Finally a Foal !!!

Monique and Evelyn helping Poebe dry Oliver a few minutes after he was born.

Finally after what seemed like an never ending wait Poebe had her baby , 1.30 AM on the 21st , exactly twelve months from the day she was bred ( a looooooong gestation !!!!!!! ) 

But the wait was worth it as now Oliver has joined the herd .

Oliver attempting to get up for the first time as Mom watches over him

I spent almost the whole night up with Mom and baby grabbing an hour of sleep finally at 5 in the morning , then it was back to work . By the end of the day I was zonked !!!!! and by 7.30 fast asleep in my bed !!!, oh it was soooooo nice to be able to sleep the whole night again !!!

Today I'm feeling much better ( rested ! ) , even managed to go to a spin class this evening !!! .

Here are some pictures of Oliver's adventures from today: 

Brinx checking up on Oliver 

Brinx and Montana waking Oliver up from his nap

A day old and already running outdoors with his Mom

Brinx playing with Oliver 

Life is on hold for the moment

Foaling season has arrived and with it " night watching " which stretches the working day to basically 24 hours minus the little bit of shut eye time I manage to catch here and there. 
At the moment I am waiting on Poebe to foal and she is making me wait !!! , she was due on the 1st of February and still is not quite cooked !!! . So skiing , spinning , romantic Valentine dinners and now very possibly Birthday, are all on hold until after the delivery. 
Equine births are an explosive and quick affair , I would say that 95% of the time everything goes according to plan and there is no need for interference , but when things do go wrong there is a very small window of opportunity to right them and therefore that is why the 24 hour watch on the expecting mothers .  


The event of the week was that I did manage to get out on my 8 hour day off on Saturday and meet up with fellow Tour du Canada veteran  Ed . We where going to meet at the Hunt Pub but at the last minute I realized it did not open for lunch so I did a quick internet search for Pubs in the area and came up with "The Dub Linn Gate Irish Pub " in Vaughan , it suited the purpose as it was somewhat between us and more importantly it offered a large selection of beer on tap !!!!!

We had a great reunion even though there was just two of us ( we are working on getting more fellow riders there next time !! ) , time flew by as we chatted about everything under the sun and yet we did not manage to solve any world problems as we downed two very large pints of  Hoegaardens !!! ( a very nice Belgian wheat beer ) Before I knew it Evelyn was there to pick me up ( my car did not want to start today , that is a whole other story for another day ) to witch I was very grateful for as poor Ed had to walk around Ikea for a while before venturing to drive home !!! 


Also of note this week is that after a six month lay-up Biasca finally got the all clear from the veterinary when the X-rays taken last friday showed her leg sufficiently mended to be able to be turned out and feel the sun on her back once again. 
So yesterday we bandaged up her front legs , filled her up with tranquilizer and put her out , actually she dragged me me all the way to the paddock with me struggling for dear life to hold on to her !!!!, six month of being cooped up equals a very unstable and volatile  thoroughbred !!!!! But everything went well and she now will slowly build up turn out time until she can rejoin some paddock mates and return to normal horse life.

Catch up entry

Ok , I've been a bit slack in keeping up the blog , sorry !!!.

The biggest event that has occurred since the last entry is that I now have been here working at the farm for 20 years !!!, quite amazing for me as I kind of called myself a drifter , I guess I can't do that anymore !!!

I'm doing well , in a much better mental state at the moment !!!, physically still struggling even though I've been busy spinning and skiing !, but this not so young body is a tough one to punch back into shape !!!, and years of horse abuse doesn't help, but I will get there !!!

Bob, Ryan, Evelyn, Mark, Deb, Jake and Mary 

We have been up to the Pefferlaw Forest twice now , both times invited by Bob and feed by Bob !!!! First time was back mid December and we hiked , a great time had by all !!!

Our next visit up was last weekend , this time we brought our skies and on a beautiful sunny winter day we all headed out to the forest again and spent a marvellous afternoon skiing !!! I got some good pointers from Bob and Mark and after a 7 km outing ( during witch we lost and found the dogs ! ) I know I need longer poles and a lot more practicing before I can call myself a cross country skier !!!!

And as usual after following Bob on an "easy outing" , it took me two days to recover !!!! , my legs and groin were sore !!!!

On the bread making front , I think the bread maker has a twisted sense of humour !. My next attempt was a cinnamon raisin loaf , I followed the directions to a T, even putting a bit less flower in to correct the density issue from the first loaf, everything was going just fine until it came time to add the raisins, as per instructions the machine beeped at the appropriate time and I dumped the raisins in and promptly the machine stooped mixing !!! ???? ( %@&%#!!!) . 

I ended up with a very tasty cinnamon loaf with raisins on bottom !!!!