Welcome 2017!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!  The New Year can be viewed as either the end of a year or the beginning of the next.  While I take a moment to remember the year gone by, I've always thought of it as a new beginning.  Over the holidays, some friends said they always think of it as the ending of something.  Interesting how different minds look at the same thing in completely different ways.

For me, on New Year's Day, I'm always thinking back over the last year and in the past would always make resolutions and plans for the year to come.  Now, I still reflect on the past year, but don't feel the need to do the resolutions now. I'm thankful for every day that I wake up. I try to enjoy every moment that I'm here. Sure, I still have goals and dreams, but I live much more in the moment now, than I ever have. A friend calls it "life after cancer". I think it's life after ANY major life threatening event. It really changes your whole perspective and indeed, your very soul.

So on reflecting over 2016, we found forever homes for 3 of the horses.  We currently are out of stock on sale horses!  We added in 4 equines to the family.  One mini broodmare, 2 mini young stallions and one mini guard donkey!  We produced 3 lovely foals (1 mini and 2 full sized saddlebreds).  Both saddlebred babies were homozygous tobiano pinto and the mini baby was also a pinto!  It was a colorful foaling season for us!!  Our only horse out showing last year was our mini mare, Lucy.  She did well in halter and also began her driving career.  She will continue on this year in driving with the goal of making it to AMHR Nationals in September! 

Kakos Sharif's Fire in the Hole, aka Lucy.

Zinga (one of the young stallions) is also going to be starting his halter career this year.  He'll also be headed to AMHR Nationals in the futurity class.  We are excited to see what this little fellow can do in the future!  He sure loves to trot!!

DVM Grand Bazinga, aka Zinga.

2017 looks to be an exciting year for us again.  Two mini horses out showing, a 2 yr old half Arabian/half saddlebred gelding beginning his in-hand career in the Arabian Sport Horse shows, 2 mini foals due in March and in May, plus we MAY throw our hat back into the purebred Arabian breeding ring!!  We haven't produced purebred arabs for over 10 years now.  I'm feeling the itch to try for a black western pleasure show foal or two!!  We'll see how this materializes and I'll update you in the future on this endeavor!

Here's to hoping that 2017 brings you all of your heart's desires and a healthy, happy year!!  I'll check back in the beginning of February, with the next blog update.  Take care and stay warm this winter!

Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On......the holidays.

Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy Holidays!  This can be a very hectic time of year.  Remember to slow down and ENJOY the holidays.  No one will remember how perfect the table was or how spotless the silverware was.....they will, however, remember and cherish the times spent together and the laughter and good times.  As Jimmy Buffet sings, "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On". 

Even the snow can be beautiful!  Yes, I know it can be a pain in the behind to drive in and it's cold as the dickens too......but forget all that for a few moments and just look at the beauty that Mother Nature has given us!!



Our home during a rare South Carolina snow!

Everyone around our farm gets in the holiday spirit!  Even the critters. 



Keyper of the Legacy on the left and Nick's Supreme Gold Bourbon on the right.  They were looking for Christmas cookies.

We are lucky that in our neck of the woods, we can usually enjoy outdoor winter activities without risking frost bite!  LOL  Even if you are in colder climates, put on the long underwear and get outside to enjoy the scenery!  Go pick out a fresh Christmas tree and have it cut down!  Enjoy some hot chocolate at the tree farm.  Snuggle down in a nest of warm straw and just listen to the animals in the barn having supper, after you've done evening chores.  Go for a drive and look at the Christmas lights displayed.  Wander through a park.  Lots of options.....you just have to slow down and take time to enjoy the smaller or quieter things the season has to offer!



Echo and our son Jess on the left, Joy and my husband Shaun on the right.  Great times and great memories!

Christmas 2012 we decided to add a small tree to the dining room too.  It was decorated with Flash and Annie's ribbons from the Pinto World Chamionship Show earlier that year.  It was a fun way to remember and give thanks for a fabulous show season!  This would be a good idea for a barn party too.....decorate the tree with everyone's ribbons from the year's show season!  Reminisce about the season and share the emotions together!

Christmas dinner 2012 with our Pinto World Championship Show Ribbon tree in the background.

So however you celebrate the season, remember to enjoy and hold loved ones, both human and animal, close.  For those that can't be with you, keep them near in your heart.  May God bless you all in the upcoming New Year!  Thank you for sharing some of your life with me here.



MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!

See you all in mid-January for the next blog!

I hope you had a Happy Halloween!!

I'm not sure why my posts don't post as scheduled!  I had this set to post on Halloween Day.  It obviously didn't go out!  Oh well, it's still an interesting piece to share about our farm's history, so here you go (with revisions made to suit the timing).

Halloween seems like an appropriate time, to deviate from farm tales and tell you a bit about our 186 year old farm house that we live in!  Why an appropriate time?  It's Halloween season and yes, our house has it's share of odd events!  Haunted?  I guess that depends on your perspective.  There are many events that are definitely not explainable by logical avenues!

Here's a bit of the house's history.  It was built in 1830 by a gentleman that was engaged to be married.  He had to complete the house, before his marriage.  He accomplished that task.  It was a simple 2 story, antebellum farmhouse.  (When it was first built, it did not have the front porch and columns.  Those were added during a renovation in the 1960's.)  I believe it began life as a saltbox style house.  It was 1 and 1/2 stories with an additional single story at the back of the house for the kitchen and back porch.  During it's renovation in the mid 1900's, a covered front porch with columns was added to it, along with bathrooms, a laundry room and the back porch enclosed and incorporated into the living area of the house.  Then in the early 2000's, it had another addition made to it.  A garage was added on to the east side.  We since have turned the original garage into a storage area and dog kennel.  We've also added a new garage on further to the east and a new master living area onto the west side. 

The house resembled a modest plantation house in it's birth.  The farm was a large cotton farm with a share cropper's house on the property too (that house is now gone).  They also raised cattle and had work horses, so many barns were here too.  Over the years, the farm has dwindled down to 13+/- acres. 

There used to be a huge cedar tree, out by the main gate that goes to our barns now.  That tree came down during Hurricane Hugo, back in 1989.  Anyway, the significance of that tree and why it's stump has been left (and we will continue to leave it there), is that General Sherman's army is said to have camped under and around that tree!  They did not destroy the house or the barns, for which we are thankful all these years later!!  We only have hearsay to document this story though.  We have never found any artifacts from the army.

We HAVE found Indian artifacts though!  Every time it rains, our sandy soil offers up arrow heads, spear heads and other rocks that were used by the Indians.  This is reported to have been one of their camping sites.  Which tribe was here, we are not sure.  It could have been a hunting ground of the Catawba's, the Waxhaw's, the Cheraw's or even the Wateree's.  We're fairly certain it was not a permanent Indian Village site, but just a hunting camp area for them.

So as you can see, the land and house have a long and interesting history!  The farming families that have lived in the house, LOVED this house and land.  It's no wonder that they might wish to stay!

We've lived here for 7+ years.  We fell in love with the house, farm and general location the minute we saw it!  Right from the beginning though, odd things would happen.......

When I "met" the house for the first time, I felt as though I had been here before.  I knew my way around, without being told where to find doors or stairs, etc.  It was a comforting feeling, yet odd just the same.  In an upstairs bedroom, when I opened a closet door, little plastic BB balls came falling down across the floor.  On further inspection, there wasn't any shelf or ledge that they could have been located on, in order to fall like that!  A little different, but nothing to scare me.

We bought the house and moved in.  It had been empty for about a year.  While the house was in good repair, there was a lot of cleaning and things to be done.  We soon noticed that a particular light switch on the staircase would turn on by itself!  There was an upstairs bedroom that had a light switch and ceiling fan that had a mind of it's own as well (this was NOT the bedroom that had the plastic BB's fall).  The front doors would open on their own, if the deadbolt was not latched.  An upstairs window (same bedroom as the independent light switch) would open a few inches on it's own, as did a window in the downstairs living room! 

There were cold spots that would occur, mostly in the living room.  We had a house cat and he would act as though he saw something moving, that none of us could see!  We added a new puppy to our family that same year we moved in and he would "watch" something go from the front doors, down the center of the entry hall and then he would look up the stairs, as if he were watching something go upstairs! 

A couple of years later, we added another puppy to the family.  She, too, would look at the front doors and growl, with the hair on her back standing on end!  Then she would quite clearly watch something move down the center entry hall and up the stairs!  Only after "it" was at the top of the stairs, would she come back and lay down again in the living room!  After a month or so, she would still look at the front door at times, but then she would wag her tail and roll over for a belly rub to something unseen to us!!  Apparently whatever/whomever this was, was friendly and of no threat to us!!  It still made me sit up and take notice though, I can sure tell you that!  LOL

We've also heard voices or a conversation (2 voices) coming from outside, on the west side of the house.  That phenomenon continues now, even though we've added on to that west side and you can hear the voices inside the new hallway there!  It only happens a few times a year and one of the previous owners said they had the same experience.  He had even went outside to look for prowlers (as did we) and found no one, nor could he hear any voices carrying on the wind or echoing outside.

I believe the oddest thing I've witnessed here, was a fork move on it's own!  We have an island in the kitchen.  Three of us were sitting at the island eating breakfast.  The stove sits on the other side of the island and had a pan still sitting there.  We had placed a fork on the edge of the pan.  Two of us quite clearly saw the fork lift up and be placed down on the edge of the counter.  It didn't fall.  It lifted up and turned itself over to be sat down, just as it would look like if we were doing that ourselves!! 

We also used to smell bacon cooking in the kitchen quite often.  I would come in the back door and think "Oh good, Shaun (my husband) is making breakfast!"  Then I'd come on into the kitchen and NOTHING!  No cooking of any kind was going on or HAD gone on!!

A lot of our pictures seem to have "orbs" in them also.  This happens mostly around the baby animals, but can happen around the horses in the field too.  I know, people will say dust particles!  However with rapid sequence photography, there might be 1 or 2 pics out of 10 that have any abnormalities in them.  If it were dust in the air, I'd think there would be quite a bit more photos with those particles visible in them!  I think whoever it is, likes the animals and especially the babies.

Orb to the right of the pup's neck.

Large orb near the colt's front legs.

Orb located centrally, near the head of the middle black and white horse.

We certainly don't feel threatened at all.  I think there are a couple of "people" that have stayed around here, at least.  The main one seems to be the previous farm owner.  I think he loves the place as much as we do and just hasn't moved on yet. 

I hope you enjoyed the history on our house!  Enjoy the fall weather everyone.  Since the holidays are upon us, the next post will be the first week of December.  I wish you all an early Happy Thanksgiving!

Hurricane Matthew!

Well, once again Mother Nature had other plans for us!  The barn building is still on hold, while we clean up from Hurricane Matthew.  We were extremely lucky here.....just a lot of rain and wind.  Limbs down, wet everywhere, but no major damage (thank goodness!).  Animals and humans are all fine.  This blog would be a good time to review what to do for your animals in an extreme weather event, such as a hurricane.

When you are faced with a weather event, you have to weigh a lot of things, to see where your animals will be the most protected.  Do you leave them inside?  Do you leave them outside?  Do you evacuate them?  Etc, etc, etc. 

When you are considering your options, take into account the stability of your barn, if there are trees or potential debris that might come down (like electric wires) during high winds, is the shelter on high enough ground that it won't flood, what is the likelihood of flying debris that might hit them, etc. 

If you decide that the animals would be safer inside, be sure to give them plenty of water, hay and bedding, in case you can't make it back to the barn for a day.  If you decide to leave the animals outside, they will need the same access to water and hay or grass.  Be sure if you do leave them outside, that they have identification on them, in case fences come down and they get out.  If you leave a halter on them, be sure it is a break-away halter.  These halters are designed to give way, if the horse catches them on a tree branch or some such thing.  The halters are to break first, instead of injuring (or killing) the horse.  Perhaps put a fly mask on your outside horse as well, so it will help keep the wind from blowing dirt into the horse's eyes and/or ears.

You can also use a neck tag/strap for identification.  These are like the neck straps you would see on cattle....they work on horses too.  You can write on them with a permanent marker.  Put your name and phone number or your vet's phone number on the straps.  That way if your horses do get out, when someone finds them, they will hopefully still have the strap on, so you can be contacted.  Here's just one link to this type of product.  http://livestockconcepts.com/en/identification/2969-ritchey-15-neck-bands.html

If you have a well that supplies your water, be sure to fill up as many water tanks/buckets as you can, in case you loose power (wells won't work without electricity to them).  This way you can water your horses until the power comes back on.  Have plenty of hay on hand as well.  We've found if our horses have hay to munch on, that keeps them busy and they don't fret about high winds as much.

Make sure your emergency first aid kit for the animals is up-to-date and stocked.  Have blankets and towels on hand.  Better to be over prepared, than not prepared enough!

If you are thinking about evacuating your horses, have a plan on where you are going first.  Call ahead and find a stable that you can shelter in.  Make reservations for your horses, just as you will for yourself at a hotel.  If you have more horses than you can fit into your horse trailer at one time, take that into consideration as well.  Do you hire someone to haul them for you?  Remember, there may not be someone available to do this for you.  Can you make several trips to move the horses?  If so, start early and don't wait until the last minute to move them!  Better to have moved them early and end up not needing to evacuate, rather than waiting until the last minute and having a mess because you get stuck in traffic of others trying to leave or you need to make more than one trip and the weather turns too dangerous for you to haul a trailer, so you can't go back and get the 2nd load and so forth.

This brings up some other ideas you should have in place on a regular basis.  Check your truck and horse trailer tires regularly.  Check your horse trailer floors for safety.  Do normal maintenance on these vehicles, so they are ready in case of emergencies.  Keep a binder of current coggins tests for ALL of your horses, not just the horses that leave the farm routinely.  You never know when you may have to haul one to a vet in another state and would need a negative coggins to cross state lines.  In that same binder, keep printed out directions to the most frequently used horse emergency vet locations.  Your GPS may not work and having printed driving directions will take some of the tension out of an emergency situation.  Also keep a printed out version of your horse's health history, including vaccines, wormings, etc. in that binder.

Of course these ideas can be used for all livestock, not just horses.  Hopefully you will never need to implement any emergency responses.  We send our thoughts and prayers to all affected by hurricane Matthew. 

Next blog will be posted on Halloween Day.....Oct 31st.  That blog will give you an interesting look into our 186 year old house that we live in!!

A new arrival on the farm!

This blog was to continue with our barn building adventures.  Well, Mother Nature has had other ideas the last week or so here!  We've had rain for the majority of the week (much needed rain, I might add), so our barn build has been delayed.  There's never a lack of activity around here though.  I'll take this blog space to introduce you to our newest family member, instead.  Mini Gaits Midnight Wardance, aka Night, has arrived! 

He's a weanling miniature black and white pinto stud colt.  He will be one of our herd sires in the future.  He's registered both AMHA and AMHR.  I'll be getting him triple registered as a pinto also.  He is homozygous for tobiano pinto, meaning he will ALWAYS produce a pinto foal, no matter what color the mare is that he is bred to!  Yippee!!!!  We like our spots around here.  <big smile>

Night, shown at just 6 days old!

Night here on the farm, with his new best friend Rebel! 

We love, love, love his laid back attitude towards life!  He just takes things as they come and doesn't get upset about anything.  His turn-out buddy is our weanling colt Rebel.  We thought they would tear around the paddock and might need a babysitter.....not so, not so!  LOL  You lead them out, turn them loose and they settle right down to the task of eating grass!  No nonsense at all!  LOL

He has old, respected bloodlines that should compliment future daughters of our current stallion Little Kings Buckeroo Aladin.  Night is sired by Willow Creeks Thunder By Wardance, who is a direct son of Flying W Farms Little Wardance (who is the AMHA 1997 Amateur Senior Stallions National Champion and the AMHA 1998 Senior Stallions Open Over 32 to 34 National Champion).  Night's dam is Mini Gaits Night Angel, a double granddaughter of SC Rangers Nightrain.  SC Rangers Nightrain is a grandson of both Flying W Farms Little Blue Boy (He is the 1981 AMHA World Reserve Grand Champion Senior Stallion.  He was also the Leading AMHA sire at the time of his death and a true legendary sire.  He's also the sire of many AMHA World Champions.) and SC Rangers Nightrain is also a grandson of Roan Ranger (the Shetland pony who is a son of Gold Melody Boy).

                                                           View his full pedigree here.


Night is put together very well indeed!  Short backed, excellent legs, nice set on neck, pretty head, good bite, good tail set, nice croup, etc.  We are extremely happy with him and look forward to his future foals!  He'll stay at home to grow up for a few years, then he will go to our trainers to see what he can do in harness.  With his 4 flashy white stockings and black body coloration, coupled with his laid back personality, we think he will make a lovely parade candidate for us too!

Hopefully the next blog will continue on with our barn building, Mother Nature willing!  Enjoy the beginning weeks of fall everyone!!

Do you need more stall or storage space?

When you live on a farm, you can NEVER have too many barns, run-in sheds or storage areas.  We are at the place where we needed another small barn or run-in shed.  We've added another paddock this year near the main barn, where we turned out a mare and foal for exercise.  We thought it would have been very nice to have a shelter in that paddock for them, so if a sudden rain storm came up, they could get in without us worrying about them and running like crazy to the barn to get them inside!

So....we started out with the idea to just build a small 12 x 12 run-in shelter.  On reflecting about the use of that, we decided to make it a bit larger and go with a 12 x 30 small barn instead.  There will be room for 2 stalls of 12 x 12 size OR 4 stalls of 6 x 12 (mini horse) size OR 1 large run-in area of 12 x 24 size, OR a combination of those sizes, with a solid walled 6 x 12 feed room.  The stall area will be divided off by gates and/or round pen panels, so the entire stall area can be rearranged to meet whatever current need we have for it!  It will be perfect for weaning the mini foals in.  Perfect for 2 full sized horses to spend the nights in.  Perfect for storing shavings/sawdust in, etc.  The uses are numerous!

We also decided to tackle this build ourselves.  Since it was a small shelter, we figured it was within our abilities.  The blogs for the next few entries will reflect this building journey and I'll share the path that we chose to go down on putting up this addition!  Perhaps it may give you a few ideas for your own run-in shed or small barn!

The first thing you need to do, is check with your county and see if a building permit is needed.  In our county, if it is a barn/farm building, then no building permit is needed.  Then we drew out our planned building on paper, with lengths noted, post heights noted, etc.  This allowed us to make a shopping list for our supplies.

We began with marking and digging the holes for our support posts.  Since the internal stall structure will change with need, we opted for more posts than just the basic support posts.  We wanted extra posts to secure divider panels to, etc.  Before you dig, make sure there are no underground utilities in the area!  Often times people forget about where their electric or water lines to the barn are located!!  Make sure you are well clear of those areas before you dig your post holes!!  We put in the posts, made sure they were straight, tamped some dirt around the bottoms and then put in a bag of quickcrete in each hole.  We put the quickcrete in dry and added water to the mixture after it was in the hole.  We then let those posts stand quietly and the concrete dry for several days.

Posts set and concrete added.  Just waiting a few days for it all to set up and harden well.

After the concrete was dry, we put up our brace boards between all the posts.  This was a bit of a challenge!  We wanted the front posts to be 6 inches higher than our very back posts, to give us a 6 inch drop for water to run off the roof.  (That small of a drop is fine for our area....we get very, very little snow each year!  In snowy areas, you'll need to check with your local builders to see what they recommend for a roof slant.)  You would think that by leveling each brace board that goes between the posts, that you would have a square and even design.  Unfortunately, that did not happen for us!  I have a suspicion that it has to do with the fact that our ground is not perfectly level to begin with! 

So my best advice, would be to put your brace boards across the front posts at the height that you would like them to be at and then level each of those boards.  Then place a temporary board between the front post and the next post back.  Level it and mark the top of that brace board (for us, this was our middle post).  Measure down the correct distance and mark where the top of the board should be placed.  Then repeat that procedure for the next line of posts back, etc.  For instance, in our case, we had 3 lines of posts.  Front, middle and back.  Our front posts were 9 feet 6 inches high.  Our middle posts should have been 9 feet 3 inches high.  Our back posts should have been 9 feet even.  This would give us our 6 inch slope for our roof line.  You would think just measuring each post the correct height and then placing the brace boards at the top of each post, SHOULD have been the easiest way to achieve our slope!  It was NOT!!!  Again, I think the fact that the ground was not perfectly level, was the reason it didn't work the way we thought it would.  So....this alternate method worked and our roof slopes fine. 

Then we needed to cut off the posts to the correct heights.  You can do this before or after you place the brace boards up....it's up to you and how comfortable you are with your cutting device!  We opted to mark the posts with the brace boards held temporarily in place.  We placed them at the desired location and ran a marker across the post, along the top of the board.  This marked our post with the proper slope we needed to cut it at.  Then we used a chain saw to cut the tops off the posts.  It was pretty accurate and was a MUCH faster way than using a circular saw for this task! 

After the tops of the posts were cut off and the brace posts attached, it was time for the rafters.  We used 2 x 4 treated lumber.  We opted to lay them flat, with the 4 inch width against the brace posts, instead of having them on end.  We did this for 2 reasons:  we didn't want as much air/vent space at the top of the rafters and we wanted more of a surface to nail our OSB boards to.  We left a 3 foot overhang at the front of the barn and a 1 foot overhang at the back.  This will hopefully keep rain from blowing into the front of the stall and keep it from dripping directly down on the back of the barn.

Posts up, brace boards in place and rafters going up.

With all of the rafters in place, it was time for the OSB (like plywood) to go up.  We opted to put this up along with the metal roofing, in order to insulate the barn a little bit.  Having the wood underneath the metal roof will help to keep the barn a bit cooler and will also help to greatly reduce the noise when it rains!  Since there will be young horses kept in this barn often, we wanted it as quiet as we could get it during storms. 

We used 2 sheets of the OSB board to make up one row.  We placed it long way from front to back.  This gave us 16 feet of roof to cover.  (12 feet of stall area, plus 3 foot overhang in front and 1 foot overhang at the back.)  We did have to cut some off of the side, as it didn't come out to be a perfect fit that way.

Back row of the OSB boards going up on the roof.  About 3/4 of that row is finished here.  To get them on the roof, we backed the truck as close to the side of the building as we could.  Then we lifted up the 8 foot board and pushed it up onto the roof.  We used ladders to climb up to get it properly placed on the first few boards.  After that, one person sat on the roof to work and the other stood on a ladder to assist from the ground.

Once the OSB boards were all in place, we put on the black roof paper, to seal the roof against moisture.  We rolled it out across the roof going left to right (so going longways on the roof).  We overlapped each row by about 3 inches.  Each row was also stapled in place.  We opted for the stronger paper....so when we walked across it, it held up and wouldn't tear. 

On each end, we left about 2 or 3 inches hanging over and stapled that down also.



Roof covered in black roofing paper.  The wrinkles are because the roof sat overnight and the dew made it slightly bubbled like that.  As the sun came up, it went back down flat.

Black roof paper hanging over edges of roof a bit.  We stapled this down also.

 

 

 

Next step was to add the drip edges.  We used 10 feet long drip strips, letting them overlap slightly in the middle and used roofing nails to attach them to the topside of the roof.  On the ends, we bent the edges around the corners, to protect the corner boards as shown.

Drip edge (silver colored metal strip) going up.

Drip edge going in place.



The drip edge wrapping around the corner. 

Now it was time for the metal roofing to go up!  For easier handling, we chose to use an 8 foot piece of metal and a 10 foot piece of metal, to make up one row (front to back).  These smaller pieces were easier for us to transport and handle, rather than going with a 16 foot long solid piece!!

We did overlap the 2 pieces in each row by a couple of feet.  We also allowed the metal to slightly hang over the edges of the OSB board in the front and back by a couple of inches.  The screws we used to attach the metal sheets have a washer on them, to help seal the screw holes against water.

Metal roofing in place.

That completes phase 1!  Yeah!!  It's nice to have the barn under roof.  Next phase is putting up the metal sides.  That will be covered in the next blog, coming out on September 26th.  A word of caution....when you are working on a roof.....never do that alone!  Always have someone with you, even if they are on the ground, for safety!  Take care!!  Until next time.....

No post until September 12th!

We've been on the go the last couple of weeks and the travel will continue another week or so.  Due to this, the next blog on building a run-in shed will come out on September the 12th.  Sorry for the delay!