On Monday Allie came out to ultrasound mares and bring Gina back down, Gina was AIed to Brother Jackson. Interesting story on the Brother Jackson semen, Brother Jackson is in CA, Fedex hub in in Tennessee. Brother Jackson semen got stuck at a hub in Tennessee, but do not worry, it made it in the nick of time. We are all happy Gina and Mirage are home. Mom thinks that Mirage is “hers” and is going to go out and pet her every day. Good news on the ultrasound front, only two mares that were open were two old mares, one was supposed to be open and one is not cycling yet. The three mares we did that had been with Cappy all bred, the ones from MC bred. Great news. Bad news, Opal is pregnant with twins, both in the same sack. And Annie is also pregnant with twins, but it looks like she is going to lose one, which is good, mares rarely carry twins. Annie is bred to a Shiner Named Sioux. I am SUPER excited about it. So, FYI, it will be a red colt and for sale. A red filly is fine.  We can’t get lucky enough to get a filly.

We are down to the last few mares to foal and it is going slow. Nothing exciting on Tuesday. Everyone fed, worked on animals, etc. We moved Miss Gen into the old mare pen. She was fine out in the big pasture but she ultra sounded in foal earlier this spring so we want her close to the house. I led her in with a piece of string around her neck. These old mares are just so easy.  Toni went and stayed with Grandma on Tuesday night.

Wednesday was a lot like Tuesday. We did our chores, gave the foals some scratches. We try to pet all the foals at mom and dad’s every night.  Toni is going through a lot of horse treats right now. She has everyone in the pen next to mom and dad’s eating horse treats. Wednesday was Sr Skip day, so Anna clipped a neighbor’s steers and went with Brandy to run some errands in the Tri Cities. They brought a coffee to me since they are good kids.  It is super funny how not wild Anna is.

Thursday morning on my way to work I could see Tank was out, so I let Toni know. We have a 15-joule energizer on that fence, so when the horses get out they regret it.  Tank was a good boy, Toni just caught him and led him back in, got the fence fixed. We are able to pet most of the foals in that pen too, so we do that every chance we get. Baby King, or whatever we are calling Queenie’s colt is still a pet and wanted to be petted the entire time she was down there.  On Thursday Anna had a Sr class meeting with the principle, so we had that after work/school. It was just basic info on graduation. Toni and Kaine got pics of For, I think Kade was doing chores?? Maybe he was also there?? They got some pics and videos so we can put him in an online auction. He is a really nice colt.  Mom stayed with grandma on Thursday.

On Friday there were still no new foals when I went by. However, Star had a beautiful black colt that afternoon. We are VERY disappointed he is a he. We are still trying to figure out how to keep him. Our friend John Gray came out to look at the horses on his way through. John has a son of Gunner that he stands over on the other side of the state. John has been buying horses from us for years, so it was great to see him.  He has a place in Montana so goes back and forth.  Friday night I stayed with Grandma. Marlo came and helped Toni do chores. The kids finished up packing to go to Ritzville. Dad is getting ready to spray the pasture and needed help setting up the sprayer.

On Saturday Ben and the three older kids went to Ritzville for the Wheatland Jackpot. Leslie, Traci, Jolene and their kids went the night before and spent the night. McCall, Whitney and Deb came and Whiney and McCall took pics. The kids did great. Julian was 5^th overall in market and Savannah was reserve champion peewee. Kade was 2^nd in his class with his heifer, so made it back, Kaine was 2^nd in his class with his steer so made it back. They all showed great. Toni, Jaxsen and I were busy at home. We got Butterfly in to take home, she needs to be on probiotics. Hopefully Tank got her bred. We hauled Freida and Irish down with Tank. We fixed the riding horse pen to lock them in so we can let Sagebug below circle 3. We West Niled and wormed the riding horses. Jaxsen rode Slick, Toni rode Jojo. Ben and the kids got home while Toni was still riding Jojo, so Anna jumped on too. Kade practiced roping when he got home. Traci came out with the girls and picked up Slick. They are going to borrow Slick to be a kid’s horse for Vanna and probably Kayla too. Slick is a good kid’s horse so we are happy to let them borrow him for now.

On Sunday we had Skip’s birthday, Happy 83^rd birthday Skip. Kade rode his young horse he got at Moses Lake, he finally got to move her out of quarantine and to his house. The kids washed, dyed and clipped their Angus heifers, steer and cow and calf to get ready to leave for regionals on Wednesday. I went out and checked on Gunner pen, they all look really good. Shorty foaled Sunday afternoon, a handsome chestnut colt by Tank. Because he was born on Skip’s bday we are going to name him Skipping Into Cowtown or some variation of that. Toni and Kade wormed and West Niled all the horses at their house. I put mineral out with the cows and checked them Sunday night. 

A few people know that we have suspected that Peanut and Jitterbug switched foals when they foaled.  Because they were first time mothers, we had them in a pen where we can watch them. They foaled the same night about 10 feet apart. When they foaled we were super excited, thought nothing of it. Jitterbug was bred to Leroy, so we were expecting something with some real dun factor, but Peanut is a dunalino so she could also have a dun. She was bred to King who is HZ black, blue roan. Basically, both foals, at first, could have been out of the mare that claimed them. We thought the Jitterbug filly, who we have named Hurricane Hailey, wasn’t quite as expected and Peanut’s foal exceeded expectations, but they were both amazing, awesome foals, so no big deal. Both foals we kept by the house. Within 3 days, Peanut’s foal was walking away from Peanut to hunt us down, like a Leroy foal. Tons of dun factor, and just absolutely a love bug. Hurricane Hailey has a small dorsal stripe, also loving, loves attention. As Almy (Peanut’s foal) continued to grow, he just started looking more and more like a Leroy foal and could be the little brother of Laroy, who is also from this year’s crop. But the reason we decided to DNA test the foals is because Hurricane Hailey’s hip looked pretty much like it was roan. Only one roan parent in this mix and that stud was bred to Peanut. Well, we have the DNA results, the mares did the ole switch aroo. Jitterbug is raising Peanut’s filly and Peanut is raising Jitterbug’s colt. Luckily both mares are doing an exceptional job, the foals look great.