Heading to North Carolina

I will be heading out to North Carolina tomorrow. I am pleased to have my granddaughter, Andrea and great granddaughter Melissa traveling with me. I am excited to be going to the first horse show of the season. I have two new horses in the show this year.

I am excited to be there when Stacie Tipton shows my two year old mare, WOF Dock's Velvet. She is a blood bay that has us excited for her prospects for the upcoming show season. She is a daughter of the great stallion Choco Dock.

Also showing with Jamie Derickson aboard will be Rocky Top Rebel. She is a three year old Country Trail Pleasure Mare and has a lot of style. She is black and when she goes by it is hard not to notice her. I am excited about both of them and what a pleasure it is to be watching with my two of my granddaughters.

Today was another new day with our little Colt. As yet he is unnamed. We are taking suggestions for names. He is Chocolate with a white blaze down his face. Today I was in the stall with him and his Momma again. He was all over me. He is showing no fear at all of being handled. But he doesn't like his ears touched and didn't the first time I touched them. I can touch him everywhere else with no problems. He lets me pick up his feet and tap on them lightly. I can rub him all over and even lift his tail.

He has a stout looking neck. And funny ears that turn up just a little on the ends. His mother is comfortable with me being in the stall with them although she doesn't like the other horses coming up to the gate to look at them. She pins her ears back and runs at them by the gate. That is her baby and no one else need get close to him. I am happy she doesn't mind my being in there with them.

These are the little things in life that we are blessed with each day. I get to touch and train the new colt. I watch the new calves in the field running and playing together. I watched as the cows came together and ran buzzards away from the new calves a while back. I am in awe of nature. My farm is my little piece of heaven on earth that God has blessed me with. Every day is new all over and the small things add up to a great life. The troubles make us stronger and appreciate the blessings all the more.

Today I had the pleasure of climbing on the tractor and going out to bush hog some fields that I didn't get done last fall. It was a great feeling to look back where the bush hog had run and see the field being groomed and ready for the coming hay crop. The satisfication of knowing I am preparing the way for the mower and the baler to do their jobs is a lot of reward. Often when on the tractor I see a herd of deer or wild turkeys. Today I did not see deer or turkeys but I did see weeds coming down and it was good. Just a little thing maybe but then aren't most of our lives made up of the little things. If we wait for pleasure from the really big things then we miss the best part of life.

I will give a report from the horse show in North Carolina. Hopefully it will involve a lot of blues for Van Bert Farms and Cool Shade Mountian Horses as well as the horses they train for me.

Later everyone. God bless you and keep you in his care.