July 2011

July 27, 2011: Melodrama. Again.

Oh sigh, I do get disappointed when time runs away with me like this. It's 8:30 P. M. and it feels like I haven't gotten around to half the things I was supposed to do today. I rode Skye and Arwen, but didn't lay a finger on Siobhan or Thunder; I did my math and half the chemistry, but didn't pick up The Tempest; I fed the show ladies, but didn't write a word or even untangle a plot hole in my thoughts. It's immensely frustrating when this sort of thing happens.

I was lucky today, though, not a single artificial insemination in sight, though I already have one for six o' clock tomorrow morning. (The other inseminator first went on leave and then resigned, leaving me to do all the inseminations. I don't mind doing them, it's the least I can do considering how Mom and Dad have to tailor their day around the horses, but it does take a chunk out of my afternoon riding time). This meant that Arwen and I could fetch the cows and we did. Arwen is a dreadful bore to ride out. Well-mannered and well-behaved in the arena, she turns into a little goblin outside, tosses her head incessantly, spooks at everything, tries to run off, and leans continually on my hands. At least we resolved one problem today; I found a puddle caused by a leaking pipe and when I tried to ride over it, Arwen cleared it with a massive leap. I wasn't expecting a leap and almost got left behind, but stuck on somehow. Jumping water is fun when it's intentional but I didn't like it one bit and we spent some time on that. Six or seven massive leaps later, she was walking through the water on tiptoe but at least she was walking through it. I think she eventually got out of breath, and I pulled her head sideways while she was in mid-leap, resulting in Arwen landing with all four feet in the water and realising that walking through it wouldn't be that bad. We tried to fetch the cows but Arwen said the cows were Scary. She spooked at the sound of a bakkie pulling off (a sound she heards every day, I might add) and we gave Mom a bit of a heart attack in the resulting argument, during which Arwen tried to run off and I tried to get her to stand still. Eventually she stood still, but she didn't like it.

We still had half an hour left upon returning from the expedition so we did some work in hand. We've been working in hand, on and off, for over six months now. I've never concentrated very hard on it because Arwen has good manners already, so she basically just needed to learn to trot nicely and stand right, which we taught Heidi in a very short time. I was impressed with her, she was pretty well behaved and trotted beautifully. She gets quite excited when we trot, whereas a few months ago I had to drag her along behind me. We're skipping Pretoria Show this year as it seems a bit of a mess, all the riding and in hand classes crammed into one day. Arwen hasn't been registered or evaluated yet anyway. This whole process of just getting her name down for evaluation seems to be taking ages. Oh well, she's still far from ready for being ridden in a show anyway, pokes her nose out wherever she goes.

Skye was marvellous today though, not flighty like yesterday. We had a few nice long canters and she only broke a small sweat despite her woolly coat. She's getting fit again now. We rode out along the western Woods path, cut straight down towards the willows and followed the stream to the dam. Said stream is just a few puddles now but in summer it does actually run. The dam has stayed full for two winters running, which is very nice; maybe one day we can have some fish in it. Skye's blood was thoroughly up by then. For some reason she didn't feel like cantering slowly today, but neither did I so that was all right. We rode up to the koppie and swung west headed for the Swaelkrans border, we walked a bit then for a breather. Since we were only walking, we got amazingly close to a little duiker, close enough that I could look right into her big, misty black eyes. I could see the dark spot on her face, and the size - she looked about as big as a hare. Silent as moonlight, she broke cover not two metres away from us, loped across our path, and sprang effortlessly into the air, as if she was utterly weightless, jumping twice her height over the tall brush, her stick-thin legs bending like stems under her body. It was a magical moment.

We also saw (and heard) a pair of red-billed hoopoes. Not long after sighting the duiker, a big old grey heron hissed out of the veld near us, the biggest bird I've ever met, barring the secretary birds. Skye didn't spook at the duiker or the heron or, indeed, anything else; and then we had a run up Gallop Stretch. Though she'll pass by the foot of the Stretch without argument, she knows when we're going to gallop. No kicking is necessary. I turn her nose up the Stretch and into the cold north wind and I give her the reins. The power seems to crackle up out of her hindlegs. I can feel her bring her legs under her until she almost rears, lifting her forelegs just enough off the ground to bend at the knees. Then she explodes, leaping off her hindlegs like an arrow off a bowstring, all that power suddenly burning brightly forward as she stretches out her neck and snaps her forelegs out to their full length, skimming across the earth, her hooves beating on the ground and heart beating in the sky. A gallop like that will never lose its deep magic.

As little of my work as I managed to get around to today, all is well. Skye is healthy; glowingly healthy, bright-coated, pink in her mouth, stars in her eyes. Thank You, my Lord. We could never have done it without You. It makes up for misfortune when she neighs to me, knowing that I have a bridle in my hand and knowing that the ride that follows will be fun.

Well, part of the reason of today's half-tasks was that Pumpkin, a six-month-old Jersey heifer, ran headlong into a sheet of corrugated iron and cut her face open. The whole family lost no time in piling into the bakkie and heading for the vet. By the whole family I mean two excited children, one bewildered calf, two dogs going to have their stitches out and a pair of harrassed parents. Hope and Lady came to blows two weeks ago and needed to be held together by bits of string for a while, so they were going to have their stitches out; since we loaded Pumpkin in the back under the canopy, the dogs sat on the backseat, and since the parents sat in the front, we had to share the backseat with the dogs. Lady was curled up on Rain's lap; Hope balanced with her bum on the backseat, her paws on the floor, and her head panting away between Mom and Dad, admiring herself in the rearview mirror and drooling all over Dad's sleeve (he was wet through).

Sewing up Pumpkin was the work of a few moments for Dr. Louis; he knocked her out with half a cc of general anesthetic and while she was happily in Dreamland he scrubbed out and stitched up her wound. It wasn't big, so to speak, no more than five centimetres across, but it went all the way down to the bone. She came around just minutes after the operation finished and we headed back with our un-sewn-up dogs and groggy little calf. Poor old Pumpkin.

Oh yeah, and I haven't even started on the other dramas. While Rain and I were snoring away last night, poor Mom and Dad pulled a stillborn calf out of Her Majesty the Queen Corne II. Corne is now a bit sick and won't eat all her concentrates, though she ate all her hay. Beauty calved as fat as a plum pudding and now has ketosis for the umpteenth time since she calved. And a Friesland named Gratitude came in with a fever of 41 degrees on Monday, was cured on Tuesday, and is sick again today.

Now I really must go to bed before I pass out.

July 26, 2011: I really hate titles.

I've been trying to come up with one for Sparrowhawk for ages and ages and I still can't put my finger on it. It can't stay Sparrowhawk, what kind of a title is that?

Anyways poor old Sparrowhawk is having a rest since I galloped through the first half of revisions in just a month and have now ground to a halt trying to think of ways to torture poor Falcon (the hero) in the first chapter so that the conflict goes boom in the reader's face. For some reason I just can't think of a workable scene. I know what I need to say, I just haven't the foggiest idea of how to say it.

A full year ago I came up with an idea for a story named Moonrise for Midnight while I was on holiday at the beach. The first draft thundered along and the plot morphed again and again and again until I was writing in three different directions and stopped. So I started it over again and called it Unicorn Summer and this time it only lasted until chapter three when it went kablooey again. Frustrated half to death, I wrote a proper outline for it, to which I will now stick. It's now called Year of the Broken Horses and it's about a bunch of orphans and a bunch of rescued horses and how they heal each other. It has no unicorns in it, and it has no magic except for the deep kind that comes from the heart of a horse. In fact it's not fantasy at all. I'm relatively shocked. It will be my first non-fantasy ever. I wouldn't call it drama, it's an adventure story, though not a very fast or action-packed one, I'm calling it adventure because it involves criminals and horses (not sure which one is more dangerous).

Speaking of horses, my bunch of non-imaginary equines had a lovely holiday while I caught a horrid sticky cold. Skye is on holiday from the arena anyway, since she absolutely detests it. She never really liked working in the arena; she gets very lazy, and eventually she decided to stop at the jumps, so Kevin reccomended some time off. Skye likes the idea. She loves going out and fetching cows. I just have to stir my legs against her sides and she goes, unlike in schooling sessions where I kick the whole time. Hopefully this will fix her and give her some more enjoyment of schooling; I think when we do go back to the arena I'll only take her there once or maybe twice a week. I'm starting to learn to tailor each horse's training schedule to itself. Arwen hates going out and goes very well in the arena so she does a lot of schooling, though I am worried that what happened to Skye is going to happen to her again, so I'm watching it.

Yesterday was my lesson and since it was the first time I'd ridden for over a week, I wanted to do something fun, so we went riding out on our neighbour's neighbour's farm. The Snymans own a lovely Arabian stud, home to a fantastic chestnut colt named Inanna-Ishtar Belrock. His movement is simply out of this world. He is a very handsome boy. Skye looked at him and said he was quite handsome but not as handsome as Thunder and I wholeheartedly agreed.

Kevin rode on poor Arwen. Arwen isn't that small or unfit, so it strikes me as odd that she half collapses when Kevin rides on her. She was well behaved though, no bucking at all though we did quite a lot of galloping about, and Skye went faster and faster and faster so poor Arwen had to go faster and faster and faster too or get Left Behind which is her worst nightmare. She was lathered in sweat when we got home, poor thing. Skye lost interest at one point in the ride, but then we started cantering and abruptly she decided that this was lots of fun indeed and pricked her ears and began to prance. She had an absolute ball, though we had to ride on the dirt road to get there and she doesn't like it much, she says it hurts her feet.

The Snymans have a lovely farm for riding out on, with lots of hills and lands and space to canter. Kevin called Skye Speedy Gonzales and I just held the reins really really tight. On the way home Skye really began to motor and walked at the same speed as most horses trot. Poor Arwen jogged along behind us, wailing, Wait for Me! while Skye ignored her. A car rattled past with a squeaking, bouncing trailer and I envisioned Arwen heading for the horizon but she simply froze out of terror and watched it go past so that was all right. Achilles neighed to us, too, when we got home but Skye told him that he wasn't as handsome as the Boy Next Door and we made our escape while he tried to work that one out.

So today Skye and I went out on our own farm, just a stint out of the old horse camp, down alongside the bottom of Over the Hill to the Swaelkrans border, on the north side of the Koppie, across the vlei and through the Woods. Things are just so beautiful from a horse's back. I'm blessed to ride in a place as lovely as the Woods.

We had a nice canter in the Woods, or at least tried to; we came around a corner and saw a Monster. I jumped clean out of my skin but luckily Skye also jumped out of her skin and we did it in sync so I stayed on top. Skye spun around and there was a magnificent, dazzled moment as horse, human and herd of cows stared at one another. The cows rarely walk in the Woods so it was quite a moment, coming around the corner and seeing the bunch of cows standing demurely under the trees like something only part domesticated. Then Skye shook her mane, irritated with her spook, and the cows went back to eating leaves. They looked simply enchanting. I love the way our cows can roam all day long. Surely there is more happiness here than in some dirt pen.

From left to right, the cows are Blossom, Olive, Magic and Pnumpning.

It was very windy and overcast and Skye was a little flighty, even moved to snort at a feed bag blowing in the wind. She had fun, though, and once we'd gotten past the cows we had our nice canter, which morphed into a nice gallop and then a nice miniature steeplechase when we reached the fallen branches.

Anyway, once Skye and I were done riding life went a little mad for a while so I didn't get around to riding Siobhan today, though I did get around to school, performing abysmally with only 85% in my math test today. Part of the chaos was when Margot calved. The calf is a tiny lovely little heifer without a name because Mom didn't like Mystral.

We have also picked five show calves for the Standerton show in September. This time we're doing breed shows with Brett's Friesland heifers. The Frieslands are pretty wild, but we can do it. Three of them posed for a picture. From left to right, their names are Hush Up (she will need a name change before the show), Hermione, and Kaleidoscope.

The white one in the middle, Hermione, is tamer than the others and very striking. I want to show her but she'll probably go to Grethe or Rain because she's tamer. The other show calves are Moonlight and Ill Behaved (it would be her, she earned her name), though Moonlight is probably not going to come because she is the wrong age, i. e. in the nine to twelve month old group she will be nine months old and look smaller than the other heifers in her class. Hush Up is so named because she bellowed incessantly.

We've had quite a lot of new calves. Swallow had a bullcalf named Seven Brothers because Rain was sick and watching a musical of the same name on that day. He leered at us over his shoulder a few times. He has lots of personality.

Then came three calves who I don't have pictures of. Sugarbird, a young heifer who is white with brown spots instead of vice versa, had a heifer who is brown with white spots. Her name is Spaceship AKA Spacey because of that space shuttle that was retired a few days ago (not that I can remember much about it). Rain named her. After a long drama involving vets and milk fever, Oepsie finally had a bullcalf named Obelix. Then my cow Fiona had a bullcalf, whom I named Farris, which means 'knight', in keeping with my other bullcalves Beaumains and Bedivere.

Anyway, back to horses, I schooled Arwen a bit this afternoon, too. We focused on jumping because she felt full of energy and in the mood. The wind does that to them. I build my jumps out of old tyres and Dad bought me another bakkieload full of them (thanks Dad), which were all stacked at the top of the arena. I wanted half of them at the bottom of the arena and didn't feel like carrying them so I stood them up and shoved them down the hill. Off they bounced, six at a time, looking very strange and like terrible monsters, according to Arwen. Strangely enough, when it comes to totally harmless things like puppies and runaway tyres, Arwen decides that she is Herd Protector and charges them. (With real dangers like fires or stranger horses, Skye or Siobhan do that job). So she charged the tyres. About a stride from the tyres her courage deserted her and she fled, tail high. Soon all the horses were shooting about like rockets; only Arwen was actually scared, the rest were curious and playful. It made for some lovely pictures of the herd running.

Skye still hasn't got all the muscle tone in her neck back yet. She lost some condition in her illness and the neck muscle is always the first to go. It's coming back steadily and soon she will be back to her powerful, stallion-necked self again.

Finally, I worked Dancer a bit today, too. She has impeccable manners when she's near her friends and terrible manners when she's far from them. She reared twice today and got roundly spanked and scolded. Thunder was utterly impossible while I was trying to brush Dancer. He ran off with the brushes, myself and Dancer in pursuit. Foals. The very embodiment of mischievousness. They're nine and ten months old now and still not weaned, unfortunately; the past two or three months the weather has been too cold for me to safely wean them.

So it is very late now and I must collapse into bed alongside lucky little Cyclone, who is four months old now and still has floppy ears. Sweet horsy dreams everyone.

July 6, 2011: Weather Permitting

I ride every day, weather permitting. Well, yesterday the weather did not permit. Even Kevin thinks I'm crazy due to the weather I ride in, but yesterday it was cold and it rained, though at least the howling gale stopped at around six in the morning. I was terrified for the horses but there was not a shiver to be seen, so fingers crossed they won't catch cold.

This morning in the six A. M. darkness of feeding time I stepped outside into a puddle and the puddle went crunch. Puddles are not supposed to go crunch. This was because the puddle was not, in fact, a puddle. It was a block of ice. I groaned.

Everything was frosted. Gateposts...

... weeds, the ice transforming their twiggy stems to diamond traceries...

... Arwen's mane (yes, those white streaks are frost)...

... pretty much all of Dancer...

... the tips of Benjamin's ears, etc.

Skye was the only equine without much frost on her, though she had a little white bow of ice in her tail. She seemed utterly unfazed by the frost. Her golden coat was a warm glow in the icy whiteness.

I had to break the ice on the water trough, though. NOT FUN. It was the heaviest frost of the year so far (when Mom went out at eight last night to check on Grieta, who is blind and getting ready to calve, it was already very frosted). Cyclone was in a good mood having, like me, slept on an electric blanket all night and she seemed to like the frost, especially when I did a bit of impromptu and unintended ice-skating over a surface that she romped across without any difficulty.

Yes, the ears, I know. She's only little. Dad fired up our coal stove and this was a really welcome sight, I promise you, coming home at half past six in the morning frozen half dead.

By then everyone on the farm were up and either feeding or eating breakfast - horses, dogs, cattle, people, chickens, geese, the whole bunch. We were all coming to the conclusion that Hope was the only one left with any sanity. Dogs like electric blankets.

Well, the arena was an ice rink so I curled up in front of the stove and did a lesson of maths and a lesson out of my new chemistry book. I have finally found a chemistry book that makes sense. It hasn't said a word about atoms yet. By ten o' clock there were still a few traces of frost left but the arena was safe enough, so, the crazy horse lover that I am, I bundled myself up in jerseys, gloves, and chaps and went to go riding. Since the horses were outside anyway I'd come to the conclusion that, in cold weather, being ridden would only make them happier because the saddle would warm their back a bit and the exercise would warm their body. Skye was friskier than she normally is in the arena (Skye hates flatwork) and it went really well. She's cantering more consistently now and not slowing to a trot or speeding to a gallop so much. She canters perfectly on outrides with her head in and all that but not in the arena (except when we jump). Skye loses interest when there's no galloping or jumping. Today she was good, though; her head stays in at the walk and trot, though it takes a bit of work on my part in a canter. We did a bit of jumping and it was quite wonderful. The small jumps she did effortlessly; she was very keen today, ears pricked, going faster and faster, flinging herself at the jumps like we were at Badminton or something. In fact when I raised the jumps to four tyres (roughly 70-75cm) she got wildly excited and started galloping, twice turning out at the last minute, I think because she was going too fast. When I did my job and kept her to a canter she jumped beautifully. We only jumped for a very short while, though, because I was getting Worried again. She coughed a few times while we were warming up and coughed another few times while we were cantering and jumping, so, being myself, I thought of the rain and frost and started to catch a panic and think she was getting a cold. After riding her I walked her cool very carefully, made sure she was dry and then sped home to read up feverishly on colds. I bet she just had a grass seed in her throat or something; according to the books and to common sense she wouldn't have been friskier than normal if she was sick, would she then? Anyway, she doesn't have a runny nose or dull coat and her appetite grows with the cold. I know, I know, I'm very paranoid.

Then I rode little Arwen and she jumped 85cm clear. I was sufficiently impressed. It is one massive jump considering Arwen's size, only 14.1 hands. If only she was a bit more willing she would be such a fabulous jumper; her jump is a very fluid motion, more so than Skye's, but Skye is much more willing to jump, she loves jumping and she's brave. Skye will jump pretty much anything lower than 85cm, including 82cm. 85cm is five tyres stacked on top of one another and she happily jumps 5 tyres on one side, 4 on the other, but Skye can count and when she sees five tyres on both sides she stops. Why? Because she has quite often hit her legs on the big jump and that must have hurt. I want to get brushing boots for her and then start building her confidence again. I know she will do it, we just need to work on it. Anyway, it's only to be expected that she's taken a bit of a step back after her illness.

Back to Arwen, I was very pleased with her. It was a gutsy thing to do, especially for Arwen who isn't the boldest of horses. She posed happily for her biggest jump picture.

Considering that just a year ago she refused to jump at all, I am pleased.

I'm not pleased, though, about Rain's latest escapade. Okay, actually I am very pleased because I hate rats. It's just a little bit on the weird side. I mean, she's a ballerina. But to wind down, she goes shooting rats with her new pellet gun. Well, this is Hydeaway Farm. We're not odd. We're just... differently normal. (By the way, Terry Pratchett came up with that one, not me.)

July 4, 2011: The Wind Speaks to Horses

It whispers in their ears, makes them more mustang and firestorm than horse. To Siobhan, it says, "Run! Buck! Rear! Be crazy!" which is why I didn't ride her for my lesson today. I also didn't ride Arwen; the wind says to her, "Every rock is a leopard, every bush a lion." But to Skye, the wind says, "Race me."

This is why she was exceptionally fiery and fun to ride today. She only had one Little Moment (when Kevin said, "Watch out for the plastic bottle," and Skye stopped dead and Looked at it) but she was prancing the whole way, her head tucked in, her eyes ablaze with excitement. (Well, I guess they were, I was on top). She pranced and pranced, and I didn't discipline her because I can't really discipline her for having too much energy if she's not being stupid and doing dumb stuff like bucking or shying a lot, and anyway I was having too much fun. There is nothing like sitting on a spirited but obedient horse; a thing made of fire, tempered by gentleness.

We cantered virtually all the way home from three-quarters of the way down the farm (that is about two kilometres), pausing only a few times to let the horses walk and catch their breath. Arwen had a good workout today, since she was carrying twice the normal weight, but Skye didn't really seem to lose any energy; it was to do with the cold and the wind, see. She hates getting hot. She danced home. Poor Arwen was half falling down. We had a glorious race; we galloped past their paddock so Siobhan, Thunder and Dancer all galloped too and I was in the middle of a storm of running horses and the sky seemed to get bigger and bigger and their hooves shook the whole world and Skye threw up her head and snapped out her legs and her silver mane roared along her neck like fire, and here I was in the centre of it all, beaming gormlessly, shaking with the glory of this world that God had made, knowing that He loves us because if He didn't He would never have given us horses, knowing that there was a brave and wonderful heart beating between my knees. Needless to say Skye beat Arwen by absolute miles. Being Skye, she only protested a little when I reined her in and obedient dropped back to a walk, still prancing and biting her bit.

The horses and I have been working really hard in the past few lessons, doing big jumps and things, so it was great to just go out and play in the wind a bit. I am left slightly dazed and glowing inside, and knowing that never, ever, come hell or high water, will I be able to stop loving horses. They reduce me to tears and black despair sometimes, when I think they'll die of African horse sickness or they're being truly horrible in their training, and I know that many more despairing times await me (after all I have yet to ride Achilles since that nasty fall), but then there are these times when they leap to the stars and everything is just wonderful. And then I know that falling, getting kicked, bitten, bucked off, bolted with is all there for a reason. Pain, loss, sorrow, worry, fear, joy, love, exhilaration, peace, excitement, deepest thankfulness - it's all a part of being a horse whisperer's apprentice.

Thank You my Lord God for making horses and for letting me have the courage to sit on half a ton of crazed, neurotic animal. Thank You for the horses and people that teach me about these wonderful creatures. Thank You for patient parents who give so much to let me ride. Thank You for how soft a horse's nose is when you stroke it and for the way beginners smile when they first throw their leg over a horse's back. Thank You for the way a horse's eyes are full of stars. Thank You for my beloved horses, however dumb they can be. Thank You so much for the mighty mare who flashes gold in the sunlight, and for, on a high and windy hilltop in the middle of nowhere, when I sit on her back, unrolling the whole world at her feet.

Amen. 

July 3, 2011: Overheard at the Hyde House III

Rain and Dad came back from a bit of target practice with Dad's old .22. In a frenzy of excitement, Rain rushed up to me.

Rain: Firny! Firny! I got a bullseye!

Me: Well done.

Rain: Isn't it brilliant?

Me: Yeah, especially since you're still wearing your slippers.

July 3, 2011: Calves, Calves, Calves, Calves

We're up to our knees in calves. Mom is hurriedly weaning seven of them but we're still short on space for them all. They've been dropping like small, furry, placenta-encased bombs.

First Ocean had a big plump heifer named Orgidee (Afrikaans for orchid). Ocean is a pitch black part-Friesland; Orgidee is light brown. Genetics are funny things.

On the same day, Indigo (whose mother is blind) had a very small shivery bullcalf. His name is Ice Cold, better known as Icy.

Then Star had a heifer named Shimmer. On the day Shimmer was born I saw two shooting stars. I wasn't aware of any meteor showers that were supposed to be happening and when I saw the first one I was sure my imagination was running away with me again, but the second one definitely streaked across the sky, dragging a tail of glowing dust and dreams behind it. It was like opening a cottage door and walking into a cathedral, or coming around a corner and catching a glimpse of a unicorn.

After that Beauty had a heifer. The poor thing was born at night and somehow crawled under the fence away from her mother and into the cold. Mom found her early that morning, half frozen to death; she couldn't even lift her head. Mom rushed home, put her in the bathroom with the one and only heater in the house, and draped her in a horse blanket. Some diligent nursing transformed the little thing and she can even stand up and walk around now. (By the end of the day she was shouting for her milk). Her name is Bibber, an Afrikaans word meaning that weird shivery noise you make when your teeth are chattering and you're freezing.

Kulula, a grumpy old rhinoceros of a cow, decided with typical Kulula contrariness to calve out in the veld. She had a very tiny little bullcalf, who weighs only 16kg - about as much as Cyclone, who's a three-month-old German shepherd. He's a shivering little pipsqueak and only managed to stand up when he was two days old. Amidst much hysterical giggling we named him Kevin. The workers call him Baas Kevin ('baas' being a term of respect also meaning 'boss', used kind of like 'sir').

Yesterday, my young first-calf heifer Barbara (a daughter of Bestie and Moonshot, whose father was Rocket) had a very gutsy little brown bullcalf who in keeping with tradition I named Sir Beaumains (we have a Sir Bors, a Sir Bedivere and the Green Knight as well). The Knight of the Fair Hands was on his feet within about half an hour of birth. Barbara has the most absolutely fantastic udder, I veritably swooned over it.

On the same day Bianca also had a bullcalf. His name is Basie, and it really suits him, he's a stocky, powerful little guy. Bianca is a little camera shy, hence the head in the bucket.

Dr. Louis came to do pregnancy tests on Friday. To our immense delight he brought along his little sonar machine and did a sonar on a Friesland named Florris. We watched agape.

Florris is pregnant and to our great excitement we got to see her darling little calf on the sonar!! EEEK!! We restrained ourselves from leaping about and shrieking with excitement, but only just. There was its tiny head and its little body and even the umbilical cord, a small grey shape on the screen, that would in a few months' time be a frisking calf with beating heart and darkling eyes.

We're also very glad to announce that Trickle is still pregnant. Trickle, aptly nicknamed Trick, is rather tricky; she aborted during her first pregnancy and appeared to come into heat during her second pregnancy, but luckily all is still well and she will soon go back to Brett's. Trick seems quite relieved.

More good news: Blinkers, my ancient (14-year-old) cow, is NOT pregnant. We retired her because she kept on half dying after having her calves and Blinkers has been part of the scenery for so long that we couldn't bear to cull the dear old thing. She came into a definite heat today. Because she lives with the heavily pregnant Frieslands (who weigh upwards of 600kg) we moved her amongst the young Frieslands, for fear the big ones would hurt her back when they mounted her. She seemed most content, though wherever she went all day long she was followed by a dedicated and enthralled retinue of heifers.

As you can see, we've been quite busy. I haven't ridden much this week, because our only other artifical inseminator is on leave so I'm doing all the A. I.s and it's pretty hectic. Skye has calmed down a bit, though, and is back to her fiery but obedient self, a joy to ride. Arwen is a little depressed, though definitely healthy; the cold gets to her. Thunder boy is going through a bit of a pushy patch though it's under control and he doesn't push me around, he knows better. Exasperated by my lack of brain cells regarding Kevin's saddle, which is the only saddle that actually stays on Siobhan when she bucks, I annoucned that I was being really dumb. Kevin (Kevin the mutterer that is, not Kevin the calf) said, "You shouldn't say that about yourself." "I am being dumb!" I said, and explained the problem. Kevin earned a medal; he only said, "Oh," and patiently explained to me how to saddle up a horse. This was mildly embarrassing because, having been riding for ten years, I should know. I mean, I've saddled up literally millions of times. I plead insanity.

Well, I finally got it right, after much groaning and some praying, and rode Siobhan in it. She bucked. And... the saddle stayed on! And she really doesn't buck hideously most of the time, it's quite easy to ride out so long as I keep her head up. (I learned this the hard way. She chucked me off over her shoulder and while I was still on my knees Kevin rode up beside me, looked over Arwen's side and said, "Lesson number one: Always keep Siobhanny's head up." It was very funny. Please read with intended sarcasm.) So we cantered and we cantered, and I didn't have to worry about the saddle and I both going flying. Hurray hurray hurray.

Now I need to shut down and go to bed. My self-imposed (and parent-approved) lights out is at half past eight. For those who goggle at the earliness of this time, I get up at half past five. People tell me teenagers need a lot of sleep. This is why.