Since it's hot outside and I'm in cooling off for a few before I head out to round two of working in the great outdoors, I figured it was finally time to sit down a spell and do a blog update on Rose. Her Facebook fan page has become such a help at letting me cheat, if I've only got five minutes on the computer, well, it only takes two seconds to do a quick blurb and go on about my business. Blogging of course, well, it takes a tad bit longer to write. Facebook doesn't help though when I have a million things running through my brain and I want to actually write them out, but those who know me know I rarely sit down. Sitting down is just not in my vocabulary. I'll wind up paying for it one day.

Little Miss Princess is doing wonderfully with her own little herd consisting of Nim and Dollar. She likes pushing her weight around then using them as scratching posts, they on the other hand think she's the neatest thing since spring grass. I think we know all the naive......horse AND human go through a learning process.

The bugs are so bad in the evenings she is stalled at night. She loves it. I go out late afternoon when the gnats get bad and she races to the gate anxious to be led to her room under the ceiling fan. Since I bathed and clipped her last week, she wears her Crusader mask with ears so the bugs don't chew her ears off. They're doing a good number on the horses WITH hairy ears here so I cannot let Miss Princess's bare ears left as a bug buffet.

She's still taping at 14.1 at the wither and 14.2 at the hip. I'm hoping soon she'll hit a growth spurt to at least push her past pony size. She's growing outward not upward but has been placed on a strict managed grazing schedule (and I've even got a grazing muzzle in the tack room for backup). She still gets only a handful of Purina Ultium but that's only to get her scoop of Recovery EQ down. I've sidelined the ponying off the four wheeler for now but that's only because I don't feel like detaching the huge sprayer off the back. I've still got to spray the fields for weeds one last time for the season. Other than that, she's living it up out here at the farm. Then again, what horse doesn't think they're living it up out here.

Boy have I ever been cheating! Once Rose got her Facebook Fan page up and running I have found it ever so easy to just blurb a line then keep running about my business. Basically, I've been cheating on her blog. Since I couldn't sleep this evening however, I decided to try and catch up a little.

First of all, Rose is doing exceptionally well. Enjoying her life as the equine equivalent of Miley Cyrus with her two "tween" buddies Nim and Dollar. In fact, I've even caught Rose and Nim grooming each other. I never thought I was going to be able to get pictures of the grooming extravaganza for every time I went by, they'd act like nothing ever happened but finally I was able to out wait them and when they couldn't resist the pleasure of scratching each other's itches, I was able to get a few pictures.

As you can tell, it doesn't seem like Rose has grown a whole bunch at all. Nim officially turned a year April 3oth. Rose, well, she hit 2 the end of March. I haven't measured her lately however. I did try to get on a schedule of ponying her around again with the four wheeler, again, that didn't last long. My schedule just stays too busy and seems to burst on a daily basis with spontaneous happenings (lucky me). On a good note though (and I meant to mention it last month on Rose's birthday), the bank loan for Rose was paid in full last month which is a very good thing in this day and age. Now we can focus on saving for her training. We have one more year to go before that happens. I've still got a few trainers in mind that I've spoken with and a few more to still talk to........when I can squeeze it into my schedule!

Rose's dam made news recently. I posted the link to her Facebook awhile back with full intentions of doing the same to her blog, the blog update just came a tad bit later. You can read about her recent accomplishment here (Snip O Chex) that includes a photo of Rick Ford. For those that don't know, he's the son of Kathy Beetham of the Oregon location. She was deleted from the website when all the DEQ stuff hit the fan up at the Oregon ranch.

Back to Rose. As I mentioned, she's doing well and loving life, except for the bugs. Seems that during the summer months I should change her name to "Lumpy" because after the mosquitoes and ticks get ahold of her, she just looks awful. I'm fighting back with homemade mixes of tea tree oils and alternating with commercial preparations but it seems every year the bugs just keep getting bigger and more immune to whatever we humans can dish out. I'm fighting to keep her lumps down for I'm hoping to have a photo shoot here with her very soon. I've been planning on entering a photo of Rose into the Country Supply catalog's cover photo contest. I just have to set aside a day to get that photo first!

It's Easter Sunday now and after a long two weeks of working from sun up til way past sun down, I decided I wasn't going to do absolutely anything today. Rose and her buddies were given full run of the farm for the day to graze a little and so I could keep on the pj's and just take a few photos off the back porch (no stupid bunny ear pictures this year). Thankfully Mark invested in a super zoom lense for my camera this past Christmas.

With all her running around, you'd think she'd drop a few pounds. As of today Rose only gets a handful of her Purina Ultium per day and that's only so I can get the Recovery EQ down. She's allowed grazing for a few hours then put on the crappy field with the crappy hay that is only there to alleviate boredom.

notice the cat taking a nosedive into the barn

Rose is officially a two year old today. Yup, it's the Princess's birthday. I had all intentions on writing on how she's been doing recently, update her stats and get out there and take new photos today, however it's not going to happen as I had originally planned.

Our gelding who was suffering from navicular had finally gotten to the point where I could no longer make him comfortable so after contacting his former owner (who also bred and raised him) we both agreed it was finally time. The Bay Print was euthanized this morning at sunrise. He couldn't have had a happier ending. He was given full run of the farm last night, all the alfalfa he could consume at free will and this morning I fed him the entire bag of his favorite treats, Rounders, until the vet arrived. It may take me a few days or so before I feel like writing again.

No surprise that I've been crazy busy and on top of everything else, this year, I thought it would be a great idea to plant a little bit of everything in the garden. Just getting the ground ready was enough to make me regret it BUT the rewards of giving away most of what we grow to those who need it will far outweigh the work involved.

I don't have time right now to update about Rose, but I do have this one new photo Anna's mom emailed me last week and I've been dying to get it posted. The photo is just another example of how personable a horse Rose is.
I'll be catching up here very soon. It's almost Rose's 2 year old birthday!