February already?

Bad blogger! It’s been three weeks since my last confession! We’ve been enjoying a mild February with temperatures in the 30s and 40s, which has caused most of our December snow to melt. Surely there will be a few more snowfalls until Spring truly finds Minnesota, but it feels like we’re close to the April showers and May flowers.

Buddy has settled quite nicely into life here on the Auld Macdonald Farm. We had him fixed and immunized last Thursday and he’s recovered nicely. Buddy has some interesting nighttime habits. When Ian and I go to bed, he nestles on the bed near our feet and we find him in the same location in the morning, however, with all the things I find relocated in the morning Buddy obviously is not there during the entire overnight hours. Thankfully he is not malicious just mischievous – things are moved but not ruined. The laundry basket is used as his toy box. I find items strewn from the bed into the bathroom, mudroom and to the front door; a slipper, socks, jeans, a glove, a shoe and one night Ian’s new glasses, which started the evening on the nightstand! Now his eyeglasses are safeguarded in a small box. He and Lady are pals and while our housecat Tiger has not taken anymore swipes at him, I wouldn’t say they’re close.

The three yearling fillies we sent to training with Erik Haff at Lonesome Dove Training Center (LDTC) in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, returned home on Saturday. All were born in May 2008, and they’ve grown so nicely and are much easier to handle. Renoir’s daughters Princess and Baby are beautiful and really have a lot of his enviable attributes – big eyes, sculpted heads, coppery chestnut color and flashy prancing trots. Tango, our Half Arabian palomino filly is so tall, and looks very much like her Saddlebred sire Goldmount Royal Design. All are listed for sale on the LDTC For Sale site, each with their own video clip.

Two-year-old purebred Arabian stud colt Pskye (pronounced “sky”) and our stallion Legacys Renoir remain in training with Erik. We plan to show both in 2009, and probably the fillies too if they don’t sell before the show season begins in May. Showing horses is a great way to market horses for sale to an interested target audience. Renoir continues to do very well under saddle with Erik and is being a good student. Pskye is in halter training and will not be started under saddle until he is three years old, which is when purebred Arabian horses begin performance schooling.

Last week, Ian and I went to our primary care physicians for our annual physicals. We’re healthy, but need to adjust our lifestyle to a low cholesterol diet and include more daily exercise. We’ve begun a return to our Spanish Mediterranean recipes and a treadmill is in our future. A treadmill because it’s a machine we both enjoy and having it removes any weather-related excuses as to why we’re not out walking the Minnesota countryside.

E-I-E-I-O