My birthday this year...

I awoke to a nice sunny day, 6am and looked out the window....Abi was laying down, why wasn't the foaling alarm not beeping? (it had gone off constantly all night and nothing was happening so Rick had asked Rachel to turn it off....)
I thought this may be it, but I will wait a little longer before waking Rachel, and sure enough I thought it was a false alarm as she got up and didn't seem to do anything again for a while...8am arrived and Rachel's banging on my bedroom door ...."get dressed Abi's having her foal" she was buzzing and running on adrenaline...so I said calm down, get the foaling kit and we will watch from the deck.
we watched and waited, we eventually decided we needed a closer view, so I elected to quietly walk around the road for a closer view, and to signal if I thought the vet needed to be called.

Abi gave me a scare, as she spotted me & got up with the foals head & leg sticking out!
she laid down giving Rachel a better view so I quietly went back to her and we waited anxiously.

At roughly 9.20am the foal arrived and then we stood waiting for it to get out the sack...thats when we had to go and help (I slowly went over and had to take it off the foals head so it could breathe) and then we left them alone.

The foal was up on its feet in 20 minutes,
I have pictures on my phone, that I took earlier, but the ones below are a few of the ones that I took with my new camera when I got home after lunch at Ziff's.

I found out then it was a Filly, and because it was my birthday I got to name her, the Sire is a Dutch Warm Blood called Voltaire II and tradition says that the progeny name should begin with the same letter so her name is Vivacia, Acia for short. I got this name from a book trilogy I read 'The Liveship trilogy' Robin Hobb is the author and I have loved her books.

so every one say Ahh...... and Hi to Vivacia, She was about 7 hours old when I took these pictures.

The vet came to check mum & bubs out at 6pm and then we quickly went to the Cabbage tree for a meal.... here's a really nice shot of Jason & Cole. The food was superb, huge plates... I couldn't eat all mine, neither could anyone else! and The deserts... well they were huge too...I intended to eat it all, but they cleared my plate while I was powdering my nose (I'm sure my waistline is grateful) and I will be back for another sample soon!
I'll post some more pictures of Acia soon as I get them off my phone (Rachel took some proper SLR photos - with Telephoto zoom so hopefully they will be ace!)

Endurance ride 11 October

On 11th October Rachel & I went to our first Endurance ride - we did the qualifier - 25km

you have a time limit to do the 25km route - BUT its not all about the fastest time.

it also goes on your horses condition. the vet takes the heart rate, checks for soundness etc. then 30 mins after the finish the vet checks the horse again.... and the fastest with fittest horse wins. Because we had not qualified then all we had to do was finish in a time that was after 2hrs but under 3.30hrs.

here are a couple of pictures I took, it was very windy, so we trotted the whole 9km that we did on the beach.

Rachel on Twinkle - have you noticed the "Bach" in the background!

we met Tracy and her daughter, since we could not "win" but just qualify we rode together, which was nice.

Twinkle wanted to gallop at first but soon settled down and was an excellent Endurance horse, she automatically slowed her pace when she was tired, she had the best heart rate when we returned.

Keonoa wearing his ribbon - he did really well and had a heart rate of 40 to begin with, we did the 25km in 2.34.41seconds and he had a heart rate of 48.
Twinkle had the same heart rate of 40 to start, and a time of 2.34.46 but her heart rate was 36! when she got back (she must have been excited at the start LOL) so technically she would have won. - Well Done Twink!

She likes having her picture taken!

Beaumont Station - Millars Flat ride 27-28th Sept 2008

ITS SPRING!..... yes honestly! - just not in the high country. On Saturday 27th September I made Rob get up while it was still dark and we set off for the Cultha district for the Beaumont/Millers flat ride organised by my riding club.

Now it was raining solidly at home, but the riders at the hut in Millers flat had assured me the weather forcast was good and not to worry....mmmm!

We set off, but when we got passed Gore and headed towards Alexandra - as the altitude got higher the weather got worse...the picture below was as we began to hit the snow - it got thicker covering everything - even roadsigns.


The scary part was going down hill when the trailer was pushing us and began to side to one side.. We continued on very slowly down the windy hill and as we got lower it turned back to rain...Phew!


Our friend Shirley hit the same problem in her big truck- but luckily for her she hid behind a big truck and followed it - it acted as a snow plow.


We got the the Hut at Millers flat, and sat around the fire chatting, had a bite to eat (cream scones, hot cheese & ham rolls and Lollie cake) then the rain stopped and we went out riding.

YAY!This is a map of the area we rode over - the green line is the road (steep windy) which we floated the horses to the start of the trek, we then rode down the track in yellow back towards Millers Flat, we parked up at the Beaumont Millenium Track start.
does my bum look big in this?..


Here are a few of the photos I took along the way....

Rob is in front of me... The River Cultha


Rob always has to look cool... even as a cowboy! Now along this track is the cemetery where the Lonely Grave Site 'Somebodys darling lies buried here' Rather than write a whole section, read the blog link for a bit more about this (some of you will remember this from Billy Connelly's dvd) Views of the snow on the hills in front, but thankfully the day stayed dry.

When we were off the track, we headed back through Millers Flat township

(fancy a snack - Judy's horse takes a drink from a handy puddle near 'Pringle Rd')
this is the Millers Flat Bridge over the Cultha river, The 4 arch Millers Flat Bridge was built from materials imported from England. (where else!)It was officially opened by Richard John Seddon in February 1899.


The track ends at Millers Flat, we crossed over the bridge, past the pub and then up over paddocks to the hut, (we went back to the pub for dinner - excellent food, music and atmosphere) I looked back and captured this pretty picture of a rainbow over the bridge...
After a long ride, Jesterdale and Keonoa were happy to be in a lush grass filled paddock - they were not going to be happy when I took them back home on Sunday to our mud filled ones!

This is a picture of the hut, it has a small kitchen/living area, 2 bedrooms and a toilet - the shower is over at the woolshed - the shed at the back of the picture (great shower - fantastic pressure!)

Sunday turned out to be fantastic weather - so we set off on the ride over the station, passed what used to be the farm house - which was sold off - but has no land with it (shame as it had fantastic views - its up for sale at the minute)
We rode over green lush hills, down valleys, in bush and over streams, its a very beautiful area.

heading back to the hut - nice views for that house for sale....


The boys were ready for a nice cool wash down, and a good feed when we got back to the hut, oh and for us a nice cold beer, and hot pies, cakes & cream & jam pancakes!

We set off for home, refreshed from our weekend away, and I was looking forward to finding out how Rachel & Twinkle had got on at the Dressage championship....

But we didn't get the answer we were expecting, Rachel had had a very different Sunday than she had planned - no championship - just a 5am Vet call out, but thats another story...