Fuzzy Moves To The Foaling Suite

Sensational I Am, barn name Fuzzy, has been moved to the Foaling suite. The camera is hooked up and we are watching for any signs that will prompt an immediate trip to the barn. Maybe next year I will have gained enough technical knowledge that I will be able to post the web cam to the internet. Right now, we are happy that "checking the mare" means stepping around the corner and focusing on the TV perched on a chair in the entry. There is even a chance you may get back to sleep after the mare check. Not that long ago we took turns making the cold run to the barn.

All kidding aside, this is my favorite time of the year. And if you are lucky enough to be there during the event, it is truly incredible. Everything from the smell of the new foal the soft nickers from the mare to the baby. Even as bad as this spring has been...it makes it all worthwhile to live in our private acreage and experience the special things in life.

Blackhawk To The Rescue

Yesterday, I was taking a nap and I heard a helicopter. It seemed fairly close! So I got up and here is what I found from my bedroom window! These trees are in our side yard. The Blackhawk is just behind the trees and dropping salt on the river to melt the ice jams/dams. Now I wish I had zoomed back some so you get the perspective. They are just above the river..so you can tell we are fairly close.

At least I know we can be rescued ... one horse at a time!

We are here!

This map does not show county and township roads, but you can see where we are located in relationship to Fargo and The Red River.

We live right where The Maple and The Sheyenne River come together. The Sheyenne empties into The Red River about 7 miles north of us. The Red River needs to go down a couple more feet before we can start moving our water out. So that could take awhile.

The level are near 1997 for us. We lost our house that year, due to ice dams and blocked water flow. When we rebuilt we added 3.5 feet to our historical high. We have a long way to go before the water could ever threaten us. We are nearly as high as the Railroad track that boarders our property to the south (not shown on this map). We knew when we built, we may not have roads during a flood event like this, but our house would be safe.

We wade through knee deep water from our driveway and township road (about 1/4 mile). We change into our walking shoes/boots and walk 1 mile down the railroad tracks to our car and pickup. We currently have 8" of snow on the level...with a blizzard just 3 hours away from us that has already dropped over 10" of snow on Bismarck. We are suppose to experience that weather pattern by noon or 1:00 pm today and another one coming right after that! The weather service is predicting 5-8" of heavy snow by Tuesday evening.

We are safe and dry. We have enough feed and bedding to last a month. All of the horses (12) are in the barn. They take turns with turn out. The roads were out for 6 weeks in 1997. We're hoping it will only be 3-4 this year. We have 1 week almost behind us!

We are safe and dry but a little inconvenience compared to most.

Welcome To Spring In North Dakota!

Here it is the end of March and we have 8" of snow on the ground and a raging river at our driveway. We are okay. We lost the fight in 1997 and since then built high enough to sustain any flood. The horses are tucked into their stalls. We laid in enough bedding, feed and supplies to last a month. We hope to have roads back in 3 weeks, if we don't get a lot of spring rains.

Right now, to make a trip to town, we put our waders on and walk about a quarter of a mile to the railroad tracks. We change shoes and walk about a mile to the car or pickup. We think twice about how much we want to bring back from our trip.

An Awesome Secret was moved to higher ground with road access, to ensure shipments to Fed Ex. Fed Ex is still working out the details as far as over night shipments. In this case, their airport access is in Grand Forks, ND. That is an 80 mile drive north on questionable routes. Our river flows north. Grand Forks is much better protected since they lost their city in 1997, so we are anticipating evreyrthing to be better this Monday, after the river crests in Fargo and designated routes become avaialbe. Thanks for hanging in there with us. We are doing everything we can to fill orders as they come in.

It is amazing how wonderful our community is, and how everyone pulls together! We are encouraged by the number of emails we have had from our extended Appaloosa Family across the country. We feel fortunate that we are safe, yet somewhat inconvenienced. There are many that have lost their homes, either temporarily or in some case permanently. We are very fortunate.

Thank you for your concern and keep everyone in danger of the flood in your thought and prayers. The clean up is going to another challenge.