We went to get Amira on Saturday after my daughter and I spent the morning in Fort Collins for Girl Scouts.  We had a few minor troubles getting her papers picked up my Mother in Law was a big help.  She ran down to the vet and grabbed them for me before they closed.

The kids like going out to visit Murphy since he always pulls a horse of some sort out and leads them around on it.  This time they got to ride his mule, Hercules.  Such a big dumb animal you just can't help but love him LOL.  Of course he is all they can talk about whenever we go out there.


Amira was being a bit of a butt in the trailer on the way home.  Swaying back and forth and rocking the whole rig.  Think she must have been bored out of her mind.  The poor dear had no one to travel with.  We made it home at about 8:30.  It was 9 by the time we got everything unloaded so we could unload her though. 


Dad managed to save a small portion of my gear.  Most of it is pretty ratty thanks to kids dragging it out and leaving it in the fields.  Luckily i found someone that can clean and repair some of it.  Amira will be happy to have the heavy wool blanket for this, her first, Wyoming winter.  
We also got 2 of my 3 tire hay feeders, the small one that was bought for Amira because the other horses wouldn't let her eat out of the big ones, and one of the 2 large ones.  None of my buckets or grain feeders were available.  Sis and her kids used the ones we could find for their hogs and calf so I just left them.  


Sunday we were up by 5:30 and on the road by 6:30 for our long trek to Devils Tower to pick up the two Quarter Horse babies.  Doc is much bigger than we had expected.  Fred is simply gorgeous.


Hubby borrowed a stock trailer from a friend at the Harris Ranch near Laramie Wyoming so that we would be able to get them here.  Could you imagine trying to load two horses that aren't even halter broke into a two horse trailer?  As it was Hubby wanted Fred in the front of the trailer since she was obviously the bigger of the two. 

None of the rest of us thought we could make that happen, but we also didn't want to argue with Hubby.  Ever met a Donky?  Well it would be easier to argue with the donkey than hubby when he makes up his mind.

I have to say, there are some real horsemen at the ranch where Doc and Fred came from.  Most of them were patient, gentle, and quiet.  Letting Fred decide that it would be more comfortable in the trailer by herself than outside the trailer with us people.  One of them, though, can only be described as an old fashioned cowboy, or perhaps a mountain man, but only noisier. 

He fit the bill alright.  Waving his arms and yelling like he was pushing a herd of longhorns across the plains.  Big ol scruffy beard to keep his face warm on the windy Wyoming prairie.  The picture he set was hilarious.  Not in a bad way, though, I would love to have gotten a black and white picture of him with a dusty ol herd of cattle in the background, priceless.

The best part was after going in kicking and screaming like a two year old child, Fred took her time to get to the front of the trailer and didn't mind the gate closing behind her.  I was completely shocked that she didn't throw a fit then and there.  I was not nearly as surprised at that as I was at what happened next.

Let me set the stage for you.  We had to back the trailer in with the gate open so we could butt the trailer up to a post and block any exit the horses may choose from that direction.  This means that we also have to pull the truck forward with an untamed horse loaded on the back while simultaneously closing the gate, not spooking the yearling colt, preventing any thoughts of escape he may have.

Now that you have a picture of the scene to this point I will continue.  We fought Fred for nearly an hour trying to coax her into the trailer.  Making her very uncomfortable outside the trailer but trying not to spook her too much at the same time.  I thought she was going to try to jump the fence a few times, and a lesser horse would have at that.  Not Fred, she is much too smart for that.  Finally we managed to squeeze her into the trailer and got the divider gate closed.  Time for Doc.

Hubby is in the truck with his instructions to pull forward slowly while we close the gate behind him.  Doc enters the small corral that housed the battle with Fred only moments before.  He looks at the trailer and sees the pretty girl inside waiting for his companionship, and hops in.  No muss no fuss.  Hubby of course is still sitting there while the rest of us are trying to tell him to move forward without spooking the young horse back out of the trailer.

The trip home was pretty uneventful, with one exception.  Someone blew past us early on our trip home and it spooked Fred a little.  She threw a bit of a fit and managed to give herself a good cut just above her eye.  The whole trip home I was pouting because I was just sure that small cut has ruined her halter career.  Hubby was doing his best to cheer me up, but I wanted none of it.  Fred has as close to a perfect head as I have ever seen on a horse.  Soft, kind looking eyes, shapely cheeks, smooth coloring.  She is just beautiful.  And now I have gone and ruined her because I didn't do a good enough job checking the trailer for hazards before we left.  Fred's eye is healing nicely though and looks like it may not scar at all.

Doc is just so laid back that he doesn't seem to mind us at all.  He is an amazing beauty as well.  I absolutely adore him.  Last night he was giving me kisses in exchange for grain yummies.  he would even com up and take it from me.  Tonight I will attach some hooks to the fence posts so the grain buckets can be hung from them.  This way my hands are free to move around.

  We made it down to see her on Monday, but I kept forgetting my camera to post pictures. She is looking pretty good these days. Amira is almost the horse I left 13 years ago. She is a bit older now and has had a hard life since I left her, but that will all change soon. 

She will get to spend her days playing with the kids and eating till her hearts content.  I am so happy that Amira is still the gentle sweet horse that she has always been.  She was, is, and will always be my favorite horse and now my kids understand why.
 Amira hasn't had a person on her back in at least 3 years and even then her training was never completely finished.  She carried my children as though she had never stopped being a saddle horse.  Even when my son carelessly (he doesn't know better) plopped himself on her back, she just took it in stride and gave him a ride he could enjoy.

My son is now almost my size, and age, when I broke her in and began using her in 4-H.  She has been in parades and horse shows and she traveled with us to rodeos and well pretty much everywhere.
 Because of her kind heart Amira has always been my kids horse.  We have used her to lead small children around and let them learn that horses and fun.  Her small stature makes her a perfect horse for my tiny daughter.  The girls look perfect together don't they.

Caitlin is so excited to have her especially after we decided to let them take a short ride just to test the waters.  I picked up an inexpensive endurance saddle to train the kids in.  It looks like a combination of an English saddle with western skirts and girth.  The benefit is that it doesn't have swells or a cantle and most notably a saddle horn for them to rely on.Not having these items will require the kids use proper posture and give them better contact with their legs.  and they won't have the saddle horn crutch.  The saddle is also lighter for Amira to carry so I am sure that she will appreciate that as well. 
 We have been told that Amira finally chose a mate.  After trying to get her bred for nearly ten years and her rejecting every stallion we have ever thrown in with her even to the point of beating them up.  She chose a handsome little solid black paint stud.

He is certainly a cute bugger and gentle as well.  His temperament seemed to match hers pretty well.  I do hope that she is with foal because I would so hate to lose her line.  I have never met a kinder gentler mare and I probably never will.
The gentleman you see leading her around in all the pictures is none other than Terry Murphy from Oregon Trail Wagon Train.  He has been a friend of my family for as long as I can remember.  His methods and mine probably never will see eye to eye but it is undeniable that he has a way with horses.

Murphy helped me rescue Amira and agreed to keep her at his place with his horses for a small fee.  Without his help I would have lost her forever and so I can not thank him enough for what he has done not only for me, but for my horse and my children.

If you are looking for some good stock ponies or a horse to ride, or you would like to experience the Oregon trail the way the pioneers would have, please give Murphy a call.  Let him know I sent you.

To visit the Oregon Trail Wagon Train web site click the link above or copy and paste http://www.oregontrailwagontrain.com/ into your browsers address bar.

The cute little stud that Amira chose as her mate is available for purchase if anyone is interested.  Just give Murphy a call to work out the details.

YAY!YAY!YAY I finally found her papers.  I had put them somewhere safe and consequentially forgotten where that safe place was. 

Amira has been a member of my family since she was a yearling.  Foaled in 1992, she has been by my side through 4-H and traveled with us to high school rodeos.  Amira was never a very large horse and has always been babied so she has never had to do as much work as the larger horses have.

We have been trying unsuccessfully to breed her to a palamino Quarter Horse, but she wants none of that.  I wonder if she is just stuck up or if she is barren.  I would really hate to see her line end with her.  Amira is one of the last remaining children of BF Prince Halima, at least as far as I have been able to tell from my searches on the web.

We did a little research at allbreedpedigree.com and found pictures of the horses in her lineage.  While many of them look rather large, Amira is a very dainty little girl.  She stands just over 14 hands tall and has the most delicate head I have ever seen.  She is a liver chestnut with flaxen main and tail.

We will be traveling to Nebraska on Monday to take her to the vet to get her Coggins test and Health certificates taken care of so that we can bring her home by the end of the month.  I am soo excited to see her again.  I hope she is doing well, I miss her so much.

Here is some of her pedigree. Pictures to come soon.

		sire	Morafic (Nazeer x Mansour)
		TheEgyptianPrince
	sire		Bint Mona (Nazeer x Mansour)
	BF Prince Halima
		dam	Ansata Ibn Halima (Nazeer x Mansour)
		Dazeerlima
			Dazeera (Rashad Ibn Nazeer x Nazeer x Mansour)
AmiraSchanthalima (1992 Chestnut filly)
		sire	Char Echo (Negem x Fa-Serr)
		Anchor Hill Chairo
	dam		Anchor Hill Hadga (Hadbah x Fabah)
	Schantille Lacce
		dam	Tuhotmos (El Sareei x Shahloul)
		Lacy Curtain
			Zarhara (Zarhar x Moftakhar)

Yuppers you got it right.  We don't do anything half way here.  We even go so far as to survey our property to make absolute certain that everything is exactly where we want it.

Hubby is a Civil Engineer, comes in pretty handy when you want to build something.  Sometimes it can be a pain in the seat though.  Like when you want to get started on something and he can't get the equipment to work right.

 Gotta make sure all of our corners are square somehow and there is no better way to do it than by surveying the area and setting little flags or markers to tell us where to put everything.

Of course I am always the one who gets to run all over the property with the prism so he can stand around and shoot it with the gun.  No fair as much running as I have done I should be a lot skinnier.  Guess I need to work harder.

 YAY! he finally got it working right so now we can set our corners.  I only tripped over a few hundred rocks and stuck my foot in about a dozen holes.  I am really going to have to do something about that.  Holes are not good for horses.

Of course two of them are coming from a more mountainous area of Wyoming so they should be pretty sure footed.  I am concerned about Amira, she was always an accident prone one.  She is the only horse I know that can tear up the same area of the same leg 3 separate times.
Amira would be the main reason why we are taking such care in our building.  I couldn't stand it if she got hurt again.

Hubby and the kids are doing one final check while I am out in the middle of the field running back and forth trying to get my pole in the right spot.  I really need to remember to carry a tape measure with me.  It probably wouldn't hurt to learn North from South without a compass as well.

Surveying is done, Now to turn this into a fence.

Total posts needed 80+ (3 that were 6" x 8' and the remainder were 4" x 8')  All posts are buried 3' in the ground with 5' sticking out.

Total Gates 4

Total length of fence wire 1/2 Mile (we are doing a 4 strand fence for now but have room left for either a top bar or a 5th strand)

Total amount of gasoline 20 gallons

Total size of Corral 150' x 200' (holy cow it's an arena!)

We will be changing the size of the corral once we put in the barn, but for this winter at least this will be our corral and we will use a lean to for the shelter.  The barn will divide the corral in half so we can keep the stud separated from the mares once he matures.

Actually we started attempting to build our small corral fence about 2 weeks ago. Our first attempt yielded nothing but trouble. First we discovered the auger and our tractor weren't entirely compatible. By themselves both work great, but when we combined them we could only get a hole about 6 inches deep. Not nearly the 3 feet we need to build our corral.

Then hubby left the tractor running with the brake on. OOOPS that's not safe, the brake released and the tractor took off down the hill and across the road to the neighbors property. I guess it decided to run away to a place where the work was already done.

My daughter got some wonderful pictures of everyone else working though.

This has to be my favorite picture.  The boys are almost silhouetted against the sunset.  We had to drop the blade in order to hook up the trailer to move it to the back then switch gear so we can hook up the auger so we can dig holes to bury posts in order to string the wire to build the fence.  Phew that was a mouth full.

Almost all of the pictures shown here were taken by my 8 year old daughter.

 She seems to love to get pictures of the sun LOL.  This one was actually pretty though so I had to show it off.  We have a nice little hill that runs right around our house.  It works great for keeping the noise down and blocking the view of the interstate.

Hubby plans on putting something like a gazebo at the top and  having a waterfall and stream run from that down to the bottom.  We will plant trees and bushes all around it and make a little lovers garden to play in.  We hope to have most of it finished in about 5 years when our son graduates High School.

 These pictures may not necessarily be in order so please forgive me if they are not.  Headed down to kook up the trailer so we can move the auger to the back of the property where it will be hidden form view. 

Our place it too pretty to leave equipment laying around like a junk yarn.  I never could stand it when people did that.  Blech.
 Here is hubby and son getting ready to hook up the trailer.  I use son as a counter balance so I can easily lift the tongue and hold it for the ball to slip underneath.

The trailer does have a jack but sometimes it's just not worth fooling with.  It takes longer to jack it up then bring it back down than it does to just lift the trailer.  It's light enough most of the time to work just fine.

Leave it to hubby to have a better idea.  just need to lift it a little then we can drop the bars on the tractor and slip right under it.

Son is sooo happy to be able to help.  He is a lot more of a man than I had realized before.  When he isn't spaced out he is pretty handy.  He's pretty tough for a scrawny little thing too.  After this winter he may even grow a few muscles.
 Alright, you do it, LOL.  I hate fighting with these things.  It's my curse that nothing ever works out the first try.  Let the boy do it, he'll probably get it right the first time anyway.

The last few days we have even been letting him drive the tractor BY HIMSELF.  Scary thought.  Surprisingly he only almost hit a post once.  Of course he isn't allowed to run it over first gear and low speed, but that's enough for him now.  He has a good head on him if he pays attention.
 After walking up and down the hill a few hundred times I decided that it was time to hitch a ride.  The kids and I are riding on the toolbox that was in the trailer.

We have since removed the toolbox to make room for the gates and posts that we will need to build the fence.  I think he likes his tractor, what do you think?  Boys and their toys are so cute LOL.  I am really glad he got it though since we all have horses he really needs something that he can do that doesn't involve annoying me.


 A safe dismount :) We left the trailer behind the hill as well so now it's time for yet another equipment change.  This time we have to remove the bar for the trailer hitch (I have no idea what the thing is called) and add the other bars that we will need to run the 3 point for the auger.

Good thing I am a horse person and not a tractor person or I would be in serious trouble.  Just hook the doohickie up to the thingimabob and let's get to it I want my horses and they want a pen.
Wow I think there is more work involved in preparing to work than actually in the working that needs to be done.  we are still trying to uninstall the bars for the hitch so we can install the ones for the 3 Point .  I wonder why they call it a three point though since it is really more octagonal in shape.  Note to self: don't ask hubby just look it up on the internet.

I hate admitting that I know absolutely nothing about something.  Tractors were never my thing.  Can't stand the stupid smelly things, they are too much like cattle (Insert scene from cars here)
 Finally, time for the other parts.  Hopefully we will be able to hook up the auger soon, I want to get the show on the road already.

Almost a full day and still no fence work getting done.  Patience is still not one of my virtues, but I have so many other good ones so who needs that.  Either I have gotten really wimpy or these things have gotten heavier than I remember.  Time for some weight lifting to build up those arms.


 Another shot of Daddy driving the tractor.  This kid is fearless.  I am not sure how many children would stand directly in front of a moving tractor just to get a picture of daddy driving it, but apparently my daughter would.

I suppose that may help her out later when it's time to ride the horse by herself for the first time.  I thinks she is going to be a fine photographer.  She is already better than me and I have had years of practice.
 AAHHHH finally, the auger.  It's about time.  This could be more difficult than I had anticipated.