I’ve never been a big believer in sleep or “down time” so naturally in 2022 I signed up for the Teens And Oregon Mustang Program. Mind you, I was already competing in the “MYWY Mustang Madness” competition with Shania and Peachy Keen so had a total of 3 wild Mustangs I was working everyday…Let’s just say June and July were VERY busy
Thankfully God knew I had taken on probably more than I should and granted me the sweetest, most kind, 3yr old as my draw He was a dun and was a look alike to Peachy Keen, so obviously I named him “Just Peachy” aka “JP”.
No longer a numer! Meet “Just Peachy”TwinsIsn’t he handsome! First Touch!
JP was just the coolest horse! I galloped him down trails, worked cows, I taught him to pull my sister in a raft and I pretty much rode him everywhere! He was a gentlemen from the very beginning and even let my little 9yr old sister ride him and my dad. He was safe, sane and everyone who met him fell in love with his goofy personality!
It was no surprise when JP put on a show stopping performance at the competition and landed “Reserve Champion” with only 1/2 point away from 1st.
But this was just the beginning of JP’s show career! JP, now known as, Tango continues to rock the show world with his new rider, Brooklyn! Together they compete in 4-H and OHSET being amazing ambassadors for the Mustangs
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. Â Even Walmart closed for the storm! Only Costco prevailed.
The snow was perfect for building snowmen in and for having epic snowball fights. Â 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. Â 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 itâž¡Â Playing With Tarps
My Dad works for a water plant that is at a higher elevation than we are and they got 3 Â 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!
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.
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. Â Ponying is were you are riding one horse and leading an other horse. Â At first, she wanted to stay right behind Iroquois instead of up by my knee where she was supposed to be. Â But she eventually got it and by the end of our training session we were able to trot! What a smart filly!
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. Â 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! Â I also put my little sister’s saddle on her and she did great. Â 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! Â 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!
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.
I can’t believe I have only had my filly, Alaska, for one week! I have been having so much fun working with her. At first, I was pretty happy just to walk up and pet her with out her bolting. She quickly settled in and now is happy for me to approach and constantly follows me while I clean her pen. She is a bold filly, eager to go for walks out of the round pen, and never does the “baby chewing face” when meeting our other horses. If you’ve never seen the “baby chewing face” I assure you it is rediculous. It pretty much tells other horses that the baby is not a threat. Anyway, I have been working on leading her over new things. She is super curious and loves to check out the poles on the ground and gets distracted by the grass when leading her over them. My dad dropped off a dump load of wood chips a couple days ago so I decided the mound would be a great challenge to test the filly’s courage and trust in me, not to mention her agility. She approached it stoically, but then wavered a bit, so I waited until she had thoroughly sniffed it and lost interest, focusing on my sister in the round pen with her filly. I encouraged her forward to the top of the pile and she bounded over trotting down the other side. No problem. We have also been working on picking up her feet, and getting her used to things on her back, like my jacket, but I think Alaska’s favorite part of the week was playing with brushes! I was trying to get her used to a brush by letting her smell it, but it apparently looked like a toy because she grabbed it and threw it! Several times! Silly Filly! Last night, we trotted for the first time while leading, on purpose. She is learning so quickly! Here is a link to a video of Alaska’s first week at her new homeâž¡Â Alaska week one
 Back in November, Meefy, started training a two year old pony named Chica Linda. She had been running wild with a herd of ponies and had not been touched by humans…ever! Meefy and Mom had to do a lot of work to be able to touch her and get a halter on her. They have done so well and this week Meefy was able to lead her outside the round pen.
On Saturday, Dad, Mom, Meefy and I loaded up the trailer with four horses to go trail riding. The plan was to take Iroquois (paint), Pip (new Arab), Echo ( Arab) and Meefy’s Appy, Miranda. But, then we would have had to make two trips with our 3 horse trailer. We took out the tack room in the back so a smaller horse and a pony that got along could squeeze in and ride together. So plan B was to take Iroquois, Pip, Ty (Arab\Appy) and Sundance (project pony) and put Ty and Sundance in the last stall. Unfortunately, they must have had a tiff in the field because Ty was in a very sour mood. On to plan C, bring the original 4 we had planned on and make two trips …we thought. So we went out to get Echo and Miranda but they took off running to the back of their 10 acre field. Apparently, they heard we were going to work on crossing water. Meanwhile, Abu, Dad’s 25 year old retired endurance horse was following us around as we chased the other horses. So plan D take Iroquois, Pip, Abu and Sundance. Once we were finally on the trail, everything went smoothly. It was Dad’s first time riding Pip on the trail and they did amazing. It was Sundance’s first time on the trail and he did great. He even led part of the way! The only part Sundance and Iroquois didn’t like was a forty foot puddle that had ice on It. I had to ride Abu back in the puddle and they eventually got in. It was an awesome ride and it was gorgeous when we got to a clearing and saw a inches of frost glistening on the bushes and trees.
Last week was super fun! E had a birthday and wanted to shoot nerf guns off the horses! So E, Meefy, Dad and I got Iroquois and Sundance ( a new project pony) out and we would ride the horses around shooting targets and whoever got the fastest time won! Meefy and I also rode Iroquois double for the first time!! He was so good. I have some pretty awesome little sisters!Â
For Thanksgiving we went over to my Grandparents house. My Aunt and Uncle and cousins came too!! We all probably ate too much turkey and pie! Haha!!Playing board games while drinking apple cider and eggnog with my cousins is so much fun! I can’t wait for Christmas!! Â
My Aunt and Uncle were able to stay for a couple days so Mom and Dad took all of us kids for a trail ride!! Â We only brought four horses and there was seven of us including Mom and Dad, so we took turns riding and walking/running…just like “Ride and tie”(an endurance type race where you ride and run)! At one point, Dad let us older three run ahead a ways. Wind against our faces racing up the sun-spotted trail…Magical!
The last two weeks have been totally crazy. My family has been able to go on five trail rides in the last two weeks. It has been super fun! Ty, (the good looking Appy in pink boots below) has gone on his second and third trail ride and did great! Meefy also rode Ty for the first time. Yay!
On Sundays, Dad, Mom, my two little sisters and I, go on a trail ride after church with the training horses ( Ty, Echo, Buckwheat (My 5yr old sister’s pony) and Sundance our new training pony). On Mondays, we leave E, my youngest sister, with my grandma. My parents, Meefy and I go on a “fast” ( trot and canter) trail ride with my Dad’s old Ride and Tie partner, Lisa. We have been on some pretty amazing trails right up the rode we didn’t even know about. There have been deep water crossings and steep muddy inclines and the horses are taking it in stride.
Last Monday, Meefy, Dad and I got to go on a 15 mile trail ride with a friend from 4-H. It was really fun! Meefy rode her 14yr old Appaloosa, Miranda, and was able to jump 2 foot logs like a cross country course! Dad rode Iroquois, and I rode a new Arabian named Pip.
Also exciting, back in September, I applied for the AQHA Young Horse Development Program and last week I received a letter saying I had been accepted!! The Program gives AQHA Youth a donated weanling (4 to 6 month old horse) free of charge! The youth are required to do reports, YouTube videos and other assignments throughout a nine month period, competing for a $2,000 scholarship! My weanling is being donated by KT Ranch in Connell, WA. I can’t wait!! You can see her here âž¡Ruby
He was a dun and was a look alike to Peachy Keen, so obviously I named him “Just Peachy” aka “JP”.
 Back in November, Meefy, started training a two year old pony named Chica Linda. She had been running wild with a herd of ponies and had not been touched by humans…ever! Meefy and Mom had to do a lot of work to be able to touch her and get a halter on her. They have done so well and this week Meefy was able to lead her outside the round pen.
Steffen Stampede 
