Happy New Year!!!!!!

 I love this boy!  He is so gorgeous!  Yes I'm biased. ;)

I already rambled on my other blog (click here to visit http://myfarmerlife.blogspot.com/) so if you want to know my thoughts on the new year go check that post out.  If not, then enjoy the two measly pictures I got of Chrome.  Rocky and Zep wouldn't get their heads out of the hay bale so I didn't get any pictures of them.  Chrome is my always curious one so he was underfoot as always while I was trying to photograph the goats. 

Chrome is loving this below freezing weather we've been having.  He loves it so much more than summer.  Who could blame him with his sweet itch?  I'm starting to dislike summer too, with the stupid gnats, flies, ticks, fleas, spiders, ants, etc.  I hate parasites!  So anyway my silly boy was scaring the cats and goats.  He does it on purpose sometimes.  Look at the terrified expression on Pharaoh's face in the above picture.  You can see Emi's tail on the left hand side of the picture too where she was bolting away.  He was just going to get a drink, but at one point Chrome was jealous because he thought we were feeding the goats so he trotted to the gate and instead of going around the goats he went right through them.  They scattered like bowling pins.  It was so funny because I know he won't hurt them.  He's not aggressive like the donkey sometimes is.

So anyway, everyone is doing great here.  I just wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year!!!!!  I hope 2018 is amazing for all of you!

P.S.  If you didn't read the other post, just want to let you know I'm not doing reviews or goals/resolutions this year.

Piggy Boy!

My little brat Chrome somehow got the goat's protein tub out of their pen (I think one of them got it stuck on their horns and carried it out).  He, Rocky and Zep all pigged out on it.  Thankfully it is an all natural tub that won't hurt them and there wasn't much left.  Look at the mess he made though!

It goes all the way up to his cheekbone...

 Look at that nose!  Ick!!

 His tail still looks pretty good after I washed it.  I need to wash it again....

Sorry for such a short post.  I just wanted to share these pictures of my cute boy.

Cleaning Up Chrome

I pulled Chrome out of the pasture for his weekly hoof trim and decided to clean him up a bit.  With it getting dark so early I don't spend much time brushing him.  He loves being curried.  I brushed him from head to toe, but I decided to forego the haircut I was planning.  His mane helps protect him in the winter, so I'll just leave it be even though it's yellow and a lot shorter by the withers.

Pre-grooming.  I just realized all of his pictures are of this side.... no clue why I didn't get any from his other side. It was probably the lighting.

I brushed his mane out.  Ugh, I hate how he's torn it out.  It's so ugly.  I want to give him a Mohawk so bad!  I miss his Mohawk.

I love the angle of this shot.  I was sitting in a chair in front of him, giving my back a break from rasping his hooves.  He was watching hubby feed the goats.

 I love my hoof stand.

 After being brushed.  He is so handsome!! Even with his nasty brown mane and tail.

His hooves after we rasped them (hubby helped when my back gave out).  They are a little rough, but he is due for a trim.  I'm going to have to soak them again because I think he's getting thrush, but no sign of white line disease, so yay!

 Then I decided to wash his nasty tail.

I let him eat clover while his tail dried, but unfortunately the sun was setting so I knew I wasn't going to be able to get new photos of him all cleaned up... sigh.

 The sunset was gorgeous though!

I had to hold his tail and swish it back and forth to help dry it before it got dark.  I always forget how much the sun and flies help with drying a tail out quickly.  He was a little annoyed with me swinging his tail back and forth, but all he did was try to move his haunches away from me.  When he realized I wasn't going to give up he just went back to grazing.

This was about as good as I could get with the light disappearing.  You can see he still has a lot of stains in his tail.  I washed it with dishwashing liquid (I know it's extremely drying....), then I remembered that a friend gave me some Cowboy Magic shampoo and conditioner so I washed it again and then conditioned it.  It felt so much nicer afterward.  Before I washed it he had a lot of static electricity and it felt like straw.  I really need to get some blue shampoo for those stains... 

Anyway that's it for now.  I really enjoyed spending time with him instead of just rasping his hooves really quick and then hurrying off to the next chore that needed done.  I miss spending quality time with him.  It's a good thing he's such a sweet, laid back horse.  :)

Belated Happy Thanksgiving

Just a couple of pictures of Chrome from Thanksgiving day.  Sorry I'm late posting.  I am very thankful for my boy and that I got the day off work.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and was able to spend it with family like I did (it was quiet just like I like).  I'm also thankful for you guys, sticking with me even with my sporadic posting these last couple of years.Happy Thanksgiving!!

A hoof stand makes all the difference...

 I love the lighting in this photo.  His face is so pretty.

Please forgive me for having so few photos.  I'm going to try to post more even if I don't have a bunch of pictures to share.  Anyway, I finally got a hoof stand back when Chrome and Rocky were first diagnosed with white line disease.  I don't know how I lived without it.

I love this thing!  It makes a world of difference.  Before this I was using a car jack thing that was all metal and weighed a LOT.  This thing is so light and maneuverable and has a wide base that I can put my foot on to hold it still.  It has the cup for resting the top of the hoof in or the round part for rasping from the top of the hoof.  I don't really use the cup very much because I don't use nippers very often.  I just rasp between their professional trims to prevent as many cracks as possible.  Preventing cracks helps prevent the white line by not giving it a place to grow.

Unfortunately I injured my shoulder a few weeks ago and I missed a few weeks of trimming.  I can only do two hooves per weekend because of my weak back, so I did Chrome's hind hooves this weekend. Next weekend I'll do his fronts.  If hubby doesn't do Rocky's then I'll do his the next week, although they are due for a trim before then so we will see.  It's really simple with the hoof stand to just put a quick bevel on the hooves when I don't get so far behind.  This weekend was a bit more difficult because I went so long between trims due to the injury.  I'll get caught up eventually if I stop hurting myself.

I'm really proud of Chrome though... I just wish I had pictures.  This weekend I was trimming his hooves by myself and I'm lazy so I just carried my chair, rasp and hoof stand out to the pasture.  Chrome was napping with one hind hoof resting on it's toe.  He watched me set my stuff up without moving.  Then I grabbed his hoof and started rasping without even putting a halter on him.  So I trimmed his hind hooves out in the pasture with no halter or rope.  The only problem is if Rocky decides to investigate because he will chase Chrome off which can be dangerous if I get on the wrong side.  Luckily Rocky had his head buried in the hay bale and was ignoring us.

I'll leave you with a picture of Zep waiting on the horses to go out to the back pasture.

Wow it's been a while.....

 Look at my handsome boy!! He's so light!

Well it's been a while..... This summer has been fraught with injuries (me), TONS of overtime at work (me) and battling sweet itch (Chrome) and white line disease (Chrome and Rocky) with absolutely no riding.... but we won't dwell on the bad. 

To see a bit of what has been keeping us busy keep an eye out on my other blog Living a Farmer's Life (http://myfarmerlife.blogspot.com/).  I have posts scheduled for the next week to catch you up with what has been going on.  The horses deserve their own update as well, so here we go.  Keep in mind hubby took almost all of these pictures because I'm always at work during pretty much all of the daylight hours....

"Hey pops... can you help me out?  They stole my hay...."

 "No?  Okay what about some feed or treats or grass or something??"

 He sends me adorable pictures like this when I'm at work to cheer me up.

The white line battle was horrible and I never want to go through that again.  I cried so much.  Chrome is getting his hooves soaked in the above picture.  We use Oxine which is basically the same thing as White Lightning.

 Since we were in for lots of soaking I got some kayak dry sacks that had been suggested to me before on the blog when we were battling thrush.  They work great!!  I love those things!!  So much better than the ziplock bags and duct tape!

I made suspenders out of hay string for Rocky because they kept sliding down.  They didn't work very well since they weren't elastic.  He still tried to step out of them.  Oh well, it was funny and helped pass the time.  We might have to get some smaller ones for him or try vet wrapping the top as was suggested on IG since the fumes are what you want to keep inside when using Oxine/White Lightning.

 Every once in a while I got off early enough to see my boy in the daylight.

 My boy was so itchy all summer. He's so flexible!

 The good news is his tail has grown back!!!!

 Look at how pretty his coloring is (was...).

 Ignore his icky sweet itch sores and dingy mane and admire that awesome neck.

 Chrome likes to wear his food lol.

 Rocky is looking good!

 Look at how flea-bitten his face is getting! He's going to be just like his mom.

Love his gorgeous eyes.  You can totally see the Arabian in him here.

Well that's all for now.  I'll try to update more, but no promises until the overtime settles down and with the time change I rarely see daylight anymore...  I hope you all are doing well!  I miss you guys!!  I hope everyone is doing year end reviews in December because that's about the only way I'll be able to catch up at this point.  I'm going to go cuddle my boy since I'm not working this weekend!

Best Friends!

 You would think on a horse blog that if I did a post about best friends I would be talking about Chrome and Rocky right??  Well... see for yourself...

Chrome and Jasper get along great.  They play together in a way I haven't seen Chrome interact with a goat in years (he used to play with one of the bucklings we had the last time we raised goats).

Then there is Rocky and Zep...

Rocky isn't a super sociable horse, but he gets along with Zep a million times better than Chrome.  He doesn't bully Chrome as much anymore and they do play together sometimes, but they aren't exactly friends.  He would never let Chrome share his feed like Zep does.  It probably has something to do with the fact that Zep isn't a threat to Rocky in hierarchy.  It's not uncommon for the dominant horse to be friendlier with lower ranking individuals.  It just sucks for Chrome because he's not a dominant horse.  He submits to every adult horse he's ever been around.  At least he and Zep still adore each other and now he has Jasper too.  :)

Happy Belated Birthday Chrome!

This happened a few days before Chrome's birthday.  I didn't get to be there because I was at work.  :(  Hubby took good care of the boys though.  Have I mentioned how much I love having a dentist who comes to my house??  And she's charges less than the vets that require you to haul them to the clinic. Oh and she doesn't put them in the head harness either, she lets them move around freely with their heads down.  She even gets on her knees if she has to.  Everything looked good on the teeth front.

 Chrome slept off his drugs while Rocky got doped.

 Poor doped Rocky.....  don't worry he's fine.  :)

 Sleepy Chrome.  Still has some dapples!

I think he's thinking evil thoughts about hubby lol.

Then it poured rain for days... including the day of his birthday..... :(

So a few days after his birthday I snapped these pictures of him grazing while I put his neem oil and Desitin on his sweet itch sores.

Sorry for the lack of updates and pictures.  I don't take my phone with me when I'm doing chores.  I get off work around five or six, go home, dump all of my stuff inside and then go outside to do chores.  I'll try to start taking my phone with me, but I'm afraid of breaking it.  I'm still not used to having a fancy smart phone haha.

Anyway Chrome is doing well and I can't believe he's eight years old!  The time has flown!  His face is getting so flea-bitten.  I need to get some close up pictures with the real camera for you guys sometime.  Maybe I can do it this weekend if it stops freaking raining.

Another reason I haven't been around is because our state had major flooding and I work in the auto salvage business so we have been insanely busy, then two people quit so we're extremely shorthanded, but we have to do the same amount of work.  I've been so busy doing menial office crap that I haven't even been getting to do titles which is what I love to do.  Oh well, I don't want to complain too much on the blog.  Hopefully we will get some people hired so that I can work less overtime and be less brain fried every day.  I'm dying to get back in the saddle.  I guess some more in hand work can't hurt.  His stifles always need all the help they can get.

I hope everyone is doing well!!  Now I have to finish up some more blog posts so I can go clean house... yay adulting!