I received a call from my ex husband today and aside from the few questions about our taxes and letting me know that he didn't have the money for the divorce settlement he told me that Thief had a foal.

Now those of you who don't know the story about Thief let me give you a small introduction. Thief was a purchase during my marriage and she is a Bay overo paint. She is a team roping horse with a possibility of papers but no legal ones. She is the best there ever was, she could and would do anything asked of her. She was great at rodeos and you could have anyone ride her.

Now she was kept in with two other horses accumulated during the marriage and one of them being a reg QH uncut 2yr old sorrel colt. This colt has the sweetest temperament ever and he loves everyone. He also was the low man on the totem pole! Well during the divorce we did nothing to alter him because of reasons even beyond me. He subsequently bred the mare and I was informed that she did take and now has what I think is a beautiful Filly. This filly is so cute and it warms my heart to know there is something good that came from all of it.

So this "One smooth Colonel"

Crossed with This "Dakota TrainRobber aka Thief"

To make this "Maggie"

Apparently she was born not too long ago and she is a pistol. I think she must take after her mother then.
I am so happy to see that she has been brought into the world. The pride I feel over this little one is amazing and tho I will never get to meet her or see her in person I love her! I wish the very best for this little one and anyone who ends up owning her precious little heart!

I must admit I miss Thief and I even have dreams about her but I know that whoever will have her in the end will have one heck of a horse. Just knowing that Colonel has a little piece of him running around out there makes me happy. Colonel will also make someone very happy he is all heart!

I have been offered to take two horses. One a registered Arabian gelding and a un registered large boned QH gelding.

I found out by accident when my boyfriend told me that he had seen his friend about a week ago and they had gotten to talking and apparently that friend's mother wanted to give us the horses. Well Ky talked to her and she said that she hasn't had time for them and now that her daughter went off to college no one would be using them. They hadn't been ridden in two years and when they were it wasn't very much. She wanted me to tune up Marshall last year but nothing ever came of it. Now she wants me to take them.

The Arabian is a chestnut color and he is the older of them both. He was bred in WI and shown a lot. Apparently he used to be a national champion. Of what I have yet to find out. I guess from what I have heard he bows, kneels and does the show halter posing. He is trained to ride and does so very well even when he needs a tune up. He is the quieter of them both and great for teaching people how to ride on. This is just what I am looking for. When I go to pick them up the family will be giving me all his paper work and the magazines he was featured in which I think is pretty cool.

The second horse I think I'm going to have loads of fun with.
His name is Marshall and he is a big boned tall QH looking animal. He is from what I remember a dark brown or dark bay and he is a spirited fellow. He is estimated to be somewhere around in his 8th year. He likes to dump his riders and spook. He try's everything he can not to be caught and is just in general a tough horse to get along with and I love him! I can't wait to get this guy into a round pen and see what kind of fun we can have. I think what I'm going to do is get him in the round pen and keep him there for a few days while we try to resolve this issue of getting caught. After that maybe I'll release him into a bigger area and see what happens. However he is going to get some "solitary confinement" so that he doesn't teach my youngsters the runaway bit. He'll be able to see the horses and all that just not be in with them.

I can pick them up when I'm ready so that's nice since I have some pasture reconstruction to do and round pen construction in general.

Ky and I will be making our own hay this year which is awesome! We have 30 acres of grass hay to bale and we have access to his uncle's alfalfa / timothy fields! So we should be set if everything works out!

I'll take some pics of them so all of you can see what they look like. I'll forewarn you though, my BF says they look really really fat!

I woke up today and forgot to set my clocks ahead so if it wasn't for my cell phone I would've been behind all day.

It started snowing around 1:00 new time and it was the really heavy wet kind that just cakes to everything. Well I had to dig in my van to find the windshield scraper just to use the little brush on it only to find that it's not in there! So in my infinite wisdom I figured I could just use my windshield wipers. It worked sort of... the windshield wipers bowed under the pressure and the bottom one busted to the point that every time I need to use them the metal scrapes the windshield and a horrible noise fills the cab. I Figure no big deal I'll just get new ones at the fleet farm. Well I abandoned the idea 7 miles away from home when it took me a good 25 minutes to get to the town of Marion on roads thick with snow making driving a challenge. So I decide to forgo the wipers and just stop at the Marion Archery and Sports Bar where I shoot league. I thought no one but me would be there anyway since the snow was getting more formidable. Not so, I walked in and although the place wasn't filled with people there were a few guys there and apparently they all had the same idea. So Lee (My partner and consequently the Sports shop/bar owner) walks over and smiles an all knowing smile and says "Hey what's going on? Nasty out huh? Well what would you like because there is a 2 1/2 hour wait to shoot?" Great I thought blandly. So I said I'll have a Sundrop and took my time downing it. Lee and I made small talk; he looked beat and slightly distant. I prodded him with a few questions and I guess he had to be there till 3:00am this morning he closed the bar and went home only to get a few hours of sleep because it was his weekend with the boys. I knew about the boys before because just yesterday I was there to drop off a batch of cookies that I had made per request lol! So I asked where they were and his niece was watching them. Conversation flowed a little more easily and then the boys came in. They occupied us for a good 45 mins before their grandma and grandpa showed up to pick them up. I decided to cut Lee some slack and offered that we shoot tomorrow when they are closed, which we normally do anyway only it's normally a Tuesday. He looked relieved since he couldn't shoot with me unless the bar was empty given that he was the only bartender there today.
I decided to stay a little while longer to give him someone to talk too while the bar's inhabitants shot. After the guys were done I told everyone good bye and headed for my van. I saw all the snow on the van and sighed and grumbled to myself. It was in the 40's yesterday and now it's snowing!! How unfair! I almost went back to the bar to ask Lee if I could use his scraper for my van but decided against it. So I dug around in the van for a full 5 minutes and praised god that I was a horse person because there in the midst of horse gear was a hoof pick that I forgot to put into my tack room! I used the little brush end to clear off my car! Sometimes it pays to be a horse person!

 I have looked what felt like forever for this part of the site so I could update my blog here and I finally had to break down and type my name in the site's search engine to see if it would come up!

I wish I knew a better way to find this part of everything because I like to update this if I can more often.

Well as an over view of what has happened since I last posted I'll try to keep it short and sweet.

In December I had a little trouble with the two horses in my pasture and I had to take them to the vet. They stayed for a few days and we picked them up around Christmas. They are doing great now and Colonel has a lot more weight now then in the movie I shot of him getting an IV.

I also took a video of him eatting so that my BF could see how his horse was doing. He couldn't make it to see him everyday that they were there so I took pictures and created a DVD when I got home so he could look at it when he got home from work.

 That's Tess looking out from her stall at the Vets in Plover.

In any case everyone is doing great and they both are much better and their weight has increased. They have a round bale to munch on at all hours of the day. Two 100 lbs tubs filled with water, they get half a scoop of grain with a couple handfuls of alfalfa cubes. So they are happy.

I was finally granted a divorce on Feb 12th and to my delight it went rather smoothly. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to see my ex. It used to be a shock to my system to stumble across pictures of us or to hear his voice on my cell phone. It even stopped my heart a couple of times when he texted me. However when the day came he was there and the only reaction I had was to give him an assessing look. He looked a lot like a few pictures I took of him, gaunt in the face, dark circles under his eyes a pallor to his skin. He looked to the entire world under the weather but I recognized the look of someone using. I actually felt sorry for him but it was short lived when I remembered everything he put me through and I was mad all over again.

Well in the divorce proceedings I was slapped with a stipulation that to this day makes me laugh. The decree is that if I should ever want to sell my filly I have to seek out my ex and give him the opportunity to buy. However that's not the kicker, the kicker is that he gets to buy her for $500.00 no matter if she is worth $20,000.00. LOL isn't that rich? I giggle right now as I write about it!

Aside from that I have tossed a saddle on both of them when we had a nice day outside. They both handled it well and the filly wasn't as tense as I thought she would be. I lunged her with the saddle on and she was great! After futzing around with her and the saddle I took it off and she just stood there and yawned I couldn't be happier.

The colt who has had a saddle on or around him since he was a yearling handled it with his normal ease and grace. He even tried to get down on the fresh mud that had peaked up through the melting snow. Thankfully i kept him from doing it my saddle wouldn't have taken that well and I just got it!!

I'll make an updated video of them when the weather is not so cold that the batteries get drained just turning on the digital camera lol!!

I made a small slideshow of Thief with some of the pictures I have of her. I thought it would be a nice tribute since she is gone now.

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