🎶Happy 3rd Month Birthday Midnight Lilly Belle🎶

Newborn 4/26/2020

One Month 5/26/2020

Two Months 6/26/2020

3 Months 7/26/2020

Happy birthday to my wonderful Midnight Lilly Belle. She is one month closer to coming home. She has had a lot of big events in her life this month!

I will do a recap of her first 3 months and all the milestones she has accomplished.

Milestones:

4/26/2020 Lilly Born

5/7/2020 Lilly gets her full name - Midnight Lilly Belle

5/6/2020 Lilly gets us as her new family :-)

5/13/2020 Lilly has such long legs

5/13/2020 Lilly loves being a big "sister"

5/22/2020 Lilly is growing 

5/26/2020 Lilly is 1 month old Happy Birthday

5/28/2020 Lilly's Best Friend

5/28/202 Lilly is gaining some independence

6/3/2020 Lilly grows into her long legs (at least for a little)

6/14/2020 Lilly learns how to wear a halter 

6/26/2020 Lilly is 2 months old

7/13/2020 Lilly loses her best friend Dolly

7/13/2020 Lilly makes a new best friend Hugo

7/22/2020 Lilly starts learning to lead

7/26/2020 Lilly's Photo Shoot

Next up for little Lilly: She is moving to the other farm with her mom and the other foals and their moms who are going to be weaning. 

Homesteading - What?

Homesteading - What?

Homesteading - Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It is characterized by subsistence agriculture, home preservation of food, and raising animals.

So part of my dream has always been to have a ranch in the mountains with horses. So that means I need a ranch. As moving day (when Lilly is making her long trip from Pennsylvania to Wyoming) looms closer I realize that to fulfill my dream I need to buy land and homestead. 

I always wanted to live in the mountains in Colorado. But Colorado is so expensive, there are too many people, and it is getting too warm. Since I moved to Wyoming 2 years ago I have fallen in love with the weather here. The town of Laramie is not too bad either. Many of the people are kind (though during COVID most are NOT wearing masks and that bothers me and keeps me from interacting with people). But I have found that I want to stay close enough to visit my nephews and my sister and get things easily from a small town. 

I want to buy land and live "off the grid." I want to have animals and grow my own food. 

I have found many cool places around Laramie that would work for my purposes so I am now fixing my credit so I can get a loan to buy a property. So in this series of blogs I will be focusing on my homesteading efforts. I will be learning as much as I can and documenting what I am learning and the resources I am learning from and about so I can keep track of what I am doing and the process. 

So if you are interested in learning how someone gets started in homesteading - this would be a great place to find some information. 

If you have any resources or suggestions please let me know in the comments. Good luck to all my homesteading friends! 

Lilly Learning to Lead 7/22/2020

Lilly Learning to Lead 

7/22/2020

It has been hard not being close enough to see Lilly. Covid is making it even more challenging because I want to make a trip out there to work with her and bond with her before she makes the long trip out here but that is not a safe thing to do in our current state. If people would just wear masks, social distance, wash their hands, and do their part we would be in a much better place socially. 

I get so excited when Rebecca has time to show me pictures or videos of Lilly. She says she has a better video of her at this training that she will send me. As soon as she sends it I will add it to this post. 

As you can see, my Lilly has a strong willed side! That is good because I am strong willed too! It is us strong willed women that survive in this world. 

I will work on building trust with her and developing our relationship. I am reading and learning so much great information on how to work with her and train her. 

I have been super busy with Elizabeth this summer (spending every second with her) but now she is staying.

My plan is to fix up a space in my room for her to work on school work so I can work on my work.  

I need to get back to doing things that I enjoy. I enjoy learning about training horses and working with horses. I can not give up my dreams and the learning I need to keep doing just because she is staying longer. I am excited to dive back in and keep writing my blog about horses. 

A few more days (7/26/2020) and my Lilly is turning 3 months!!!!! I have scheduled a session for Foxglove photography. Lilly is going to have her professional photo shoot! I am excited. I can not wait to see 30-50 pictures of her! I hope there are some really really good ones! I can't wait.

Lilly Update 7/13/2020

It has been a few weeks since I was able to post any updates about Lilly. All the King's Horses have been very busy (Saying Good-Bye to Lilly's BFF Dolly) and I have been trying not to bother them as they go about doing all the things they need to do on the farm. But I have a few more pictures to share and news about Lilly's new friend.

Lilly and her new best friend Hugo. Hugo is in front - Lilly is in back. She is still losing her foal coat so she looks rough. 

Lilly is looking rough still as she sheds her foal coat. But she is having some nice scratching/bonding time with her new friends.

Lilly is behind to her mom on the left

Lilly is in the back ground with her friend Hugo

I thought this was Lilly when I looked at the photos from the Foxglove session. But I didn't know for sure until she posted the pictures on line with this note. It was super cute. 

So what are we looking forward to?

July 26 Foxglove is going back out to the farm to take special pictures of Lilly for her 3rd month Birthday. I am very excited about this and I am looking forward to seeing more pictures of Lilly. 

In August Lilly will be moving to their other farm to start the weaning process. Another big milestone for her. 

Saying Good-Bye to Dolly - Lilly's BFF

It has been an emotional time.

Lilly lost her best friend Dolly. Dolly was another young horse (Lilly's BFF Dolly) at "All the King's Horses." Dolly and Lilly were best friends. They loved each other very much. 

Here is Dolly's Goodbye Story:

July 1 - Dolly got very sick and was rushed to the emergency vet clinic. Prognosis was not good. She had a very bad infection near her spine. 

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July 5 - It looked like Dolly was responding well to the treatments and medications at the clinic. 

July 7 - Saying good-bye to sweet Dolly. RIP Dolly you were an awesome horse and you will be missed by all. She was only 2 months old.