Utopia: The Miracles of Life
Friends and foals -what could be better?
Jill and I were honored to attend the "roast and toast", 95th birthday party for our friend Dick Schulze last night. It was a pretty epic celebration, with lots of great conversations and luminaries in attendance.
It was a grand celebration of a great American patriot.
Dick Schulze R-PA, served as a United States House of Representatives member from 1975 to 1993. His work on conservation and preserving American parkland are legendary.
Schulze rose to serve as a-top ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee and the senior Republican member on the Oversight Subcommittee. He also served on the Armed Services Committee and Banking. He chaired the Republican Study Committee, and was the Republican Whip for Pennsylvania. Ronald Reagan appointed Schulze to the Presidential Advisory Committee on Federalism. Schulze was one of the "Reagan 13".
Schulze also served on the Natural Resources Committee and is a former member of the Migratory Bird Commission. George H. W. Bush appointed Schulze to serve on the Board of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He also founded the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus and Foundation in 1990. Schulze served as Chairman of the National Prayer Breakfast, and has been a member of the House of Representatives weekly prayer breakfast for over 30 years.
Anyway, Dick is a fountain of knowledge and wisdom. We truly are honored to call him a friend.
We have been privileged to be a part of a community here in Madison and Rappahannock Counties that calls itself “The Quarantine Club” - cause we all broke quarantine to get together during COVID and would regularly have dinners, meet-ups, shoot guns, produce videos, attend lectures, plays and other events together. Basically, to have fun and enjoy the friendship and community of a great group of people. This is how we met Dick and his amazing wife, Nancy.
Whoops! I take that back; I first met Nancy because she is the founder of the Republican Congressional Wives Speakers. She had asked me to speak at the Congressional Wives Club about COVID, way back in 2021~ Anyway, that all seems like ancient history now.
As usual, logistics can get pretty dicey when living out in the country.
The truth is that to get to the party in DC last night required an almost two hour drive each way. So, we got home about close to midnight. As the very pregnant mares are getting due to give birth, plus dire predictions of a huge rain storm - which still hasn’t come, we did the “mare” rounds and didn’t see anything unusual.
Last year, we just put the stallions in with the two mare herds, and therefore the specific due dates are unknown. Live cover is the fancy word for basically letting the stallions and mares together and letting nature do its thing. For many, if not most years we use “AI” for breeding.
Not that kind of AI…
But before “AI” meant artificial intelligence, the abbreviation used to mean artificial insemination. Jill in particular, is expert at semen collection, laboratory semen analysis (percent live/dead, motility, etc.) as well as processing for shipment (centrifugation, calculations of live sperm, mixing with the correct amount of “extender” -basically an energy drink for the semen, etc.). . My expertise is in doing the actual artificial insemination of the mares. Photos of which y’all don’t get to see, as the chaos agents and trolls would have a field day. But here is a sneak preview (photo from about 2019).
…don’t go there.
Anyway, this is all part and parcel of the horse breeding “industry.” But since COVID, we not longer sell and ship horse semen, as we are just too busy. Our own breeding operations have been centered on creating a lineage, using the stallions we have on the farm. We have kept our three best stallions from Jade - all buckskins.
Last year, we didn’t wean foals and breed until very late in the season. So, long story short - we have mares due soon!
We got home from the celebration of Dick’s birthday, and we checked on the mares, locked Miss Goose in her bed of straw, located in a horse stall, and tried to get emu into the barn also. Gizmo had other ideas, so after a bit of a discussion, we decided to let sleeping dogs lie - and Gizmo spent the night outdoors doing whatever Gizmo wanted to do. That seems to consist of hanging around the mare paddock. Jill is convinced that Gizmo thinks she/he is related to the horses, as hanging around them has become the norm. For those who asked in the comments section the other day, there is no Mr. Goose - all of her eggs are infertile.
So this morning, Olivia comes over like clockwork at 7:45 AM. She does the morning rounds, and we get the call. Our big mare, Tantra has foaled!
Jill and I are both more groggy than usual due to staying up late. But we rush around, get our farm clothes on, and hike down to the mare pasture. To be greeted by this sweet little buckskin girl.
Pretty much perfect!
She is strong, standing, nursing, and very, very sweet.
Due to four inches of rain coming and the mud already pooling in parts of the pasture, we brought the two into the big stall. Much to the disappointment of the other five pregnant mares - who are all pretty excited by the new addition. Hence, the mares are now collected as close to the barn as possible to catch a glimpse of the new babe.
By all calculations, Tantra was a bit early in giving birth, and as usual, she literally gave us no early warning signs (waxing, loose joints, lax muscles, colicky symptoms, etc.). But there is a good chance this birth will trigger either her daughter or her dam to give birth soon also. Mares like to cluster their births so that the foals are all the same age. Who knows how they do it, but they do.
So, although we don’t see signs of an impending birth from the other five mares, we will be on high alert. That means lots of “mare checks”, particularly in the middle of the night and during the storm rolling in soon. Our worst-case scenario is a mare giving birth during a rain storm, which could spell disaster for the little one. The fact that the weather is staying warm is most definitely to our advantage. The foals have very little body fat and cannot regulate body temperature well at this age.
So, as with all our foals - according to the registry, have to have “U” names this year. Olivia came up with the name and it is kind of unbelievably perfect.
The filly is now officially named Utopia.
A utopia - typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, which describes a fictional island society in the New World.
Utopia
The little filly’s farm name will be Pia (the meaning of which is Pious).
It's a sweet name for an already beloved creature.
As usual, our schizophrenic life seems to offer miracles when one least expects them
New life always inspires hope in the darkest of times. ❤️
There must be a great feeling of satisfaction watching all of your exhausting hard work turn into a beautiful new life. For me it’s seeing a couple, Jill and yourself, that work so hard, leave all of the people that have tried to destroy you back in the dust bin of history in your lives. Screw them!!! I love your success in-spite of the evil cancelling society. It seems to me Homesteading goes far beyond producing your own food!!!