Fall is definitely in the air in the early mornings. The light is different and trees are turning here and there. What happened to summer??

Spent Saturday at the Edmonton Blues Festival with daughter, son in law & friends. The line up snakes thru Hawreluk Park for a very long ways - and people line up for hours for the best seats.  Great afternoon and evening of entertainment. Learned once again to never judge a book by its cover- there a kinda frumpy looking lady walking around - turned out to be the keyboard player for the zyedco band and she was flat out awesome. 

Got a phone call confirming that Jerome David of France is indeed buying Fletcher who will head across the pond in early October after quarantine, shots etc. So we'll wean him very shortly along with a friend for company.

Janet, the puppy ate 3 shoes last night so back in trouble yet again. Teaching us to pick up everything out of her reach as a result. 

Belle & Penelope are now settling into their new home with Katharine May - she's not far away so we'll keep in touch and see her gypsy vanner foal in the spring. Katharine was trying to give us a really cute mini - silver dapple mare. Don't think my pipe fences would hold her in though.

Gracie Jane, aka The Lady Is A Queen left this morning to join her mom and sister at Zavaducks in Saskatchewan. She is going to make Sarah Plourde, one happy girl. A really cute paint/draft cross mare was also on the trailer head to SK as a surprise for some ones hubby.

Juliet, our new irishwolfhound/pyrennes cross puppy has been home for a week now. Too cute, settling in pretty well. She can pick shoes out of their cubbyholes without leaving a mark on them and toliet paper off the holders the same way. Likes to drag scatter rugs around the house too. Forgot how busy puppies can be. As I am typing this, she chewed the corner of my lovely antique dresser our tv sets on - so in the doghouse.

                                                                         AND

set a world record for us for buying horses on Aug 14th. Headed off to Jim Merrills sale with Cindy Kremer and Emily, her wolfie puppy to visit and look at nice horses. Nice, sunny day,, not too hot, found us a nice bench, shade for the puppy and started watching the sale. Out of all the horses offered -- they brought a lame, yearling filly in the ring - said she was lame --  I  bought her and paid more than people were giving for sound horses. But she is really well bred - granddaughter of One Hot Krymsun and Artful Move and looks like her papers say she should and in the AQHA IF. Tall, elegant, big soft eye. Patti Nichols was here to pick up the mare they bought and gave her  massage therapy on her shoulders which the filly loved. Walking fine now, eating grain and talked to me last night as I was bringing her supper. 

While I was at the sale - there were a couple of mares in an online auction I was really interested in, so left Bruce instructions on how to bid on them. Well he loves auctions --- when I called to see how he did - he bought 3 mares and a weanling filly. The QH mare has produced foals earning 5 superiors, a world championship in halter and a versatility award and in foal to a proven sire, Alotta Charisma. One paint mare is a daughter of Red Charisma and in foal to Sudden Instinct who takes my breath away, he is just stunning. The other is by Mr Far Verse, also in foal to him and we can double register her with AQHA so her foal will be DR as well.

The weanling filly is by Cheneys Chainlink and out of a daughter of Red Charisma that I showed with years ago in ND.  So he can go get them, get them settled in before the nasty weather hits. All will be for sale before I get too attached to them. Hope to have px and info on our for sale page before the weekend. They will be attractively priced.

Still catching up around here after being away -- grass is finally slowing down in terms of growth and it is so nice to have green everywhere after years of drought. Got some painting to finish, saw a neat little wooden walk at Mariska Tomlinsons house in Ontario that I want to copy along the side of our house. Have to get the rest of our hay home both squares and rounds -- price is so much better this year.  Not near so painful as last year.

Wow, a month has gone by since I updated my ramblings. In that time, we bought a lovely 2001 F450 Truck with a fancy deck and I got to drive it home from Okla, with stops along the way at Susan & Lloyd Bartas for a day or two for shopping and visiting, then Bismarck stores were calling my name for a morning of browsing. Truck was much easier to get thru the border than horses.I was impressed. Once home though -- the paperwork, inspection maze started - and today, Aug 10th - it is legally in Canada with brand new license plates ready to go to work.

July 16th we headed out to Langley BC to pick  up the two gals who qualified in dressage for the North American Young Riders Competion being held at the Kentucky Horse Park this year. Over 2200 horses qualify along with their riders to compete in either dressage,jumping or cross country. It was 84 degrees and beyond humid when we unloaded them at the park at 2 am and it got worse from there. How those riders compete in full dressage gear in that heat is beyond me.

At the same time there were over 3000 horses and ponies competing at the separate hunter/jumper show on the grounds and the lucky reiners were in the brand new indoor A/C arena the first weekend. Breyerfest was on as well.

We took the opportunity to drive some of the back roads to check out the TB farms that Bruce used to deliver horses to many years ago -- it is sad how few of them are still in business. Also spent a couple of days in Ontario with Ray and Sheila Mackie - playing tourist and eating very well at St Daves Diner in Lindsay a couple of times so we could say hello to Dave and Mariska.

Home looked pretty darn good after being gone for 3 weeks of heat and humidity until I did chores and experienced the zillions of hungry mosquitoes who appeared while we were gone. Vicious little suckers. We also brought home The Lady Is  A Queen now 7 yrs old and well broke who we sold as a weanling to CA. She came back to Canada as a yearling to live with Amberlee and Dean for several  years before Joy Collier chose her. Life made her have to part with Gracie Jane so she is back home - briefly before she heads out to Saskatchewan to join her full sister and mother. Shauna who is good friends with Shannon Zavaduk -- her daughter's horse suffered a bad hock injury putting her out of action for the summer at least, so Gracie Jane is going to be Sara's mount.

And today, Katherine and Gerry who bought Bewitching aka Bridget decided that Bellarosa and Penelope should join their family as well. They brought Katherines mom and dam  along to meet them. The good news is they live close enough that we can go see Bellarosas foal by Dirty Hairy next spring - not as good as owning it - but will have to do!!