baby animals! (lots of pics)

Various baby animals I've been around lately. Lots of foals out at the ranch. Wish my legs were that long.

zzz zzz zzz   Every now and then he'd sigh and groan. 

There are a ton of babies - somewhere around 80.
Field after field of mares and foals.

Love how the mares just stand over their baby while it's sleeping.

Hen and more chicks than I could count cause they never held still.

Had a batch of 5 kittens for a week while their real foster mom was out of town.
Five is one too many, couldn't keep track or defend myself lol.
Have another batch of 4 coming tomorrow or maybe Thursday.
Not sure how long they're staying.

Not sure I took any clear pics cause they were always in motion.
All 5 in this pic.

Here's all 5 again, you just can't quite see the 5th one buried in the pile.
Two were identical right down to the spots on their bellies and the lines
on their faces. If I was going to have them for a while, I'd put blue food
coloring on one's head or something. The orange one was a biter.

Maggie meets the kittens. She was fascinated, they didn't much care.

the horse ranch

I've become friends with a woman whose sister manages a Thoroughbred brood mare farm. Seven stallions, about 130 mares so lots of horse sex and lots of babies in the spring. I went out there this afternoon and wandered around taking pics. They're pretty self-explanatory, but here's a quick run down - calf (going to end up in the freezer eventually so they call him Stew), mama cow, Rio the farm dog, lots of baby horse pics, Owl the curly tailed farm cat. So lovely to walk around trailed by the dogs and cat, scattering chickens as we go, stopping to feed carrots here and there, scratch a butt. I came home smiling and smelling like horses.

MMSA outgoing horses

I'm trying to get a few swaps ahead cause I'm going to San Diego the last weekend of the month to visit with my old long-time CQ pal Julie. The latest theme is horses and I wanted to be sure not to miss this one as I've been a horse person my whole life, from collecting plastic horses and galloping around on my hands and knees, to riding lessons at 10 years old, thru hunter/jumper competition in my 20s, to trail riding in my 30/40/50s.

When we moved up here from SD, I left behind my horse source, my friend Babs and her wonderful stable of horses. I missed them terribly when we first got up here, but then my hip got so bad that I expect I would have had to quit riding anyway. So I haven't been on a horse since February of 2007, but once acquired, it's an itch you never completely scratch.

Print of cave drawings on gelli print background with stamped word.
I loved this drawing when I first saw it and knew it needed to be on a card.

My hand drawn version of a drawing I saw online.
Love the black on the colorful gelli background.

My hand drawn and painted version of a famous cave painting.
The background is a failed attempt to boil flowers
pressed between sheets of paper, a la Laura Ryan.
See second article on this page.

Goofy yawning magazine horse on a gelli background with
gelli circles all over the place.
This is the oddest of the lot and the one I like the best.