Surprises come in all shapes, sizes, and colors

This past Saturday morning when we went out to do chores we had a big surprise. Out in one of our pastures occupied by four mares was a newborn foal! Only one of the four, Dancer (a Toco Sam mare), had been bred last year but repeated ultrasound exams failed to demonstrate an early pregnancy and she had developed what appeared to have been another anovulatory follicle cyst. Just to be sure, we had another ultrasound performed at about 45 days post breeding and still no evidence of a pregnancy. We elected not to re-breed her because it was getting late in the season and turned her out with some other mares. We continued to ride her last fall and again this spring after the snow finally left. We rode her as much as twice a day, including twice on Friday. Lo and behold, early Saturday morning she blessed us with a chocolate colt! We were shocked beyond belief! In looking back, we have been so busy but "concerned" about her weight such that we had increased her to two-a-day rides to get some extra weight off of her. She was a first time mother and had not developed much udder enlargement and none of us noted any change while grooming her. How remiss we were! All ended well with mom (a superwoman) and baby (a real trooper) doing well. He looks as though he will be a solid chocolate with a white mane and tail. I have posted some photos of our new surprise. All of the other moms and babies are doing very well. Each day we now put halters on moms and babies and lead them in to the barn from their pasture for grain, grooming, fly spray, ground work, and then lead them back out to pasture. The babies (they are now eight weeks of age) have just been awesome about it. All of our daily work with the babies in the stalls have paid big dividends.

Also during this past week we managed to get in 28 dry round bales and, on Saturday, 800 square bales, delivered two geldings to a transporter last Monday, went to Boston yesterday to pick up a grandson flying in from Wisconsin, riding horses, and keeping up with all of our routine maintenance here at the farm. Needless to say it has been a three ring circus here. And we still have more hay to get in, weather permitting.