Hello and Seasons Greeting to all my readers. With Christmas rapidly approaching, I thought I had better get another letter done before it gets too hectic around here, not that Christmas makes that much difference, it's always busy.

Customers always ask me what we do in the winter? Look after 45 horses, which is always work. Seems we no sooner have a few injuries dealt with and we then get a few more. With this many horses there is always a couple in the paddock to doctor up. Right now we have Cocoa in with an infection in her hock joint. We have been working on her for at least a month and she does not seem to be getting any better. Have been administrating every kind of antibiotic on the market and nothing seems to help. Sometimes infections are resistant and do not respond to anything. Hopefully this is not the case as we enjoy having Cocoa and she has been working out wonderfully in our lesson program. We brought Monty in from the field, as he is not an easy keeper and needs extra food. Shortly after we brought him in he decided to colic on us. Had the Vet up and he is slowly responding to treatment but still not back to his old self. When he is well he consumes an incredible amount of food. It seems to go right through him as every day there are wheelbarrows of manure to haul away, an extra hard chore in the winter, as everything is frozen.

As I am writing this I am looking out in the fields which are now covered in snow. The horses are waiting for Angie to arrive so we can do our morning feeding. They seem rather frisky this morning as they are all playing with their friends, or should I say bugging each other, nipping rearing and racing around bucking. They look so different than in the summer, with their long shaggy coats, ready for the cold season. We have had a great winter so far with the temperature not getting below -5 Celsius at night. Of course winter doesn't officially start until December 21st.

Right now Rudy and Hersey are racing down the fields, barking at something. I can't see anything but they seem to be on a mission. I often wonder if there is anything at all, as they usually do the run and return immediately. I washed their sheepskin wool pads for their dog houses and they too are ready for the cold season. Every morning Hershey puts her head in through the pet door to see what is going on and does her little whine so I let her in to warm up by the wood heater. She knows I am a real “softy.”

As soon as it got colder I brought in the hedgehog. Seems they don't do well in the cold. I picked him up and thought he was ill as he didn't do his usual huffing. Brought him in and put him by the fire and he immediately returned to normal. I now have him in his tupperware container in the porch where he seems to do a lot of sleeping in his bark house that Lorne made for him.

The rabbits and guinea pigs are all doing well. Lorne separated the box stall into quarters so they are all now in one stall and sharing the heat light. All the males and females are now isolated as we don't want any more additions this winter. We gave the last of the baby guinea pigs to the pet store last week. One of the moms gave birth to 6 babies. That is a record for us. Her belly was so big, she was unable to walk the day before she had them. I guess this is not natural as 3 were still born and the other 2 died shortly afterwards, leaving us with 1 tricolored which we will keep.

Last month I received a call from a woman from Kamloops who was moving and was looking for a new home for her palomino pony. Angie and I went to look at him, and after a short ride we decided with a little work he should fit into our program . We are always in need for small ponies, and good ones are very hard to find. The only stipulation with the purchase was, we also had to take the ponies’ best friend which happened to be a donkey. He is about the same size as Lolita but has a softer and darker coat. Lolita will be happy to have a friend, hopefully he won't be as noisy as Lolita. We are unable to bring them home until spring or whenever her home sells as she wants to keep them around for company for her other horse. The mini’s are all doing fine. Moose just goes whereever he wants, whenever he wants. We just don't have the proper fencing for mini’s. He spends a lot of time in the field with the “big guys”. I don't think he realizes that he is short. He has attitude around the herd and doesn't put up with anything. If a horse tries to herd him away from the food he just does a little kick and they leave him alone. He is lucky we have such a tolerable bunch of horses to hang out with.

We sold Dakota to a girl down the road. He will be much happier as a trail/ranch horse. The English jumping thing just wasn't him. Oh well, we tried.

We are in the process of sending out the 2002 schedule. If you haven't yet registered you will receive the form in the mail in the next couple of days. We have received a lot of registrations for the upcoming year, but with our new 30 student per week capacity we still have lots of room, but don't procrastinate too long, as the prime weeks fill quickly. We are again offering a discount for early registration. A $50. discount is available for those we register and pay in full before March 1st.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family all the best during this festive season. I appreciate all the positive feedback I get. Thank you for the continued support, and hope to see you all again in the upcoming year.

Hilda

P.S. I almost forgot, Angie and Mike are still working on a wedding date. I think the winter wedding is out and they are swaying towards a wedding here on the ranch sometime in early June. Will keep you updated.