Small Farmer's Journal Auction

We spent the weekend at the Small Farmer's Journal Draft Horse Auction in Sisters, Oregon. We had a swap meet booth with Jarrett's leather and some of my glass and we did well. The highlight of the trip
 were all the great deals we got on equipment, we came home with a nice heavy duty forecart that just
 needs the seat re-upholstered, which Jarrett will do in leather, a pole, 2 double trees (one wood & one steel), a single tree, a jockey stick, 2 neck yokes (both steel),
a steel 3 horse evener with all single trees, & something else that we haven't quite identified yet (and I'm sure I'm forgetting something)!

But.then... the absolute highlight of the trip were the 3 Belgian fillies that we brought home too!!

Hannah will be 2 on May 31, she is an absloute sweetheart, very mellow and easy going. She has been well started and has even been hitched to a forecart with another horse. She is so mellow that when we were talking to the folks that sold her, she was laying down, we completly surrounded her on all four sides in very close quarters and she just laid there letting me scratch her for about 5 minutes, only getting up when we went to pay attention to one of the other horses. She is currently 15.3 hands and weight tapes at 1050 lbs.



Holly is 2 years and 2 months old. She was a rescue to the previous owners, so still needs some work but is very intelligent and learns really fast.  She isn't much behind the other two on ground work and should be great girl! 
 She is currently 15.2 hands and 1070 lbs.


Mayah will be 1 year old on May 15, she is a gorgeous filly that is going to be a big girl!! At less than a year old she is almost as big as the 2 year olds. Her sire was 18 hands and her dam was 17.2 hands. She has ben well started, and has been ground driven a lot. Mayah is currently 15 hands and 770 lbs.


Holly & Hannah mooching more attention, they are all absolute sweetheats and love scratches!!


Holly sneaking more scratches while the others aren't paying attention...

Holly being pretty...


The girls cheking out their new pasture... & running from the little horses...


...And still running from those scary ay-rabs!!  Even though they are half the girls' size!


Before they decided the little horses we going to eat them...


Ok, back at Sisters....  This stage coach sold on Saturday for $36,000



The view from our swap meet booth, the really nice vehicles are in this tent until they are sold.


A horse drawn hearse; there were 2 wheeled and one on sleigh runners. Only one sold, but it went for $14,000. This one was right across from our booth.

A team of percherons on a forecart, numerous horses were hitched throughout the event for preview before the horse sale on Sunday.


Looking from the auction tent back over the grounds at the acres of vehicles and farm equipment... It is a large event!!

New Leather Pieces!!

Here are some new projects Jarrett just finished up last weekend, these are for a booth we are having at the SFJ Auction & Swap Meet in Sisters, OR on the 18-20th of this month. We still have more projects in the works but these are the finished ones!! If you see anything 
you like contact him at mountainleather@gmail.com and if they don't sell at Sisters they will be available! Or contact him for  any custom projects!!! If you haven't seen it check out http://www.pacificarabian.com/JWCustomLeather.htm for more of his work.

Clutch Purse
Front

 Back


Close up of team


Small Purse



Can Cooler





Flask

ID Holder

Keychains

(Click on pic for better view)

A few Pics...

Here are a few pics from this weekend, We harnessed up Zeta and had her pull a log, she did awesome! 
She was able to turn it with the traces hitting her in the legs and did just fine. 
The girls have a real logging job this weekend so look for pics!




Then we went up to Mad River to go riding but ended up using Girlie to help pull some heavy axles out from under a trailer first. They were almost at her pulling limit because she was pulling from the saddle but she worked hard and did it!




Didn't get any pics riding, we ended up rounding up some uncooperative horses on South Fork Mountain (nice steep country!!), so I didn't have time to take pics... Sorry!!

More...

Ok, finally, two weekends ago!! We had a very productive riding weekend... Friday we went up to Mad River and rode on SouthFork mountain, staying out till after dark and riding in the full moon, it was a lot of fun!!
 We found some cows to put the horses on, they all did awsome, Zeta and Girlie loved herding them and were right 
on top of the action tracking the cows themselves and showing no fear! Citori pushed them ok, but still liked to 
go at his pace... Then we shot off of them all, Girlie and Citori did awsome, Zeta did good with the shots 
off the others, but had a bit of a problem when shooting from her back... A little work should get her over
 that though.


 Starting down the mountain, the picture dosn't make it look nearly as steep! & this was actually a mellow slope...  (the pics are being a pain tonight, click on any of them for a larger view)



Breaktime!



The boys decide to test their greenbroke horses... I think they passed the test!!

Saturday we took Black and Girlie out:


Testing Girlie's roping skills, she didn't even flinch at roping the log and drug it forwards and backwards like a pro... Black stood right be the log as it was moving and didn't care either.


Black, at the beginning of the ride, he was excited to get out and go!
We stayed out late Sat night too, riding by the full moon till 10pm, it was a lot of fun!!

Sunday... Took it easy and just hitched Girlie up to the cart for the first time, she did perfect!



The cart still needs some tweaking, but worked for a test run!


These are kind of dark, photoshop is being a pain so if you click on them and make them bigger hopefully you can see them ( I will fix them and as soon as photoshop cooperates), we hooked her up to a log and had her drag it, once again, acted like a pro, no hesitation at all!!







After dropping the log, backing her out from by the woodshed, I changed the settings on the camera so it looks lighter...

I didn't bring the other harness up for Zeta, but hopefully next weekend I will start hooking her up to logs and get her dragging, she is doing awsome!

Last weekend, we only rode Sunday, and I didn't take the camera, so of course we had a really good time with lots of good photo opportunities...

We took Black, Zeta, Citori and Gus, they all had a great time racing, even old Black (he is 28!!! his birthday was last week on the 17th) wanted to run with the others and he never sweated all day, even though the others all were. Citori finally found out 3rd gear is fun and even kept up for most of the ride...

We were susposed to go to Oregon and work cows this weekend but plans changed so we decided to test the horses 
anyhow to see how they would have done!! Zeta, Citori and even Black got logs roped off of them. 
They all drug them forwards and backwards, (and they were big logs that they had to really pull on to get them to move), but all acted like they had done it a million times...  

At the end of the ride we traded around horses some and Citori played acrobat for a bit testing Jarrett, bucking, then showing he can walk really good on his hind legs down the side of the mountain! But Jarrett rode it out easily and Citori went back to his old self pretty quickly...  He really is good at providing entertainment!!

I think that was all the fun and excitement... I'll be putting up pics from nect weekend, we should do some riding, and hopefully harness up the girls and work on dragging some logs, and who knows what else!! 

Ok, catch up time!

I have gotten way behind, we have been terribly busy, but here goes an attempt to catch up!!
3 Weekends ago, ride on the old county road:

 
Good view of Black Lassic

 
Looking down on the river

About 800' above the river still...


Renae posing....

Ok, there will be better pics from 2 weeks ago up tomorrow (hopefully)... Got too late tonight.