Tucker is here!

We picked up Tucker, our new English Springer Spaniel on July 5th.  Molly and I worked til 3pm and John met us at the hospital.  We drove 3 hours, arrived around 7pm (we stopped for dinner at this great diner called the Rt. 104 Diner)  There were 3 of us picking up puppies that night.  Robin (the breeder) had just returned from Rhode Island where the puppies saw a veterinarian ophthalmologist.  English springers are prone to have some eye issues, so the good breeders always have their eyes checked.  We headed out with the puppy and arrived home just before midnight.  (Of course we had to play for a little while)  Poor Molly had to work the next day and ended up getting up at 4:30.  We put the pup in his crate next to Molly's bed and he cried about 10 minutes, then went to sleep.  No accidents in the crate either!  Last night he went right to sleep without crying at all! He's a sweet little dog, very smart, razor sharp puppy teeth!  He has quite a few toys already, so I think he'll be pretty spoiled.  We went to the vet's yesterday for our first checkup.  All was well, fecal negative.  We go back for his second shots in a few weeks.

Kisses!

This morning I walked with the neighbors around Grant's property so put him in the crate next to our bed and John said he went right to sleep.  Right now he's curled up under my chair.  He follows you everywhere, very friendly and social.  He's a really good eater, 3 times daily, 1/2 cup each time.  The breeder uses a food called Taste of the wild.  It's for all stages of dogs lives, no grains, he loves it and all her dogs looked great.  Here are some pictures!

Kacee wasn't sure what to think!

hay

Well my friend Diane was kind enough to let me have her left over hay.  She wanted to clean out her barn before this years hay arrived and this new horse of mine eats like one!  I went up last week with my truck and loaded 18 bales on.  It was really nice, large bales but probably had 100 left in her barn.  I didn't want to drive to Wallingford 4 more times so John borrowed Mike and Carol's truck and gooseneck trailer.  He drove, we all loaded the hay and headed out the driveway home.  He wasn't sure about the trailer brakes, thought he had them adjusted, but......as we drove down 140, windy, steep and narrow we realized something was very wrong.  All of a sudden we noticed smoke coming from the front of the truck, luckily we were almost to the bottom, but John really had trouble stopping the trailer.  We were able to pull over, I was having a bit of a nervous breakdown as I thought everything was going to burn up!  (In my head I could hear Martha saying "nothing is free!!!"  John called Mike, we let the brakes cool then he was able to adjust the trailer brakes so they were working much better.  The rest of the ride home was fine, we unloaded the hay and ended up with about 125 bales, "FREE".

We rode the horses Monday, July 4th and had an awesome time.  Ansel was great, Kacee started out a little  pissy, but improved after we lunged her hard.  She realized that it was  alot easier to go for a nice quiet trail ride than to run round and round on a lunge line, numerous times in both directions.  Molly rode Ansel out, then we switched at Tim Cummings house.  We each had good canters...Ansel's is dreamy, very comfortable.  I found a neat item on Amazon called a stirrup  extender that fits in a bag that you clip to the saddle.  I was able to position it and get on without any problems.  (getting on a 17.1 hand horse isn't easy!)

On the way back we were surprised to see John coming up the road in his truck....my hay for this year had arrived!  We ended up getting the horses back and unloading 3 loads.  1 more came the next day and I still have 1 left.  I'm hoping 500 bales will be enough for the 2.  Kacee doesn't eat anywhere near what he does.  I'm so pleased with him though.  He's sweet, kind and takes very good care of you.  Not spooky or strange at all.  (I know we are still getting used to each other, but so far so good)  The only bad thing is my riding buddy is working full time all summer.  By the time she gets home she is whipped.