What’s Dakota
If you read the last post I made about Tom and Dixie leaving for Colorado, you may be wondering about Dakota.
We met Dakota about a year ago just a few hours after she was born.
This is Dakota and Mom, Betty. Dixie is in the background. Dakota is a filly in every sense of the word. She is little and dainty and really looks like a little girl.
When Dixie first dropped the bombshell about moving (YOU”RE GOING WHERE?) to Colorado, we asked if Dakota was going along. YES! She is going along. Sigh! OK. We had told Dixie that if she ever wanted to get rid of the little girl, let us know first.
Since it seemed to be a sure bet that Dakota was going to Colorado, we sorta put her out of mind (but not too far out) as an option of getting her.
Since we really wanted another horse to keep Dusty company, we kept our ears open. That is how we came to be the new owners of Neche. When we started planning the addition to Dusty’s stable, we added an extra stall. (just in case) It was one of those “you never know” reasons for adding that third stall.
Monday night, the 20th, Dixie came over and asked if we wanted Dakota. Bev, Shari and I all said “Hell Yes” at the same time. Dixie explained it was a hard decision, but she was taking 3 adult mares, and 2 were going to have foals in the spring. They were going to be in a round pen for awhile till they could get something else set up for them. Besides, she couldn’t ride 5 horses.
Tom and Dixie were leaving on Friday and we had nowhere to put another horse at the moment. “Ok girls, panic time. 3 days to get something put together for Dakota.” No problem. We would improvise temporarily.
We figured we would think about it after I got home from work Tuesday night.
Tuesday night when I got home, Bev said we had to get her picked up TONIGHT.
OH NO! Ok how about…..Bev said “We got it all figured out.” We had reduced the size of the original round pen by 2-16′ and 1-12′ panel. We could set up those 3 panels, using one panel of the existing round pen for the 4th side and put her in there, then work on the additional stalls this weekend. That was the same plan I had thought up at work. Sometimes it’s scary when we come up with the same plan.
So, we are very pleased to welcome another “horse of a different color” to our farm family.
Meet Dakota, a yearling paint filly. She is 3/4 quarter horse and 1/4 standard bred. Dixie has done a nice job of starting her. Most of the hard stuff has been learned already, leading, picking up feet, not biting, no kicking, and not a problem to catch. She has had a saddle blanket on her and just a little head tossing when haltering, but not bad.
This is a picture of her sire, Sailor.
We want to thank Dixie for trusting her little girl to us to raise and train.
Just so you don’t get confused with all the paints in the pictures, here are the two new girls getting acquainted over the common panel.
Dakota had never been off Dixie’s property and had always been in sight of her mom. To say she wasn’t real happy as we led her to her new home is an understatement. As soon as we came in sight of Neche, her focus changed from where she had come from, to where it looked like she was headed. Her and Neche started “talking” to each other 1/4 mile from home. Now she was in a hurry to get there and not so worried about where she had been raised her whole life.
As soon as we put her in her new temporary pen, she started getting acquainted with Neche. Phew, they are getting along very nicely.
So,,,,,we have our work on tap for this weekend, and lumber is setting by the stable just waiting for Saturday morning. Luckily this is a long weekend and we have 3 days to get the girls into their permanent home.
This should be a real hoot getting this built, stop back first part of next week for pictures of this project.
Cindy
Oh, my, sounds like you add new horses kinda like I do. Better be careful though, the numbers can really sneak up on you. lol Good luck with your stall building this weekend.
Comment by risingrainbow | August 31, 2007