Spring is the time of plans and projects...

As always my ambitions are bigger than the actual manpower and time I have to complete them, but as Leo Tolstoy said, "spring is the time of plans and projects." It has been an extremely chaotic past few months but in the most wonderful of ways.

First up is very exciting of news... Daisy gave birth to the most perfect little black colt named De Angelo! He is by Dauphin and has a pedigree stacked with top level dressage horses such as De Niro, Donnerhall, and Hohenstein. Daisy's sire Donarweiss is a Grand Prix dressage horse in the U25 division, and her dam, Larissa, was shown to 4th level dressage. De Angelo will make an excellent upper level dressage prospect for someone looking for a lot of talent and good looks in a 15.3hh package. I am slowly adding to his page and hope to have a recent video added by the end of the weekend. 

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Glorioso Noir is looking fabulous this spring! It seems life on PEI is suiting Mr. Tall Dark & Handsome very well; I was deligted to see his coat blossom with dapples once he shed out his winter coat. We are still in the process of putting the together the finishing touches our own collection amenities at the farm but in the meantime are utilizing the generous help of Ruth at Aileron Stables with our collections. His semen is looking great and so far we have shipped to one mare in Ontario which resulted in a confirmed pregnancy after only one breeding. We will be breeding the bulk of our mares this month and in July because the weather in the Maritimes is quite chilly in the spring, so we prefer our foals to arrive in late spring or early summer. We actually had snow this past week! 

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In some sad news we have decided to retire my beloved Poodle from breeding. I had hoped to have one last try at getting a grey filly from her but it seems that is not in the cards for me. She gave me five beautiful foals; Haole Boy, Ysabel, Superbad, Starfire, and Ziggy Stardust (all pictured right). I wish I could have a clone of her because I could not ask for a better broodmare and best friend.. she is my unicorn.

A couple weeks ago we moved Poodle and our yearling Hanoverian filly, Dauphinee, to Rassicot Farm to spend the summer in the care of their aunt Stephanie. ​Poodle will come back to our farm in the fall at which time we will send our pregnant mares to Rassicot for the winter. Pictured left is Poodle at Rassicot Farm.  

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Our Hanoverian colt, Bellamy (Bonheur/Contucci/World Cup IV), turned two
years old the end of May and is developing into a very handsome young gelding.
This gentle boy with upper level dressage potential  is still available and
​we have loaded new video to his page. 

Our two yearlings are also looking quite beautiful. Pictured below are our Hanoverian filly, Dauphinee (left), and our Andalusian cross colt, Ziggy Stardust (right). Ziggy was castrated 2 weeks ago so is now enjoying the relaxed lifestyle of a gelding. ;-) 

Returning to the topic of my over zealous ambitions. :-) We have gotten a lot done around the farm over the past few weeks, but the to do list is still quite long, and I may have to come to terms with the reality that I may not get a vegetable garden in this year. I have laying hen chicks arriving next week and turkey chicks in July that I need to get ready for. We have started the stalls in the new barn, but they will take some time yet to complete. We did get the new run in shelter finished last week which is a huge relief. The breeding corral should be complete by the end of the week (fingers crossed). I was very excited to have the concrete finally poured for the support for the phantom and I took perhaps a bit too much amusement in scandalizing the cement truck driver by explaining what the phantom was used for. The new lab in the barn has been slow to materialize but should be done by the end of the month. Every spring always seems to involve more fencing and this year was no exception. We were so blessed to have my sister, Robyn, and her partner, Jonathan, drive all the way from Liverpool, Nova Scotia, just to help us paint fence on the one sunny day we had this past week. I am so pleased with the results of all our work. Now to find some time to actually ride my horse before it is winter again. ;-)