Udder Watch II

We moved the smaller mob of 6 heifers up to the yards this afternoon as Heifer 30 (Harry's mum) is off to meet the homekill guy tomorrow. Heifer 30 is looking great and it'll be interesting to see what weight she is.

Another interesting observation - one of the black and white heifers we bought in April has developed a rather good sized udder!! Ben noticed a small one about a week ago so my bet is she isn't far off. She has a round belly too so looks like we'll have another Harry (or Harriette) sometime very soon.

In the spirit of Udder Watch, some pics - just from my phone so not super duper quality:

We are also due to get the hay cut in the next day or two, and I had a wander through it this morning. It's very thick so we will hopefully get around 1500 bales from it.

Stay tuned for more udder watch pics!

Busy day

Have had a very productive day here so far. Ben shifted more hay from last season's crop down to the old shearing shed, we've got about 70 bales down there now for our cattle next winter and still some up in the big shed, which would be good to sell but will see how that goes. We have told the contractor we want the hay cut in the first week of January - we got mucked around a bit last season so have said that's our deadline, if you can't do it (aside from weather) we'll get someone else! We put fertiliser down at the beginning of November so we should get more than last season's 800 bales.

Today we also fixed up the main doors on the big shed - one had been hanging off it's hinges for a while and was being propped up which was a huge pain to open and shut. So that's all sorted.

And also the other small door into my feed room, which came off it's hinges over the winter I think it was.

A cow got in there last week:


So good to get the door back on!!

We just need to sort out the door going from the sunroom to the patio now, have measured it up so hopefully will find something on Trademe soon that fits.

Yesterday we did a bit of work in the garden - which is not doing that well this year. The peas - well I don't really know what happened to the peas but they didn't really grow :-( The tomatoes are also going very slowly but have started to fruit so that's something.


My garlic is about ready to pick soon - first time I've ever grown garlic so hopefully it has worked ok.


And we've also got some broccoli planted, slightly overdue! They were in the seedling trays so long one started to grow a head of broccoli. Oops.


Oscar has been going well, although had a wee bit of a break from jumping as he got a bit sore in his front legs - the ground is pretty hard right now. We entered the Te Atatu ODE a few weeks ago but pulled out after the dressage. He did a nice wee test though. And best of all he was very grown up about being away from Bert - we even rode past Sarah and Bert with them going in the other direction and Oscar didn't even try and follow him. Very happy! He was great with all the goings on - the Te Atatu ODE is reasonably big, must have been about 80-90 horses entered and there were the usual PC kids galloping around flat stick (one of which almost got booted by Oscar who took exception to how close they came!). On the whole he was very relaxed about it all which was fantastic.

Looking very cute tied up at the truck

And doing his Spanish horse impression

He just wasn't jumping like normal in our warm up and was putting in little stops and cat leaps and I ended up coming off. It just didn't feel right (or safe) and sure enough he was sore.


Gave him 2.5 weeks off and the next ride was great - he was quite forward (for him!!) which was really nice. I am going to send him off to Lisa Coupe for a bit of schooling in the new year, am really looking forward to that. He still is quite green with some things and I think it'll be easier/better for him in the long run to get stuff sorted out properly early on. Mostly canter work, he is not very balanced and still has trouble with left canter although not as much, but still finds it hard to bend. He felt stiffer than usual on the last ride but then he had done bugger all before that so fair enough!

I had been riding Em a bit while Oscar was off, and we even entered the WRC Showmanship day that involved some jumping, was hilarious.

The next thing planned for Oscar is the WRC mini ODE at the end of January, should be a fun day!

More jumping...!

Oscar and I went along to a jumping clinic on Sunday, organised by the fantastic Waitemata Riding Club, with Lisa Coupe as the instructor. She was fantastic, even with us in the baby heights class, pretty good really for someone who usually jumps 1.20m+ heights. Oscar had lots of fun and me too once I got over the nerves a bit. Sarah and Bert, and Ellie and Spyke were there too, in the higher class that was on before ours. Spyke was a bit of a toad and did two fairly decent sized rears (no idea why) and then put in a stop at the scary jump that most horses had a thing about, and Ellie hit the ground. He did settle down after that and did a few lovely jumps but never seemed to be happy with the scary jump!

Oscar didn't much like that one either but it was good for me to have to ride him forward into it. Our last two rounds (over the same course) were fab, and it really clicked in my head that it feels so much better when I actually ride him forward.

So last night I went down to Ellie's place with her and Sarah, and we did more jumping and worked on some 2 point canter. It was sooo much fun! Oscar is a wee star and very kind over the jumps. He was being pretty lazy, so we didn't really have heaps of forward-ness but he did all I asked him to so pretty good really. Was great having Ellie and Sarah there to yell at me (in a nice way!)

Anyway - some pics from the clinic:

Jumping pics!

Oscar goes jumping!

All finished :-)

Letting it ALL hang out afterwards - chatting to the mare next to him who was sooo not interested in him

Silence is golden

But not very common in these parts right now.

We have had trees being felled for the past 6 weeks or so and it has not been a fun time. Firstly the guys wanted to start up their industrial strength chainsaws at 7am - we managed to convince them that 8am was a nicer start time. Their reason for starting early was to 'avoid the heat of the day'. Nuts really given the week that they said this, there was a cold spell and we had a high of 9 degrees on one of those days.

Anyway they are about to be evicted, because they have had their third and final chance. Chance one was when they 'accidentally' brought down a concrete, reinforced power pole and then went and sold the wire that just happened to come down with it. Chance two was when they brought a tree down onto the yards and demolished one of the newly built horse pens and the top rails of the gate into the cattle yards. And chance three was when I got home yesterday to find that they had brought down the one tree I asked them not to bring down and also left the bloody gate open into the horse paddock.

Problem is if you tell them stuff that you are unhappy about it just goes over their heads. They even managed to blame us for the problem they are having making money on this job. Didn't realise it was our fault they demolished the pens...

Anyway the driveway area looks pretty different now. This is the view from the gate up towards the house, heaps more open:

What remains of the tree that destroyed the yards


The tree (far left where the gaping hole is) that wasn't meant to come down...

The parking spot off to the side of the drive, now covered in sawdust

Panorama - can see the shed really clearly now

Took Oscar on his second ever jumping competition yesterday. Was very very low key - just a riding club day. We did one whole round of showjumping - how brave, lol! But he did really well given we have done no jumping at all for a couple of months at least. Then we went to the forest with Ellie & Spyke and Nic & Jake and had a great ride. Oscar even got brave and wanted to be in front for a change - even when we had a canter and he was lolloping along really well, not feeling like he was a bit cautious about being in front at all.

He did tarnish himself when he had a tanty about Jake behind him at one point, god knows why, Jake was a good horse length back. But Oscar felt the need to kick out 4 or 5 times. Maybe he was trying to show Jake that he's not some sissy boy that just wants cuddles all the time? Yeah right... I lost count of how many people he mugged at the jumping, trying to get cuddles!

Also have had some fertiliser put down on the hay paddock - after being rained out for 6 weeks we finally got it down last Wednesday and then on Thursday it rained quite nicely and washed it in well. So now we just watch the grass grow :-)

Sunday morning vet callouts

Well the day after the last post was a bit of a rough one for Oscar. I rode him in the afternoon after that post and he seemed pretty sluggish (more than usual) and then was not interested at all in his dinner. Which is completely not like him. He didn't look colicky or anything but just quite flat and pooped.

Sure enough the next morning I checked on him and he had poo all over his tail and had projectile diarrhea. Really really unpleasant!!! He was basically pooing green water it was that bad. So had vet out for a couple of hours on Sunday morning (ouch) and he stomach tubed him with 12 litres of fluid and some scour ban, which worked really quickly. Vet came out again on Monday and Oscar was quite a bit better although still pretty flat.

So that was two weeks ago and now he's pretty much right although still has pretty soft poo (such a nice topic). Last weekend we took him and Ellie's boy Spyke to Woodhill Sands for the dressage day - just a riding club one so quite low key. It was our first outing in about 6 months and Ellie's first novice tests. So both of us were a bit nervous. Oscar was great though, warmed up really nicely and was heaps more relaxed than the previous two times at WHS. Although just before we went into the arena he seemed to spot the show jumps next to it and thought he'd rather go jumping instead. So we had a few bend problems... Some pics from the video that Ellie took of our tests:

Aiming straight for the jumps!

We are meant to be doing a right circle but someone wants to go left (towards the jumps)

Towards the end of the second test, he did some nice stuff here
We're quite good at halts :-)

Ellie and Spyke had some bad luck with the weather - it was drizzly when I rode but a few minutes before they were due on it poured down, was awful! And Spyke doesn't do rain terribly well, he had a bit of a tanty a few times. But they still did really well for their first novice tests, and in such awful weather.

I also had Oscar's saddle checked as I was worried it's a bit tight for him. It is, and I done what I can to fix it temporarily but I think the reality is I'll need to get him a new saddle. Which I am a bit bummed about as I love riding in the CTD I have for him, plus I just splashed out and bought the matching bridle :-( Oh well, what can you do?

Rode at Ellie's yesterday afternoon too, had heaps of fun and even had a left canter - on the first ask! Didn't get it again though, haha. Although he was doing lovely transitions on the right rein to canter, he jumps up nicely into the canter. Popped over a cross bar a few times too, and on Monday we're tagging along with Ellie to Raider Lodge to have a play jumping there after she's had a lesson.

Speaking of jumping, found this other pic from last summer, jumping at Ellies

Harry the hereford turned one this past week and it was marked by a call to the homekill guy. We have tried to separate him from his mum (Harry not the homekill guy) but the two of them are determined to get back together. Harry is still drinking off his mum which he really doesn't need as he is a big boy, bigger than his mum. So he is going to head to the freezer sooner than planned. And then his mum can have a break and get fat so she can head to the freezer as well.

Nap time

It has been icy cold here the past couple of days, and finally now about midday the air temperature has warmed up. The horses aren't silly though - they've spent most of the morning snoozing in a nice sheltered spot. Even the goats decided it was a good spot to sleep (Choc got the short straw and had to eat, er I mean keep guard)...

Dee decided she'd had enough of a nap but for Oscar - well there is no such thing as too much sleep. So after a quick heads up it was back to noddy land.


Then, conveniently enough, I wandered over and sat down beside him. What a perfect pillow a human's legs make!!

Back in the saddle again

Been a wee while between posts... Partly due to me being a lazy bum and also partly due to me having swine flu. Well at least the doc thinks it was swine flu. I felt awful - 4.5 days in bed, sleeping 18 hours a day for the first few days, it was hideous. Am still really tired and get puffed out quite quickly which is yuck.

However have managed to ride Oscar twice now since the flu hit me and he has been a doll. Almost toooo cruisy!! Had to remind him to wake up a bit the other day, with a wee tap from the schooling whip. Decided I was working way too hard and wasn't going to last much longer and it was time he took some responsibility.

Ellie and I bought some poles each - so I now have 4 new poles in the paddock ready to work on our jumping with. Ellie splashed out and got ten for her paddock which we have already test-ridden. We've been working on some jumping exercises in a book I got - the exercises look deceptively simple but are way trickier than they look. Highlights that we have a complete lack of bend on the right rein. Which I kind of knew anyway but hopefully these exercises will remedy that.

I've entered us for our first event for the season - a dressage day with the Waitemata Riding Club on Sept 12th. Hoping he will be more settled at Woodhill Sands this time, the other two times we've been there he was really tense and it wasn't much fun to ride. Third time lucky?

Ben has been busy on the farm chopping gorse and making a track that we'll be able to ride through in the far paddock that is mostly bush. Haven't seen it properly yet - I can walk down there but I don't reckon I'd have enough puff to get back up the hill just yet!!

And we sold six of the heifers we bought in autumn last year, plus two more and on the list for homekill, so all eight will be gone shortly. Then just have the 22 left and we'll sell five of those by the end of the year hopefully. And then get some replacements next autumn. That's the plan anyway!

We're also going to fert the hay paddock in a few weeks, hopefully will bring a bumper hay crop. And depending on how money goes will also fert the house paddock and maybe the two main paddocks I use for the horses, just with some lime.

Not many exciting pics lately, but here are a couple of the cows mowing our lawns for us

And Oscar all ready for some work (and looking half asleep...)