2011 comes to a close. What a year it has been too. I wish to all of you a very wonderful New Years weekend, and a joyful, prosperous and fulfilling 2012!

We've had a fun week, even with the ups and down of the weather. A highlight for me is that Jess has finally decided that maybe she will pull the cart after all. We've been working hard with her, and while she really has no fear of the cart ( or of pulling the tire and make-shift shafts ) she does seem to think that this type of work is beneath her and she only will tolerate so much of it. She pulled the tire well a couple of times early this week, and then Forrest and I had three days in a row with her pulling the cart very nicely, both in the indoor and outdoor arenas. She looks great and we are very pleased with her. I'll just ground drive her today to give her a break from harder work, and she will have Sunday off.

Jet is doing very well also, as is his owner- both are learning in leaps and bounds ( not literally thank goodness ) She and Barb will be here today from NJ to ride, and the days weather is going to be accommodating.

Robbie made it home on Wednesday evening from his 'wilderness trip'. He really enjoyed his time out at 'snowcamp' and came home with a new found appreciation for running water and indoor toilets!

We will have three stallions on exhibit at the PA Horse Expo!! I'm quite excited about this years demo's. Lori and I will be working towards having another fun demo made up, and we will have a nice representation of the breed there, Pleasure, Performance, Fino and Specialty! The people involved with helping out are wonderful too, so it looks like we are in for a fun expo weekend. ( Feb 23-26- Harrisburg)

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM RO-NO RANCH!!!



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What a whirl-wind weekend! Friday we had tons of friends stop by, had a wonderful lunch with Deb, Pam, Robbie and Melissa. Then Amy stopped in to ride, and Rose. Just a fun, hectic day. Erin had Sat. and Christmas Day off, so Robbie was my main helper all weekend. Sunday morning he and I get the horses fed and watered, then we were off to the in-laws for a wonderful Christmas breakfast. Then we hopped next door for the rest of the day, lots of food, fun and family. ( and margaritas and brandy alexanders! ) I ran home to feed, then back to the family.

Yesterday we slammed through stalls, then hit to road to take Robbie to visit with Richard and Nina. We got to go up to the 'snowcamp' and it was a really neat visit. Had to take a 20+ minute ride on a 6-trak ( with chains on 4 of its tires) up a mountainside to get to the camp. Richard was 75 when he built this cabin, and it is a beautiful thing!

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Oscar, my Jack Russell/Basset Hound cross dog, has not been feeling well. He's always a bit loggy, not a bouncy dog, but lately he's been even more sluggish than usual. I made an appointment to bring him in to the vet, thinking perhaps he had Lymes disease. ( We just had a horse w/ Lymes symptoms, and he responded very well to a treatment of doxycycline.) They did test Oscar for Lyme, and he does have it. So, easy enough, onto doxy he goes to treat that. But that wasn't all my poor puppy is suffering from. When the vet examined him, she thought that he looked unusually pale in the gums. She pulled a bit extra blood for tests ( had a hard time finding a vein- turns out there was a reason for that ) and discovered that his CBC was 15.4, very low. ( at 12 they want to do a blood transfusion! ) His blood was very thin, and very weak. He has Auto Immune Hemolytic Anemia. Her thoughts were if he had gone a few more days without treatment his system would have crashed and we would have lost him. Unfortunately, we still may. Said he was in a bad enough condition that there was still a 50/50 chance that his system will crash. He got a shot at the office, and is on Prednizone now, and will be for the next month ( along with the doxy for the Lymes) She did say that if he makes it through this next week his chances are much improved. The treatment that he is on is all that we can do. Steroids ( the pred ) aren't helpful with Lymes, but the Anemia is a much larger danger to him right now than the Lymes is. No idea what is causing the Anemia, most likely a different problem entirely from the Lymes, though it is slightly possible that the Lymes triggered it. Hopefully the underlying cause isn't a tumor of some sort, which is a possibility. We'll take it day by day and see how it goes. We'll ( hopefully ) be back at the vets office next Thursday to re-check his CBC.


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Julie headed home to Ohio this morning for a weeks visit with her family. Haven't heard yet if her trip was uneventful, but I do know she made it safely there. It's very hard to believe that Christmas is only days away! I have managed to get all my presents wrapped, and I think I am actually ready for the Big Day! :) My boys are excited, and I've finally been able to relax a bit and enjoy the Christmas Spirit! It's been so nice down at the barn, everyone seems to be in the Holiday Spirit!
Got a nice, big load of shavings in on Tuesday, so we are all set for a few weeks on that. I always enjoy getting the sawdust bin filled, generates a similar feeling to getting the feed room filled up, or hay put into the barn. Of course, it doesn't take very long for the coffers to empty again.
Between Erin, Julie and myself, we are well caught up on all the training horses.We've even been able to get one or two of our own worked too. Got to enjoy a trail ride yesterday, saw a couple of buck while out, so we know that a few of them made it through hunting season.
Today Erin and I blasted thru chores, had all the stalls done well before noon, and a new round bale out for the herd. Dan cam to visit, he brought a ton of homemade goodies!! :) He hung out for a bit, and then rode Sebastian while I got JB worked. Then he was off, I schooled Jess with the cart while Erin worked Al. It was neat to have full siblings at work together in the arena. Alaina got to RO-NO at 3 and put a good ride on Jose, then on Calif. My lesson came to ride her Tenn Walker Jet who is here for training, and we had a very productive time. All in all a very good day. Now I am sitting on the couch with my lap top, supper is cooked and eaten, Hunter is sitting next to me playing with a piece of string and a plastic fork ( doesn't take much to entertain a 3 year old!) Robbie is reading a magazine, and Rob is finishing a piece of pecan pie. Life is good!

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It was a good weekend. Saturday I spent most of the day cleaning my house, had a party here in the evening for all of the boarders and RO-NO Crew. Melissa came up from Philly, got a couple rides in on Val, Nic and Jenna got some riding time in this weekend, as did Pam. Spent a good portion of the day yesterday helping my hubby bring firewood up from the woods, then got to spend time in the house trying to get more Christmas stuff done. The boys worked on building and decorating a gingerbread house, and I got my Illinois dentistry notices made up and ready to go into todays mail.

This morning I'll get a few things done in the house and head out a bit late. Hunter will go to my MIL's, and then I'll head to Hamlin for a couple of round bales. Then back to the ranch to get to work.

The weanlings seem to be doing well. We brought Scratchy and Charlie up to Maribelles on Thursday, took Dually home. She and London will ( hopefully ) go out to pasture later this week. All five youngsters are up at Maribelle's now! It's baby land up there.

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Maribelle and I had quite the adventure on Wednesday. We left early ( early for Maribelle- it was 8 a.m. :) ) and we hit the road headed for Tunkhannock. I had a new horse dentistry client to visit and all went smoothly there. From there we headed north west to go visit Richard G. He is the gentleman from Alaska who had bought a young Paso mare named Nina from me several years ago. ( that is a separate story that I'll have to write about soon ) He had given me directions, and we found his place with no trouble. Along the way Maribelle and I witnessed some of the horrible devastation that was caused by this past years flooding. Roads still out, bridges gone, houses destroyed. It was sobering.

We got to where Richards cabin is, with the small barn on the hillside above. Nina's fencing encompasses the cabin, and she ran down the hill to greet us. In the few years that Richard has owned her, they have traveled all over the north and south west, and into Alaska! He has sent me pictures of her in Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, North & South Dakota, Arizona, Alaska and more!! He has travelled solo with his horse and his dog. He is 81 years old!!!!! He has lived in his cabin since 1946, no running water, an outhouse about 30 foot from his home. There is a beautiful wood cook stove that both heats his house and his food. He is happy and content ( as is his horse ) and loves the life that he has. We had a wonderful visit and I'm looking forward to returning.

I'm writing an article about some of his journeys for our Paso breed magazine. I'll try to remember to get back on the blog with the story of how he came to my ranch to get Nina, and some pictures of his travels.

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Have had a couple of productive days here. Friday was a work as usual day with Erin. We mucked and shuffled horses and so on, getting a few worked here and there. Forrest was out and ended up having a great time with Jess, even driving her around our outdoor arena for a few laps. We were very pleased. Pam rode with us, Sneak is a good girl and doesn't at all mind the cart. Robbie and I got in some Christmas shopping that evening with the new neighbor, and Hunter stayed the night with his new friends, with plans to go have breakfast with Santa on Saturday morning.

Saturday I got an early start, up again to cook breakfast for the hunters. All in all the group got four dear, two doe, two buck. Our freezers are happy. Barb and Conni came from NJ for their lessons, and Michelle got her lesson in the afternoon from Julie. The boys had a 2:30 appointment at the photographers in Lake Ariel to have pics taken with their Pop-Pop, and from there I stayed in the house when I got back to work on the driving article that I have to have in soon to the Paso Horse World Magazine. When my eyes got tired of writing I worked on Christmas presents. Plenty of activity went on down at the barn, Nicole got in some riding time, Amy went trail riding with Erin ( she rode Al- he has been an absolute awesome youngster- gaits like nobodys business and is bold- loves to go out) Rhonda came and rode too, so it was a good day.

This morning Rob, Jim and I went to the Cherry Ridge Airport to meet Lori and Tom. They had a fantastic flight in- and we had a lovely visit. Lori and I got some pow-wowing done to do with the upcoming demo's at the PA Horse Expo. From there Rob took me home, picked up Robbie and went to hit Sams Club and get some Christmas shopping done. I worked on finishing the driving article, doing some house cleaning, Christmas present wrapping, ( I also sewed two cute/funny camo Christmas stockings for Hunter and Robbie) and then dinner ( tilapia, carrots and homemade oatmeal/raisin/chocolate cookies! :) ) Now, it's time to relax, eat some dinner with the family, and not think about work until tomorrow morning!

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Time is just flying! Cannot believe that this week has gone by so quickly. I look back at the days past and am amazed at how much we accomplish every day ( and yet every day I feel as though nothing gets done!! ) Still have barely put a dent in to what I need to have done before Christmas gets here. Not just Christmas stuff either, I need to have one ( hopefully two ) articles put together for the Paso Fino Horse World Magazine ( they had asked me to write an article, with pictures, on breaking a Paso in to drive. Jess has been our photo study ) Notices have to be made up and sent out to all of my Illinois clients ( I still need to figure out my dates for that as well) Then there's just the regular everyday 'stuff' that keeps us so busy. But... I'm glad to be able to do it.

Jess was driven independently of a handler for a bit yesterday. Progress is slow but steady with her. She looks gorgeous under harness and I'm excited about her future driving career.

Bobby brought a load of hay yesterday, stacked in a trailer. We had him back it in to the indoor, up along side of the breeding dummy. I never gave that spot a second thought, until my hubby said to me this morning, 'You have a horse really hollering down at the barn'. I stepped outside to listen, and could tell from the sound that all was not well. Now, it did snow a fair amount last night, and I didn't want to take the time to change out of my jammies, so I rolled my cuffs, put on boots and headed down. Got to the indoor, saw that the gate had been broken open and Kat was standing by herself behind it. She obviously was the good girl of the herd, because all the rest of them were nowhere to be seen. Hay was pulled off the trailer and strewn about the indoor, and I did see hoof prints outside in the snow. Went to investigate, found the whole herd down by Rusty and Coloso. Thank the Good Lord that Coloso is such a good stallion. He hadn't tested the fence, just stood by while the herd teased him. I caught up Sneak by her mane and led her back through the indoor, knowing that the rest of the herd would follow, and put them all back out to pasture. So much for getting up at 4:30 to get a bunch of stuff done at the house!

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It's been a great couple of days. Had a full day on Thursday, working horses and just general stuff around the farm. Hit the road late to drop Savanna off at Rose's, pick up Carbi and Achilles, then head south to York to pick up Sebastian. Didn't get back until nearly 2:30 in the morning! Up and attem early ( though not too early ) on Friday. Had people coming from West Virginia to check out RO-NO. The raise Rocky Mountain horses and were coming to visit to see if they wanted to use us as their training barn. Had a wonderful day with them. ( thanks Angie and Jim for helping out) Worked quite a few gaited horses so that they could see our training style and simply had a nice day. We did get Jess harnessed and hooked back up and did some driving with her, she was a bit stubborn but good.

Up early again Saturday to cook for my three Robert's before they headed out to the woods. A few hours later they were back, with two buck!! Glad I had a pot of chili ready for them, so they could have lunch when they were all finished. Got plenty of horses worked as well, and had a great lesson with Barb and Conni. Rose made it out too, she rode Pastor, watched me school JQ and she rode him to cool him out. Alaina had a couple of good rides on Calif and Jose, and Nic got to enjoy rides on her boys too. Rachel and Audrey were out for a visit too, it was great getting to spend time with them.

Today I will clean the house, work on Christmas stuff, and for a few hours this morning I'll have the neighbors twin three year olds over for a play date with Hunter!

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