Week 5 on the ranch

The 5th week was a bit quieter. We had a lot of time to do small tasks. For example, on Monday afternoon and Wednesday morning, I spent 3 hours each on my red Ferrari, the little lawnmower tractor, mowing all the lawn around the house.

The foal that had lost its mother had to be fed every 4 hours. The mare with the other foal accepted him well, but since she had to feed two foals now, we gave the little one some extra food to relieve the burden on the double mom. We built a small feeding station that the mares couldn't get into and the foals could eat the food. Rob also built a small box where we could put the food, because they still had such short necks and couldn't eat properly from the ground.

Finally, on Friday, the long-awaited rain came. We had a cozy day inside the house. Tanya took care of some paperwork, Robert continued working on his oldtimer in the garage with Cody, and I read some travel blogs about Western Canada to get a rough plan for the last two months of my trip. The heavy rain cooled the air even more. In the afternoon, more and more snowflakes joined the rain until it eventually started snowing and the meadows even turned white. But after about 2 hours, the precipitation switched back to rain, although it was still very cold. In the evening, we brought the three youngest foals into the stable. It was so cold that even the adult horses were shaking all over. At the end of the day, when it was still raining, the sunset turned the whole sky orange first, then more and more purple, and a beautiful rainbow appeared.

On Saturday morning, the sun was out again, but it was still freezing cold and a biting wind was blowing. Before the sun could warm up properly, some cloud formations appeared and it remained cool throughout the day. Tanya had a few riding lessons, and I helped Robert with the horses, whose hoofs he was working on. Later, we took the mares to the stallion to see if any of them were in heat and if they could be bred. But at the moment, none of the mares were interested in the stallion.

In the evening, Cody and his girlfriend Pernille took me to the Cold Lake Rodeo, where bull riding was on the program. However, it wasn't very exciting because there were no professionals. No one managed to stay on the back of the bull for the required 8 seconds. One rider had a ride of about 5 seconds, but everyone else couldn't stay on for more than 3 seconds. It was almost more exciting to watch the two riders on horses as they lassoed the bulls after their work was done and brought them back to their pen. After 10 wild rides and a good hour, the whole spectacle was over and we drove home.

On Sunday, Robert brought back the nurse mare who had not accepted the foal to its owner. He left already at 5 am in the morning. On the way back, he loaded the trailer with hay bales again. When he returned in the evening, I helped him unload the hay bales. Throughout the day, Tanya and I took care of the other horses, fed the foals, and said goodbye to the customer's horse that had been training at the ranch for 10 months.