The grass is starting to grow again but my horses are gone.  It was a difficult decision to sell them but as I lost my part time job and hay is looking like it will be quite expensive this winter I decided that it was time to sell them.  It wasn’t just money- they may have cost less than the chickens, turkeys and ducks to feed but also the work and worry that goes along with larger animals.

 I was surprised that they sold so fast. I expected that horses would be slow to sell, even though I wasn’t asking a lot.  They all went to the same place and I hope it was a good home.   It was to an older couple who told me they had 2 mini mares at home.  They also had a teen age granddaughter they thought would love to train Lucky the foal.  Or so they said, my husband thinks I’m crazy but I’m always a bit skeptical of what people say when they come to buy something.

I still think I see or hear them from time to time.   I really miss Lily, I feel like I broke a promise or something to her.   I won’t get to see how the foal matures, whether his long legs mean he will be bigger than Lily.  But I won’t have to worry that I can’t train him and that he will soon be fighting with his dad.  He loved his dad so far, they were best buds, so I hope they are together still.  The guy was actually looking for a stud for his mares, or so he said.

 

I love watching horses, I love to smell them and hear them.  But I can watch the neighbors horses  and see and smell them without trudging through snow to feed and water them or worrying about them getting loose or how I was going to pay for shots, gelding etc.  If they get sick or hurt horses cost a lot to treat.   And I was worried that Lily would foal again in March and that next March the weather wouldn’t be as nice as the past one.   So I have to stop thinking about them.

 

I did have 4 more baby turkeys’ hatch and some frizzle chicks.  Naturally the days the turkeys were set to hatch were the days that it poured all day.  I think more may have hatched except for the weather although the heat when the eggs were sitting out there waiting for her to start sitting may have killed some of them.

 The momma turkey with the first 3 chicks is now out of her pen and sure enough she led her babies out in the yard.  The babies are just like the last ones, they come running to meet me as soon as I come out the door, looking for bread.   They scare me by going right up to the cats, walking and running right in front of them, but so far the cats have paid them no attention.  What’s odd about them is that one is bronze, one is a bourbon red and one looks like it will be white, or nearly so.  The mom is bronze and the dad is either bronze or bourbon red. 

 It’s early to tell but it looks like the 4 new chicks will be all bourbon reds.  Their mom is keeping them out by the pond area.  That’s another good reason the horses are gone, they used to chase the turkeys for fun.  We are going to divide our barn and pasture areas with turkeys and ducks on one side and chickens on the other.  Two ducks are however, sitting in the barn on the chicken side.  One turkey is still sitting, the one who lost her eggs the first time, but I don’t think there are any turkey eggs under her and I don’t think anything else is going to hatch either, I think the duck and chicken eggs were old when she began sitting on them.

 One little baby duck is still following his mom around.  They are so cute to watch, the little ducks.  I expected to have tons of baby ducks this year with 4 hens but so far we have only managed to hatch 2 ducklings.  Maybe these next two sitting ducks will raise the total.