Summer is here.

For The Record... "Summer" is here, and today is her birthday. Summer was only 3-4 days off the 11-months gestation period for horses - breeding to delivery. Goldie and baby are doing well.

It was about 1:45 a.m. this morning that Goldie woke me up pacing and shitting all around the barn foaling stall. I knew something out of the ordinary was going on as I was waking up. I turned on the flashlight and she had her tail cocked to the side, so I felt it was time for our new baby to arrive.

First thing I did was to check Goldie's udder and found milk dripping... a sure sign of we are getting close to having a baby.

I radioed Kittee on the walkie-talkie that we were about to have a baby, "can you come and help?" In a very few minutes Kittee was at the barn and shortly thereafter Goldie's water broke and she began showing a hoof.

Shortly thereafter Goldie laid down and went into labor. What a good girl she is...

At that point everything begin to move very fast as we then saw two hooves begin to show, and then a little horse's nose... this delivery was going perfect. Thank you Goldie and Mother Nature.

Shortly thereafter I was wiping off our new little filly "Summer" and holding her in my arms. For the next half hour Goldie and I went through the imprint process to make this little one ours.

Goldie was quite protective but sharing of Summer. Because it took awhile for Summer to start nursing (Goldie kept pointing her in the right direction), Kittee came back to the house and call Dale Cosper to come help with directing the nursing process. Dale and I worked with these two for a bit and decided that Goldie and Summer really needed to be left alone to work out the process for themselves -- very interesting. Goldie was boss mare and a most naturally good mother in this situation.
Yep, turned out everyone was just getting in the way of Goldie, Summer, and Mother Nature. After Dale and I left the foaling stall, we could not ask for the process of mother, foal and nursing to go along any better. Dale left at daybreak (Thank YOU Dale), about 5:00 I came back to the house, made a pot of coffee and laid down for a little nap.

About 7:15 Kittee awoke and joined me in living room with a cup of fresh coffee for both of us. After the coffee helped us become functional once again, we redressed and ventured back to the barn to visit with Goldie and Summer.

After Kittee and I watched Summer nursing some more, I stepped into the foaling stall and continued to pet/imprint Summer for life. Shortly thereafter Summer laid down to take a nap. Kittee and I then left mother, baby in peace, quite and resting.

Kittee headed for a short day's work in Pendleton, I came in to work on this blog posting and will go back to the barn to check on both our girls again shortly.

Summer is a ¾ Arabian – Quarab and will be registered with AHA. Summer’s AHA papers will show top and bottom her lineage with the Arabian horse of legend-- Bask+. Her sire Adrenaline Rush is the get of the phenomenal palomino AHA Fire-n-Ice. On her dame side she is a descendant (front page) of the Quarter Horse legend-- Doc Bar. With this her breeding we expect her to be a fine long distance endurance riding beauty. A horse anyone that enjoys spending a day in the saddle will love to sit this girl… for the long run.

So this is our prize, given us by Rusty, Goldie, and the Great Spirit - Creator of All. Follow this link to view the creation of Summer.




















Today, our weather makes a most perfect birthday. This morning, under clear starry skies the temperature was in the 50's, this afternoon the temperature is to be in the low-80's with pure sunshine from sunrise to sunset. It should be a great day for turning mare and baby foal out to pasture, and myself I hope to get a short afternoon nap in the front yard hammock, then get some horseback riding into my day by saddling up my Misty.

Since I was doing most of the handling of this little one, we don't have allot of pictures, and just a few videos, but I shall share the first ones here, and invite you to visit Summer's web page as it develops in the very near future.

A day in the life around McKuster Ranch --- Dale