A Lady and a Baby

Great God in heaven, it's cold out there. I just got in from feeding and trying to keep my digits from freezing and breaking off. The radio said it's -30 degrees with the wind chill factor. It actually warmed up in the night. Yesterday outdoor temps hovered around ten above zero all day. This morning the thermometer said plus 15.
The animals all seemed grateful for the hay. Digestion of forage helps them keep warm. Many people feed too much grain. Digestive systems in horses and cattle weren't designed with grain supplements in mind. They do much better on a diet of just vegetation if it's good quality grass or hay.
I have four mares that are due to foal this spring. This is my flagship mare. Her name is A Painted Lady. She is twelve years old and 16 hands tall.

I bought Lady at a sale in 2002. She was raised by the people who were my surrogate parents when I was growing up. I was impressed, not only by her color and conformation the day of the sale, but the rider was able to do just anything he wanted with her--even throw a rope. Since I knew the couple that raised her, I knew she had been handled correctly. She had four colts for them prior to the sale, and they said all of them had been paints.
Lady has only produced one colt for me, also a paint. He is almost her double--same coloring, same coat pattern, about the same size. Even I get them confused if I'm not paying close attention. Here is King Sweet Bee, her offspring.

King is for sale. I actually traded him off as a weanling in return for having the ranch house and garage painted (a paint for a paint) then wound up getting him back when he was a three year-old. The kids had kept him and fed him for two and a half years, had him gelded, paid a professional trainer to start him under saddle. He's very gentle, but I haven't had time to ride much since I moved back to the ranch, plus he's even taller than his dam--about 16.2 hands--and a bum knee has prevented me from desiring to climb to those heights. King is advertised on Horsetopia.com.

Lady is one of my mares that is carrying a foal. I have been watching her carefully due to a mishap I had with her a few years ago when she aborted her foal just a month from her due date. She was boarded out at that time, during my hiatus from the ranch while working in Cheyenne, so I wasn't able to check her every day.
She's due around May 1, so about March 15, I plan to bring her in to the barn where I can monitor her very closely. I'll let you know how that goes. Somebody close the gate.