A day with my kids and my horse

Welcome to the farm/horse blog here at Wilmoth Farms!
Whew is all I can say for the day today! Yesterday I about burned the house down grilling out some steak! Leah and I were making supper, homemade macaroni and cheese, fried green tomato's from the garden, one lone red tomato sliced, and some burnt yet under done steaks raised and hand fed from the farm.....
I set the grill on low and put the steaks on intending on a nice slow cooked steak....but about 10 minutes later Norm runs in and tells me the grill is flaming and black smoke is billowing out into the yard! The grill was on fire and not a little fire, and the porch was close to burning! Luckily Norm was here mowing the yard and saw the smoke cause the kids and I were in the house! Could have been a disaster, the propane tank could have blown, the house could have burned! We did recover from the scare, but unfortunately the steak didn't get through it okay! You know your loved when your family eats you burnt under cook steak! We think there was a birds nest I didn't see or was aware of and it caught fire.
Norm has spent the day mowing another pasture for hay. (if anyone wants any hay here close to us let me know!!!)
Today was fun....reminiscent....and HOT!
After our cool spell last week today was HOT and humid! It got up to 88 degrees!
The farrier came today, not the usual but a fill in for our guy who had knee surgery a week or two ago. I wasnt NEAR as happy with him as I am when Josh shoe's and trims. He did...okay...but slopping looking. Now dont get me wrong when I say sloppy. He basically did the shoeing okay....I felt he filed down Babe's hooves to short. She isnt in any trouble of having hoof problems, and he did set her shoes good. I just think he didn't have to file that much on the wall of her hoof. Josh does it clear enough to perfect so I was spoiled, and this guy charges more! I hope Josh is on his feet when its time for a mani and a pedi again!
Now I always seem to leave Jack out of my posts and pretty much have ignored posting! I dont know why? But I'm gonna post about him a little.

Jack did not get to get out of a day at the Wilmoth Farms Hair Salon! He really got a work up, his first ever complete day of beauty. He was a shiny little clean colt when we were done with him!

I dont know if he likes his new Doo or not, he stood still though and finally tried to go to sleep on us after a bit. As you can see the black in Jack (ha ha that rhymes!) is either sunburned or he is turning into a brown, black, and white paint...hmm take a look and tell me what ya think.

I love his eye has a little blue sliver in that pretty almost black eyeball of his! You can see it in the above pic better than this one I think.

Jack has really amazed us. We dont know exactly how old he was the day he showed up on the farm...quite expectantly! He was a neighbors horse down the street and he was shooting off guns right by his pen that he had just been weaned, in. As you can guess...he jumped fence and went running to get as far away from that idiot that he can! It took them 2 days of trying to catch him before the neighbor was totally pissed off by riding a mare up to the barn. He thought the horse was worthless with a nervous disposition. (he was wrong!) Jack is the quietest colt I've EVER seen or been around. He haltered from the start with no full at all. He has learned a few commands that we use such as sound or body language along with word commands. For instance, When we are needing him to move that pretty colt's but out of the way. We snap our fingers at his rear end and he automatically steps aside our of your space.

Jack stands well, grooms (usually falling asleep!), lets us pick up 3 feet. Doesnt kick, never has, has had a saddle on a few times and never cared, has had a bit in his mouth, the bridel was too big so we had to hold it where it fits, even with our hands above his head the whole time, he didn't care. All this done after the first time we tried. He is a little friendly and loving horse! He has issues we are dealing with right now. We are working on him picking up that last hoof for us to pick out. Today he did finally pick it up after some work, and started to let Leah pick it when he pulled. Leah held on and when he quit she let go. We praised him and ended on a good experience rather than a bad. He didn't like to be separated all day from his buddies, but it didn't kill him and something he has to learn to be okay with it. He even had fly spray on for the first time and never twitched a thing on him, he didn't care! This little guy will be easy from start to finish I think. I'm going to send him to someone to start some ground work with him. I dont have a round pen or space to do so. He likes his comfort zones with the other horses. He needs to learn a lot that I cannot do with out that accommodation. We are really going slow with him and do repetition work each time. We always end it pleasurable. He also doesnt like to walk outside the barn or the field and has taken off twice now....he goes right to the gate to the field at least.
I cant wait until one of us ride him!

What is it about a horses butt thats so cute? Babe is another one of those who doesnt care what you do. And had her day of beauty too. Cowboy had a little nap in the hay.

The guys all got new fly masks. I wonder if that would count as a mud path facial at the salon?

Babe too got her's!

I'll get into our riding day now. Leah and I rode for about an hour (too hot to do much and had some barn cleaning to do). I remembered again why I love this horse. She is like riding a cloud since her walk and gait are smooth! We had a great time walking around in the horse pasture and the heifers pasture (which is much bigger). She did great on all her voice commands when I verbally asked them, except for - stop, left, and right. Babe was trying to get back to the barn so we had to walk around a bit more and she was made to think going to the barn is our idea and what we want. We were ready and she didn't try to lope to the barn. That is one thing I want out of her right away. Actually its the only thing she needs a little work on and actually its me thats doing it wrong when I'm stopping her from doing that. Now you might picture a horse jumping around and totally ignoring me and not listening. She didn't really do much except trying to turn in that direction every few minutes! It got annoying by it quickly. Doug rode Babe today after his 15 minute riding lesson from Leah yesterday. He walked, gaited and loped on her! He was nervous when she gaited and loped, but all in all I was soooooo proud of him for just getting on there and giving it a try even if it might scare him a little!!!

He really had a fun time! And as you can see he took the lead even!

This is the view from atop of King.

We tried to get some pictures that didn't make me look fat, THAT didn't work as I'm sitting here and seeing thats impossible. And the hair got flat after sweating in the helmet!

I have a picture of each of my kids peaking out from under babes head to print off so we decided to take one of me too to join them...not really happy with that one but its the best we got, maybe when I wake up tomorrow and that 30 pounds I want to loose is gone, and we could try again!

My beautiful Babe

I had a blast about finally being up in the saddle again after several years! I never once got nervous after not riding in 3 or 4 years with this stupid fear I developed.

My view from a horse
Babe and King dont feel they have to be first, they just switched off the whole time.

I'm just so glad to be reunited with her and get my experience and be confident at it. I had forgotten that it felt like to ride her, its as if your walking on clouds. I know now that this fear will be gone and I will officially be back in the saddle! We ended the day with supper out for pizza.
I have an award for some of you so keep scrolling down to the other post I did before this post. Guys' check out those blogs they are all so great and worthy of an honest scrap award!
Thanks again Luanne!
nite all, I'll catch up on your blogs tomorrow, my eyes are now crossed and trying to close so I think thats a sign I should head to bed....good grief! Its 1:29 am!!!!
See ya! May God bless you!