one of our smallest mares. He is a darling sorrel with a perfect diamond on his forehead.
Captain will be for sale when he is weaned (late August).

Monday, June 28, 2010

Dragonfly grows up...

Easter Acres Bay Dragon x Alchemist Golden Locket
See past posts about Dragonfly on 4-18-09, 4-27-09, 9-8-09.


Extreme Mini Makeover...

Unicorner Merry Juanita
Unicorner Rowdy Batman x Lucky Four Mary Jane
 
It's amazing what a difference clipping makes! We didn't even know she had four white feet until we got them clipped!
Juanita gets her overo markings and blue eyes from her father, Batman who is marked very similar. Juanita will be a silver dapple with white mane and tail. Can't get much splashier than that!

The "Dragon" at Unicorner

Easter Acres Bay Dragon
Landry's Kajun Red x Easter Acres Midnight Satin
We were out taking photos of our 2010 foals to get them registered and decided we needed some of our newest stallion, Dragon, too.

  This is Unicorner Rowdy Satin Sash - a filly we call "Sasha" who has the same mother as Dragon does - our pretty Midnite Satin. Sasha's sire is our 26-year-old Rowdy son - Phaze I Lone Star Rowdy.  There aren't a lot of Rowdy granddaughters still being born, and we are very blessed to still have a breeding son of his.  You can read more about the "Immortal Rowdy" on our website at the following link: http://www.unicornerfarm.com/rowdy.htm.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Smarter than the average ... sheep?

We are enjoying our new sheep we added to the Tunis flock. We named the new ram "Troy". He's good natured and can be very resourceful when it comes to getting choice leaves from the trees around the yard. I can see now that the few rose bushes we have left are doomed.
The new ewes have made theirselves at home, we were able to shear them soon after we brought them home. Since we are already having days with 100+ degree heat index I am sure that they appreciate their haircuts.

Friday, June 4, 2010

As we drove through Missouri, narrowly side passing a big thunderstorm, we made great time. And the clouds kept the temperature down, a blessing for a trailer of nine sheep.

As we got into Kansas, we knew we were nearing the end of our "treasure" hunt... look at this neat rainbow up in the clouds.

We picked up our last Tunis lamb at the home of Ted and Amy Ferm. And headed for home. We actually made it by midnight and unloaded our new sheep during a much needed rain.

I will post more photos soon of the sheep.

Next stop... Illinois...add 5 more

After getting the truck we went by the fairgrounds, empty now of all but our lonely sheep trailer. Hitched up and headed to Darling Farm near Zanesfield to pick up our first four Tunis. What a gorgeous farm, beautiful grounds, a lake, nice barns and house and fabulous Tunis! Wish we could have enjoyed the Dunham's hospitality longer but we loaded the sheep and headed for Illinois to pickup some more.
We made arrangements with Kevin Schultz to meet in Champaign so we could hit the interstate south. We transfered five new ewes into the trailer on a Lowe's parking lot about 9 p.m.  I think that our new ram thought he was in heaven. ;-)

Bob wanted to continue driving as long as he could. So we made it as far as St. Louis that night. Watered the sheep and said good night and got a quick night's sleep at the Red Roof Inn.  Up early so we could keep moving and keep the sheep cool.  We had one more stop planned... Independence, Kansas.

Trip to Amish country

A trip to Ohio wouldn't be complete without driving through Holmes County. We love to get homemade bread, butter and fry pies at Herschbergers. They have added some new barns for their petting zoo. One has a ramp so the goats can climb to the roof.
They also have this huge Belgian, now that's a big horse! Makes our Xena and Freda look small.

Side Trip to Mohican Park

Here are some scenes from Mohican Park, we drove around on Memorial Day and saw some new scenery.