Farm News – Steffen Stampede

April 6, 2019April 6, 2019

March Update: Spring Is Here!!

March 30, 2019

At the beginning of March, my family, Buck (the family mutt) and I loaded up in the Big Foot(our RV) and headed out to the Washington State Horse Expo in Ridgefield at the Clark County Event Center.

We arrived late Friday night and parked at the local Walmart parking lot. We checked to make sure overnight parking was allowed and grabbed a quick and convenient sub at Subway for dinner. The next morning, we woke up early, excited to get to the Expo. Meefy recently applied for the Mustang Yearling Washington Youth Challenge, where you have approx. 100 days to train a mustang off the BLM that has never been touched! So the first thing we went to go see was the “Teens and Oregon Mustangs” talk. It was very informative and we had so many questions about Mustangs answered. Meefy left the talk confident she could do it. Then we headed over to see Smokin Double Dutch, a Quarter pony who has a Breyer made after her. I’m pretty sure this was E’s favorite.

We also watched horse training clinics by Steve Rother, Warwick Schiller, Evan Bonner and my personal favorite Alina Stasik, a trick rider!! She began trick riding when she was 7 and went pro at only 14 yrs old! She performed in rodeos and eventually the traveling show Cavalia!! It was so cool to watch …and really motivated me to exercise more! Image 3-21-19 at 7.42 PM

Saturday night we stayed for, “The Extravaganza.” It was awesome! It featured acts and demonstrations from over a dozen different groups. We were able to see the Latigo n’ Lace drill team, Esmeralda’s & Charro School Mendoza (They did tricks with lassoes) and Alisa Stasik, who did amazing trick riding stunts. She performed one trick where she climbed under her horse’s neck while she was blind folded at a gallop! Steve Rother’s All Disciplines Demo had me laughing so hard I was sure I was going to fall off the bleachers. Here is a link to a video I found of him doing the same skit several years ago. It’s hilarious! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gSaoVTMcY3w.

We also brought home three new ponies this month, Barbie, Bling and Hidalgo!!

From left to right Hidalgo, Bling, Barbie

Barbie is a total sweetheart. She is a princess and loves to have her mane braided and to be brushed. My mom, sisters and I have totally fallen in love with her. She is also in foal so we will have a baby pony soon! It will be so much fun! E has led Barbie all over the farm and we are thinking of keeping her as E’s next riding pony after her baby is born!

Bling is Barbie’s baby from last year. She doesn’t trust humans yet and wouldn’t let anyone touch her until recently. This week I was able to touch her forehead, shoulder, back and rump and lead her outside the round pen! Yay! But every time I touch her, she does the baby face (what baby horses do to older horses to show they are not a threat) so she doesn’t quite trust me yet. In the future, I hope to cart train her, but right now I am focusing on getting her to trust me and allow me to touch her all over her body, particularly her feet so we can trim them. 8E0BAA0A-1D60-435C-AB62-8BAB76F3C75A

Hidalgo is a sweet pony. Meefy and I have been riding him, working on the essentials, steering, stopping and trotting. We also have taken him out to a tree farm three times this week. He is such a good boy and let’s E and her friend, Chelsey, ride double on him.

But,… he is a bit of a trouble maker. A couple of days ago, Meefy put Hidalgo out in the field to graze. She took off his halter and turned around to close the gate… to her surprise Hidalgo plowed through the fence. Apparently, he doesn’t know about hot electric fences. This is when I’m very thankful of our 8 ft tall woven wire perimeter fence around the entire property. Loose horses aren’t that big of an emergency. They can’t escape to the road, at least. Luckily, he was easy to catch. Meefy and I reassembled the fence and returned him to the field. I stood by the fence charger ready and waiting for the signal that Meefy was clear and to plug in the fence . Meefy leaped over the fence and I turned the fence on lightening fast. Hidalgo boldly touched it with his nose ready to bulldoze his way through it again, but …it shocked him and he jumped back. He tested it a few more times, getting the same results. Furious, he started galloping around the pasture. Then suddenly, he turned towards the fence and pick up his pace to max gallop speed. Meefy and I watched wide-eyed as he jumped and cleared our 4ft electric fence! Ugh! Back to the 6′ tall round pen he went. We will have to build a bigger fence if he’s to be put out to pasture…maybe tomorrow.

Iroquois and I were also able to participate in a reining clinic with Mike Stokes this month. It was awesome and really gave me some things to work on. I can’t wait to see how we improve over the summer!

Buckwheat went to live with an adorable little girl. They hope to do Pony Club with him in the future. They are going to have so much fun together!

The sun is shining, the weather is nice and warm and the days are getting longer. Summer is feeling likes it’s right around the corner. With all this nice weather, I decided to get Alaska use to getting sprayed off. At first, she didn’t want the water to touch her and she did circles around me, determined to not let the disgusting cold substance touch her legs. But eventually, she decided the water wasn’t going to kill her and she relented. To her surprise, the water was really fun and she now loves playing in the water with her nose. She is such a silly filly!

My sisters and I are really enjoying the longer days and we love taking evening rides in the sunset! Everyday I thank the Lord for these many blessings. I hope everyone is having a blessed month, and please don’t forget to follow!

53ACB5D1-D85E-4552-B377-78F8F822AFED — from left to right I am riding Iroquois, Meefy is on Echo and E is on Abu.

March 7, 2019March 7, 2019

Hold Your Horses!!

One of the many things my dad does is own and run a hay farm. This week my whole family went on a hay delivery to help unload 40 bales at a client’s place. As we approach are destination, I was looking out the window of our Dodge truck, day dreaming….that was until I heard an “oh no” come from the front seat. I immediately looked up and what I saw brought immediate fear…There were our hay customer’s ponies coming down the road. I’m not talking about one of two I’m talkin about close to 30 ponies trotting down the road! My dad brought the truck to a stop and my mom jumped out and beckoned for Meefy and I to do the same. The ponies started to turn down a drive way so Meefy and I started out across a snow covered field in a desperate attempt to get in front of them. But as soon as I hit the snow at a full out run… SPLAT! I face-planted in the snow! The snow apparently had melted a little and then refroze so it wasn’t at all fluffy, It was like concrete! 10 times harder walking in than soft snow. But if you ran fast enough you could stay on top of the snow. But if one foot broke through you would nose dive or face-plant into hard ice balls. Not fun! So I pulled myself up and started after the ponies once again. But as soon as Meefy and I got close to being in front of the herd and turning them around, I looked over and Meefy had fallen, scraping her hand the snow was so rough. At that particular moment, snow was definitely not on my list of favorites. Luckily, I finally reached the front of the herd and Meefy was soon at my side, helping. Together we got them heading back down the road towards home and back into their pen. What an Adventure! Thank the Lord we got them back in their pen safe and sound.

February 25, 2019

Snow Snow Snow And More Snow

January was warm and sunny and everyone thought we would have a mild winter… That was until the winter storm of 2019 broke out around the county! At first, it snowed 3 inches and life went on as normal. People still went to work, kids went to school and you could easily take a walk outside. But on February 8th, the storm really set in!! It snowed all day and by the time evening finally rolled around, we had over 9 inches of snow! It continued to snow the next day and the snow level raised to a whopping 19 inches! The pigs and the family mutt, Buck, had to fight to get through the snow that was over their heads. Stores closed, cars went flying off roads and school was canceled. Even Walmart closed for the storm! Only Costco prevailed.

The snow was perfect for building snowmen in and for having epic snowball fights. We even covered E in it!

We also took a family trail ride down the road! Besides our freezing hands and feet, it was a really beautiful ride!

Chores on the other hand were not as fun. It took a lot of energy to plow our way from the house to the barn in knee high snow. And it froze at night, so all the water troughs were frozen over and the ice had to be broken and scooped out. We also had to sweep off the roofs of all the snow so they wouldn’t collapse. And the stalls…oh the stalls, they won’t be cleaned until the snow melts and we can push a wheelbarrow again… and that won’t be soon because it will be super muddy when everything melts!

Baby pigs staying warm!

Even with the snow, I am determined to work with Alaska. When it first snowed, I was only able to work on having her stand tied while I brush her. But luckily, the round pen packed down quickly and I was able to get on with her round pen training!

First Snow

Alaska and I played with a scary tarp in the snow! Here is a link to a video about it➡ Playing With Tarps

My Dad works for a water plant that is at a higher elevation than we are and they got 3 feet of snow! Unfortunately, the snowplow was unable to clear the small dirt road that leads to the plant. My dad had to make a treacherous 2 hour hike in, up and down the mountain on snow shoes. Hard work! Luckily, he found someone with a snow cat (think fully enclosed ATV on tracks) to drive him up to the plant for next time!

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We had a blast in the snow but I can’t wait for summer! Many fences and barns collapsed around the county due to the heavy snow fall. We are praying for those less fortunate, who I’m sure are eager for warmer weather to rebuild.

January 28, 2019February 6, 2019

What’s been happening in January?

Wow it’s been a long time since I posted, a very long time!!

The last couple of weeks have been very busy. Let’s begin on Dec 30th when we headed over to one of our favorite trails, Miller Peninsula State Park. Dad took the lead while leading my littlest sister on Sundance. Mom followed on Echo and Marissa road Abu( the old man at 25 yrs young) while I took up the rear on Iroquois the paint, desperately trying to video tape the whole time. Let’s just say going down hill was a little tricky, but luckily the phone didn’t drop. There was a little puddle that posed a problem with Echo’s beautifully manicured nails so Mom did some water training with her. Echo didn’t want to step in the puddle(she is an Arab after all …think desert creature), so she jumped over the puddle and tried to go round the puddle but with some work she accepted the wet Northwest habitat we live in and Mom got her walking calmly through the puddle. It was a beautiful sunny day and the perfect easy trail to trot down on a Sunday afternoon. After unloading the horses at home and changing out of our muddy riding clothes, we headed over to Papa and Caribou’s house for dinner. What a great day the Lord has BLESSED us with, on the Lord’s Day!

Mom and Meefy

Dad and E

Iroquois

Iroquois’s shadow

Puddle!

Meefy has been training a 14 yr old miniature horse named Bluebell to cart for a client on and off for a little over a year. She has been doing an awesome job and this week she was able to hook up Bluebell to a new wagon the owners bought for Bluebell. Go Meefy!!

On New Years Day, Dad, Mom, Meefy and I headed up to one of Dad’s hay fields that has an access to a trail. A friend was able to meet us up there, so all five of us headed out on the trail. We had to ride down the road to get to the trail head. This was Echo’s first time riding on the road and she didn’t even flinch when the cars passed her! She is kind of a dramatic Arab and we are so proud she kept her emotions under control. Once we were on the trail, we cantered up a hill to a lookout, were we could see Canada. What a beautiful place God made! After we did a tack check, our friend sadly had to turn back towards home, but my family and I were able to keep on riding. On the trail, we encountered huge puddles, logs and motorcycles. Amazingly, Echo took everything in stride. She was ecstatic but completely under control even when we let the horses gallop down an old logging road! She has turned into such a good girl. Mom and Echo make a great team! The only trouble we had on the trail was when Iroquois lost an easy boot. Apparently someone (me) wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice it came off. Now the question was how far back did down the trail did it fall off. So all four of us reversed directions and slowly made out way back down the trail trying to find the boot. Luckily, it didn’t take long to find. Iroquois had thrown it perfectly in the middle of the trail.

The line up…Dad and Pip, Meefy and Miranda, Mom and Echo

Mom

Puddle!

Dad and Pip

Where’s my boot?

Then that night I got a 101 degree fever. Ugh, now for the next seven days I am stuck on the couch while Meefy and Dad get to go on a trail ride with Lisa and a 4-H friend. So unfair!!!

When I was finally all better it was time to get back to work. Alaska enjoyed her week off but was happy to start training again. Alaska has learned many new things in the past couple of weeks including loading into the trailer, ponying behind a horse and round penning. She did so much better loading into the trailer than I thought she would. I expected a long training session, but after just a couple minutes she hopped into the trailer! We then turned around and came back out quietly. We repeated it 8 times and she did great each time, although by the 8th time she looked at me like, “again?”

Ponying took a little longer for her to figure out. Ponying is were you are riding one horse and leading an other horse. At first, she wanted to stay right behind Iroquois instead of up by my knee where she was supposed to be. But she eventually got it and by the end of our training session we were able to trot! What a smart filly! ce7cc168-c577-4870-a6b2-d3ffbcbbec1b

While I was sick, I read John Lyons book about raising baby horses and it had a section about round penning. So I decided to try out my new knowledge. I asked Mom to help me and we headed out to the round pen. I asked her to do it first while I watched and then I tried my hand at it. I have round penned quite a bit with horses that have been round penned before but this was the first time I had round penned a baby. She did so well. She joined up really quick and we were able to walk across the round pen with out her running away! Every time we practice, she gets better! I also put my little sister’s saddle on her and she did great. Alaska has picked up so much in such a short time and is so eager to learn new things! Thank you, KT Ranch in Connell, Washington! She is such an outstanding quality filly.

wearing a saddle

Here is a picture I found of Alaska from when she was younger. She was adorable!

47243345_2579803268726723_4739411151740207104_o — Supermodel!

On January 13th, we were blessed with 10 baby piglets. 3 of them were less than half the size of the other 8, so we had to bring them inside the house to raise and bottle feed. A couple days later another pig had 7 more piglets but she didn’t take care of them and four of them didn’t make it. So now we have six cute and demanding baby pigs in our kitchen. My poor mother had to feed them every 2 hours even through the night. I can sleep through any alarm, so I was no help for night feedings. Luckily, now they can go longer and she is getting a little more sleep. She is not referring to them as blessings anymore. But sleep deprivation does cloud the judgement.

Tiniest piglet ever

My littlest sister has moved up to the big horses now! Iroquois takes such good care of her.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to follow!

January 28, 2019