It's me again!

[Anna]

It's 11.02pm here and I'm not too sure of the time scales world wide, but I'll say it anyway ........

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIANE - I hope you have a really fab day. Any special celebrations being planned?

I cannot believe that I last posted here somewhere during the summer of '16! Naughty me!! I seem to remember that we as a family were gearing up for g/daughter's wedding. Well she duly got married at the beginning of September '16 - a brilliant day, so much fun and I got to meet up once again with many old friends from some 20 years before. Two days after her first anniversary a little boy put in an appearance, so he will be two this September and is a right little pickle - you would love him Diane! Do you remember that picture I posted once of my young g/son Kyrian with a little bay foal? Well Kyrian is now 10 and of course we still have the filly - who happily spotted out like her Mum. We don't breed anymore, Cathy is too busy and I'm just too old to be sitting up all night with mares plus all the stable work involved - very little energy these days! We still have some 22 mares roaming the fields, just being horses, and Ansel, Spotbum and Dragon are still with us. I've lost a few special friends over the past few years - little Heidi, Chapella and my sweet boy Mootie (Colonel Mustard) to name a few. But old Censored battles on, now 29 I think this will be her last summer as she does have difficulty in keeping the weight on. Very full of herself still but even with her own personal shelter, hay supply, food and special fields (plus her companion) she still worries me. Cant believe I got her when she was 3 years old - where does the time go!
Been a busy few years as the barn converting didn't go that smoothly - official planned, raising money, sacking first lot of builders for messing about, g/son Hamish stepping in to do most of the ground work for us over his holiday from his work, finding a part time second builder (now a great friend) who, with Cathy when she was not working, managed the remaining construction work and the internal fitting out. Eventually late last year we got the place officially ok'ed for human occupation and I MOVED IN! Spent a lovely winter with the heating cranked up so I could walk around in a t-shirt, bliss after all the clothing etc I used to wear to keep warm in my old Bessie caravan lol! We still have things to do to finish everything off properly but it is certainly perfectly comfortable and we managed to house everyone for a big family Christmas last December.
I have no pictures of anything as they are all on my old laptop and as yet I don't know how to off load my phone to this laptop (don't ask- it just wont work!) so will have to wait for Dee Dee to show me when she comes for a visit in a couple of weeks. I joined the dreaded Facebook so that I could see/get pictures from DD of her wedding, if any of you are on FB (Chanda??) then you can catch a few pics of the family/wedding pic/Christmas if you go to DD's page (Dee Dee Hilling) - not sure if you have to 'friend' her on not, if you do let me know and I will warn her about a strange person asking to be a friend! I'm on FB as Cyril Barclay so you can friend me if you want.
All for now my friends, my apologies for the long time between posts (years) and I promise to come visiting regularly from now on. Anna xx

ps Many congrats on the new babies Holly - are there any more to come?

[Chanda]

welcome back.  we missed you.

[dcwolcott]

OMG!  You have made my birthday GRAND today, coming here to see my dear friend back and promising to stay back!!!

What a last couple of years you've been through!  So glad you are finally in the home and it's finished.  I don't breed anymore either, had to give it up while taking care of my mom with her Alzheimers.  She died last May a year ago, but I recognize all your horses that you mentioned, and so glad they are still around enjoying being horses, especially Ansel,Spotbum and Dragon.  So sorry you lost a few of the precious ones, especially little Mootie, but love hearing who is still around.

Holly cheered us up with those new babies this year, and Chanda with the pictures of the new calves, so spring has been good.

My birthday celebration is babysitting Jon's little boy, taking him to the public library to a craft time which excites him so! Don't have any other plans for today, but so happy to see you here!  That's a birthday celebration in itself.

Sending lots of love and thanks, my special friend! 

 

[Anna]

Thanks for the welcome folks - great to see you too Chanda.  Sorry to hear about your Mom Diane, I lost mine some 10 years ago with the same thing. Meant to ask you how Katy is doing, does she still get posted or is she working at home now? Will pop in and out to chat with you all and to hear all you news and when Dee Dee gets here for a few days stopover on the 23, I will get her to sort my photos out so that I can post a few for you to see what's been going on here.

[Ryan]

What a lovely surprise Anna , So happy to read you are doing well and finally moved into the barn. ( Its quite the experience dealing with some builders, I learnt first hand some 10 years ago now)
When I hear of your mares roaming around the pastures , I instantly remember all the beautiful pics of your property

Welcome back

And of course "A BIG happy birthday Diane " Hope you have had a lovely day

[dcwolcott]

Thank you, Ryan. It was a good day and had a nice dinner with my son, Jon, and his family (they live locally).

Aaaahhhhh the pictures.  I remember them well, too.  Such beautiful land with the horses all about. Fabulous memories!

[Anna]

Hi Ryan - good to 'see' you too. Hope your lot are all doing ok. How was your summer for your laminitic  (sp if there is such a word?) lady. Someone that I correspond with in Aussieland has had a really bad summer with almost a total lack of rainfall which has put their water supply almost to rock bottom. Very worrying for her.
When g/daughter DD gets here in a couple of weeks I will get help with downloading my pictures and should find some to post here. Apart from a few of my golden oldies who are grazing decent grassy fields, the main gang are back down our 'dell' fields for the summer. This means that they have some 15 acres of grass areas with steep woodland down to an open dell basin plus other hilly areas for them to puff up (and race down!) Only one small flat area in the whole 15 acres, plus they have to walk to the furthest point to find the water tank - quite a bit of forced exercise LOL!! Trouble I have is tramping across all my closest fields and then searching through their area to find them! Sometimes I just go there and clap my hands and wait for the charge as they all come rushing from wherever they are hiding, but feel a bit mean as I'm sure they only come coz they think that I'm going to open gates and let them through to pastures new.
We have just done our summer worming stint with them all fighting over it "my turn now" greedy wotsits. We have to be careful not to worm the same horse twice there are so many waiting open mouthed - or struggling to get the wormer tube back out of someone's mouth when they are trying to swallow the whole dam thing! Next couple of weeks will be foot checks/trimming - hoping they haven't been cooling their tooties in the stream/bog area!
Hope you are all ok - speak again soon.

[Ryan]

It was a terrible summer and autumn for rain here. We have had quite a bit over the last week, just hoping they are receiving it where its needed most. Our hay prices are terrible here at the moment and the quality is a little meh. Hope your friend here is getting some rain   

Everyones doing well, my little mare hasnt had any further issues. I just make sure im a little cautious in spring and at the start of autumn ( not that this autumn was an issue due to No rain)

Anna , I gotta know what your worming trick is ? Mine give me that "Im outta here look" if they see the paste in my hand.

[dcwolcott]

Must be something special, because I never had a horse that stood waiting for wormer!   

[Anna]

Nothing special although the wormers are supposed to be apple flavoured? They are just greedy wotsits LOL!! Actually they push and shove so much that daughter now goes in the field to worm them and I am relegated to outside the gate handing over the supplies, coz daughter says she's not going to be responsible for scraping me up of the floor when I get flattened - must admit that my balance is not as good as it used to be.
So sorry but I cant offer you any magic solutions to your worming 'problems'.

[dcwolcott]

It's just your own magic, Anna.  Your horses were always pretty special in dealing with you!  Just the "Anna Magic" !!! 

[Anna]

RATS!! Just typed a long post and the stupid laptop swallowed it!! Not going to start again at this hour of the night, except to say that have not been very well over this past month or so, but hopefully things are improving a bit now. Still having trouble with my pictures - oh for my old laptop back again - but will try to post something over the next day or so. Hope you are all ok, been catching up on some of your recent posts. Off to try to get back to sleep now - more news later. xx

[Chanda]

Hope you feel better soon.

My desktop has Windows 7, and Microsoft has quit supporting it and will be completely done the first of the new year; I'm starting to have problems now because of it, but I don't want to change operating systems or computers, I like this one and how it works.

[Ryan]

Hope you are feeling better Anna , some nasty bugs going around this year 

[dcwolcott]

So sorry you've not been feeling well, my dear friend.  Praying for quick healing of whatever has befallen you.   

We look forward to hearing from you again, and praying that laptop starts complying with your requests! 

~~Diane