The Onaqui Herd

Mountain Mama Jessica and her family are hooked on wild horses, especially the Onaqui herd in Utah.

They often hop into the car and go looking for them on Saturdays.

She and her family live in Santaquin (right arrow) and the Onaqui are found about an hour's drive away near Davis Mountain.

Water and forage is sparse and there is a conflict between ranchers and the wild horses that is scheduled to be resolved in late July when the BLM plans to remove 350 of the approximately 500 wild horses.

As I understand it, there are two main herds (the North Herd and the South Herd) and each consists of many smaller bands of horses. 

Bachelor stallions roam near the bands or group together for companionship and safety.

Mutton Bustin' Cambria, Buffalo Andrew, Cowpoke Titan, and Mountain Mama Jessica.

I haven't seen Jessica since before the pandemic and hope to be able to visit her later this year, pandemic depending. She wants to take me out so I can see the Onaqui myself. I've never seen a true wild horse, and that is definitely a bucket list item for me.

My Mysterious Mom

The more I go through the tubs of things my mother left behind, the more questions I have that I wish I could ask her.

I'd love for her to tell me about these photos that I found of her and a friend with horses. (look at that McClellan saddle!)

The horses look like Saddlebreds, and my mother looks like she is college aged so that would date these photos to the late 1940s. But where were the photos taken?

I have a guess. Kings Hill Stable has been in business in West Lafayette for nearly 100 years. I know my mother was friends with the owner and I have seen an old framed photo of one of their Saddlebreds performing in fine harness. It's possible that this photo was taken there. 

I'd love to know who the other woman is, too. When my mom was in her assisted living apartment, she introduced me to a friend of hers who was also living there. That friend was very horsey and invited me into her apartment to see all the framed, sepia colored photographs of horses hanging on the walls and on tables. 

Is this woman that same lady? And was she connected to Kings Hill?

Sadly, I'll never know the answer to those questions, but I can still enjoy finding these bits of connections between my mother and horses.

Loose Horse!

Yesterday as I walked out to visit Abby, I could see the tractor parked by the old barn and knew that Tim was inside working on the repair/remodeling project he is doing in there. I stepped down through the open gate into the northeast pasture and stopped in surprise - Hokey was calmly standing there cropping grass.

The agribusiness next door is replacing the fence between the two properties, and it is not all in place yet so we are not putting the horses in there at the moment. And Tim would never have left a gate open if he planned to put horses in that pasture.

We had a loose horse.

A quick visual check showed that Trouble and Abby were in the northwest pasture where they were supposed to be. That was good news.

Luckily it was Hokey who had gotten out. He is easy to catch, especially if you have some of Charlotte's horse treats in your pocket. By this time Tim had stepped out of the old barn and also realized that Hokey was loose, too, so I told him that I'd catch him and put him back with the other horses. 

Catching Hokey was easy - I went into the new barn, grabbed a halter and lead rope, walked out to him holding a treat, and soon had him back where he belonged.

Tim and I were standing together in the paddock of the old barn looking around at all the gates and wondering just how Hokey had gotten out. All the gates of the northwest pasture were closed. 

And then, Hokey outsmarted himself.

He walked up to the paddock fence behind where we were standing. We turned to look at him and there it was - a board had come down and Hokey was getting ready to step over the remaining one and hightail it back into the other pasture again.

We shooed him back from the broken fence, and Tim went into the barn to get nails and a hammer. I stayed behind to keep the horses back - by now Trouble and Abby had joined Hokey and were quite interested in that open spot, too.

Although I didn't do much besides holding one end of the board while Tim hammered the other end in, I enjoyed helping Tim repair the fence. 

Just another day with horses - you never know what you will find!

Spring Cleanup

Anne Field recently wrote a blog post on how, when you begin cleaning, suddenly you see all kinds of things that need to be cleaned. She's absolutely right, and that happens whether you are at home or at the barn. Tim is doing spring cleanup out at the barn right now - he's removed some trees and brush and has had a big burn pile going at the edge of the hay field.

He is also planning to do some remodeling in the old barn - pulling broken boards and other burnables out of it and tossing them on the burn pile. There are two huge box stalls in there plus two smaller ones. The small ones had a lot of old wood stored in them, and he is removing all that and planning on making them usable.

It was a beautiful day and I wanted to get some photos of Abby but she kept following me around. I'd walk away a bit, turn to snap the photo, and there she'd be - coming right to me. (Not that I mind - I find it endearing when she does that.)

Finally she decided to nibble on some grass a bit and I was able to step back and take those pictures. She's still got a lot of her winter coat on her, but it is shedding out and soon she will be sleek and shiny again. (If she quits rolling in every mud puddle she can find, that is.)

Spring cleanup around a horse farm is actually a never ending, year round job - grass, bushes, and weeds grow, horses knock down boards, pipes freeze, snow (and manure) needs shoveling, and so on. I've been boarding with Tim for nine years, and I am grateful for the excellent job he does in that constant battle.

Charlotte's Treats - A Hit!

A week ago ago, my friend Mary gave me some horse treats that her granddaughter Charlotte had made for a school project. 

After forgetting to pop them into my car multiple times, I finally took them out to the barn and gave them to Abby.

As horses do when eating something unfamiliar, she bobbed her head up and down as she chewed the first one.

The verdict? Delicious! 

Hokey came over to see if Abby would share, but she was already snarfing down the last one.

I texted some pictures off to Charlotte so she could see how much Abby liked her treats and asked for the recipe. Charlotte's mama texted it back to me.

Charlotte's Yummy Horse Treats (Abby Approved!)

• 3 cups Quick Oats
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 chopped or grated carrots
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 cup applesauce

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line a baking sheet to keep the treats from sticking.

2) Mix the oats and flour together in a  large bowl until well combined.

3) Finely chop or grate the carrots.

4) Stir the carrots, applesauce, and molasses into the flour and oats and mix well.

5) Roll the mixture into balls and place on cookie sheet.

6) Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

7) Cool and serve!

Abby was very content after eating Charlotte's treats while Hokey was licking his lips and still hoping that I have more. (I do.)

Is She or Isn't She?

 After losing Little Feller last May, Sultanna was rebred again during her foal heat. She did not come back into heat after that, so we thought she was pregnant and due at the end of this month.

Now we are not so sure. She is not showing any signs of late pregnancy.

She is a very big boned mare, so it is possible that her pregnancy does not show. That happens sometimes, as it did with my mare, Amy.

My sister was caring for her as I had just gotten married and moved to Michigan. Someone put a yearling colt in with her and nobody thought anything about it until Amy presented them with a foal eleven months later!

While we could call a vet out and have Sultanna checked, that wouldn't change anything. She already gets great care and good nutrition, and she either is in foal or she isn't. 

 Tim was traveling when Little Feller was born and never saw him alive. For Tim's sake, I really hope she is.

Much Better

Second post of the day.

I spent the day moving all my sewing and embroidering supplies and furniture out of my horse room and into...

... my other horse room! Honestly, it was supposed to be a library but somehow those plastic and china ponies snuck in there, too.

There are several sets of shelves and two china cabinets in there full of horses, so I am still surrounded by part of my collection while I sew and embroider.

The other room seems so much less cramped now.

No doubt I will fill it up again - with horses!