Ranch Life Musings & Quarter Horse News
We post frequent updates on what’s happening here on the ranch. Laura, our resident blogger, is in charge of the blog and will be happy to read your comments and feedback.
The 2 Horses Wanda Will Never Sell
There are a lot of horses on this ranch. Many of them will be sold and a lot will be bought. There are two horses on Vaquera Ranch that will never lose their place here. Those horses are… Macho Man and Keno! They are treasured here . There are plenty of reasons for that. Macho was Wanda’s first horse that she trained from a wild 3 year old stud. Of course he’s special here. He is now the top lesson horse for the natural horsemanship classes. A calm and nice gelding, with a beautiful buckskin coat, he will let kids do anything...
read moreOur Beloved Lake Is Going Dry Again
The lake may be filthy, yellow, and full of algae and weeds, but we love it! Except for a couple people here, swimming in the lake is the way to get out of the heat. Sure there are snapping turtles that snap your toes if you step on them, the occasional snake, and yes there are tiny fish that bite you as soon as you stay still for 5 seconds, but what’s the fun without a little adventure? Sadly, like last year, the lake is drying up faster than we thought. When we first came, the water at least stretched to the edge of the forest. Then it...
read moreOur Brilliant Choking Horse
We really have the smartest horses! One likes his butt scratched, another one plays with the snapping dogs, and the smartest one chokes on grains! When we bought Thor wonderful things were told about him. His riding abilities, his beautiful bay coat, his size. What we didn’t know was that this huge horse can’t swallow grain pellets without killing himself. It was the normal feeding time. The grain scoop was rattled, and the feeder went into the paddock where Thor was being held. Into the bucket, back out of the paddock. Naturally,...
read moreMia Picked Up From Craig Johnson Today
As mentioned in a previous blog, one of our horses is in training at Craig Johnson’s ranch, all the way in Gainesville. But not anymore. She’s coming home today. She is in fact on her way right now. Early in the morning, at about 5:30, everyone had to wake up and change to get ready for the long drive ahead of them. They eventually got ready to leave after a lot of stumbling and half closed eyes. While they were driving 5 hours to Gainesville, the older kids and the ranch manager, Will stayed home, and worked. And anyone who...
read moreCapoeira Fundraiser Event At Vaquera Ranch
Yesterday was the Capoeira Batizado event on our ranch! The Batizado is the day when everyone in the martial art gets a little higher in the cord color. About half of the family goes to this Brazilian martial art, and, like in kung-fu, you get higher with belts. But in the case with Capoeira you get into a higher rank with cords. All the people from the Maculele group gather somewhere to get their cords. Now an event like that is pretty big. This year it’s in Texas. All the really high Capoeira instructors come all the way from Brazil....
read moreA Tragic Loss To The Ranch- Rudi’s Last Day
Rudi’s final day is here. After months of free range living, eating what he wants, tipping over water buckets everywhere, it’s finally his time to be slaughtered. He’s a little more than half a year old, and we had him since he was no bigger than a small chihuahua. Now, this very afternoon, he will be slaughtered and roasted. All that fat on him will be put to a use soon! Why are we slaughtering Rudi today? Because tomorrow we are hosting a big fundraiser event for our Capoeira class. (Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art.)...
read moreAll Of The 2012 Foals Weaned
Our quarter horse foals Twitch, Kix, and Stumbles are now all 4 months old and older. Time for them to be weaned. The first foals of our ranch are turning into fine little boys. So away from there mothers they went, into the neighboring pasture, along with the small yearling Bambi and Kitty, another foal we bought recently. They’ll be there for a couple months, till they are ready to mingle with their old friends again and once their mothers milk has run out. Those 5 are getting along well on their pasture together. Poco, Elan and Selena...
read morePlans For Our Milking Goats
Mary and Mertha, our 2 milking goats, have now gone dry. We probably didn’t milk them regularly and we also let the babies drink from them too long. Their kids, born in February, are still on them. We were planning to separate them earlier, but we couldn’t find an appropriate place to put the 3 youngsters. Therefore, Rosie, Jessie and Wendy are now nicely tame, big, plump, and their fur is shiny and sleek. Staying with their moms for such a long time certainly made them strong and healthy. Since this was our first time with goats,...
read moreGoldfish For Our Many Stock Tanks
With so many horses on our pastures we need lots of big stock tanks. During the summer, a horse will drink about 10 to 20 gallons water a day. An automatic waterer solves the problem of having to refill the water all the time, and it also makes sure that someday when you forget to give your horse water that it won’t die of heat stroke. Now the problem with stock tanks is algae. So much algae! It would be pretty disgusting drinking from green water, especially for horses, who are picky about the amount of gunk in the water. Since all this...
read moreLots Of Cuties To Hunt Pests On The Ranch
Having horses means feeding horses. Feeding horses means buying grains. And when you have grains, you have mice and rats! There are lots of ways to get rid of these pests. Poison, traps, catching them with your bare hands, then brutally killing them. But we prefer the good old fashioned way, which is cats! Cats will also keep snakes at bay. We have had 4 cats in the past, but the 2 toms died. It’s always them. Our remaining 2 she-cats tend to stick inside, only going out every now and then. So they are pretty useless on the ranch, just...
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