SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder

Its Fall, when everyone gets depressed & grumpy.

I try hard every fall not to let the changing weather affect me but sometimes it still does. 

I hope you all have a great Fall and Winter.

In horse news, Wifi and Amble are happy to be back together and eating pasture grass. There's a big storm rolling in and I'd like to have them in the barn but right now the truck & dump trailer are in there with a load of currently dry firewood. I do not trust the mares to leave the truck alone or not hurt themselves on the trailer so they will stay out front with protection for the weather under the huge Fir trees.

R2 & Sarah will be joining us for dinner, steak and salmon, I can't wait.

 

We Lost Clare Yesterday

 I'm sad that I can't find a single photo of Clare on my PC since my son 'cleaned it up for me'.

Clare was our English Mastiff, we'd gotten her when she was 4, and she had just had her 4th litter of puppies. She was a good girl every day but for the last couple years she'd had one issue after another. Icky ears, allergies, weight loss; lately she'd been puking up everything she ate so we made the decision to let her go.

This is the first time in many, many years that I woke up without a dog in the house.

Negative

This is what we wanted to see

But Amble is not pregnant. 

What we can do is have the stud owner gather semen and ship it over here, the vet said there was NO WAY she would have gotten pregnant at the time she was there because her body wasn't ready. He did say she would be receptive in 4-5 days... hhhmmm... that's exactly what the vet in Spokane said.

So I've got about 36 hours to decide what to do. I'll need to get in touch with the vet and ask him if he WILL do it, then tell the breeder and she would need to get the stud to the vet, collect him & get it shipped here, to be received Monday or Tuesday.

The expenses would be high, $250 to collect, shipping is $150+ and the vet said upwards of $1,500 for him to inseminate her. And still no guarantees. But AI is still cheaper than taking her back there at this point. I've just sent the breeder a text saying we'll try in the spring.

Amble weighs 1,294#. I NEED to get her measurements today and photos so I can keep track of her. The vet said she's about 100# over weight and that's not bad.

I should throw her saddle on her and start riding.

And wish for a 2028 baby.

Veterinarians

I never knew this girl would need twice as much tranq as normal but here we are.

Ambles last vet bill was $245 and most of that was immunizations, her Reproductive Ultrasound was $78.75.  I'll be taking her to the local vet and I am betting the SAME ULTRASOUND will cost over $500. 

I called our local vet a month ago to see about getting an appointment for a pre-breeding appointment but they couldn't see Amble for 3 weeks, much to late for us. Now that she's HOPEFULLY bred, I needed the vet again, but TODAY was the last day if she had taken on the 1st breeding date (August 30th) and Friday was the last day for the last (September 5th) breeding date. Their office gave me an appointment for next Monday which was the soonest (but 10 days late) they could see her but then they called back a while later and gave us a Friday appointment after all. YAY.

I sent thru the whole Katie Van Slyke webpage on their breeding timeline and wrote it all down with the dates changed to what we need. Thank God for Katie! Now I know sorta when we need a vet and/or ultrasound, when to change feed and when to get shots and which shots they are.

  

Ambleside Is Home

Ambleside was bred several times between August 30th and September 5th and she was ready to return home September 6th.  Lan & I have jobs, so we planned on going over Friday, staying the night & coming back Saturday but once he got home Thursday night we decided to leave and we were on the road by 5pm. We drove about 4 hours, to Moses Lake, and stayed at the Lakeside Hotel.

$122, nice room, comfy bed, AWESOME continental breakfast included.

We were woken at 6:20am by Phuckin Phildo, wanting me to work but I only said 'I'm in Spokane' and I hung up. Phuck You Phildo.

Anyway, I digress.

We were on the road by about 8am but went into Idaho first to fill up on fuel and it was about $240. YIKES.

From there, we headed out to 2291 Heine Rd to get our girl.

 It was over an hour away and we arrived right at noon, right when I had told her we would get there. It took less than 15 minutes to hook up out trailer, put Ambles fly mask on, get her loaded and pay Kirk & Brandy Preston, the breeders, for the service. It was $1,000.00 plus I gave them $200 for mare care, even though Brandy said none was due but Kirk originally wanted $45 DAILY and I had signed the contract agreeing to $20 daily. 

And the dude, Kirk, was shirtless, again. How unprofessional and creepy. Ewww. Just Ewww.

We arrived home right at 7:30pm and Wifi immediately started to whinny and ran as fast as she was able toward the driveway, and Amble whinnied back to her. They were so happy to be back together.

 Wifi will be an aunty in August 2027, I hope.

Now, I have 10 months to come up with a name for our future baby. While we were traveling in France I saw a sign that was cool and I said I'd someday name a horse that, but I've no idea what it was and we didn't go to that village. We did go to Annecy and Chamonix and I do like that name.

Ambleside is named after a village in England

Anyway, I am going to be looking for the name of that French village to see if I can remember the name.

 

 

Breeding My Gypsy Mare

Last year I saw an ad on FB about a Gypsy stallion that was in Spokane, Washington, only 400 miles/6 hours away. I inquired about his breeding fee but it was $2,000, a lot for a stallion that hadn't done anything; he's not broke to ride or drive, hasn't been shown.

This year, about 2 months ago, the owner again listed him as a stud but has it priced at $1,000 so I immediately got in touch with her again and began making arrangements. I had to get the Ok from my husband, even though he wouldn't ever tell me no to anything I ask (unless its more goats) but we had to have a plan. So I saved up enough money for fuel and travel and since my hubby was going to be in Spokane for 2 weeks for work anyway, it was a perfect time to take Amble over. 

On August 21, 2026 I loaded her up at 6am and headed out but I first took her to a vet located in Newton Lake, just north of Spokane. There they palped her and found that she had ovulated 12-48 hours earlier so we we're just past the breeding window. The vet gave me a syringe that the breeder would give her 5 days later on August 26, then she should come into heat 5 days later on August 31 but she was receptive on August 30th. The breeder said she was receptive till September 5th, a good week. 

I'll be bringing Ambler home this next weekend and I'll HAVE to get a preg check at about 19 days ish.

I DO NOT want twins, they are not a blessing.

RETIREMENT

Can't come soon enough.