Buck Creek Horse Ranch slide show

Here is a new slide show video I made with pics from our Buck Creek Horse Ranch.

Rainy day

Well the snow is gone and the rain has taken it's place. Normal winter day in Oregon. Today is a good day to sit around the house and stay dry. The kids have had a great Christmas and now are settled in the living room playing video games. The hot new game they like is Guitar Hero World Tour. Now they all three can play like they are a Band. It is fun to watch and listen.

I have been sitting here looking at some video on the computer and thought I would share my favorite country poet Baxter Black. Hear is a good one and if you like you can find more at my youtube channel for Oregonduck81.

Kelly's Machine Shop

Today is about done and time to go work again tomorrow. Only 3 days this week though because it's Christmas. Finally got the outside of our house decorated. The kids get all excited to see decorations up outside. I kind of got busy and my hip was injured so I didn't get done till almost too late.

Here to the right is the lathe I work on at the Machine shop. I am the supervisor there but I still run machines every chance I can and not many guys in the shop can run the big lathe.

From time to time I will post some famous quotes and words of wisdom for just the heck of it.

Here is my quote for the day.

I do not have superior intelligence or faultless looks. I do not captivate a room or run a mile under six minutes. I only succeeded because I was still working after everyone else went to sleep.

Greg Evans
Suspense Novelist

Don't forget to stop by and visit www.buckcreekhorseranch.com

First Snow Day

Wow! We got our first big snow of the year. Most of the time the snow we get is wet and melts fast, but today it is really cold. Looks like it might stay awhile too. Thank goodness the Fjords have thick winter coats on already. They are built to be able to handle long cold winters. We have to put blankets on some of the other horses that are older and don't have thick natural coats.

Our red horse in the picture at right is a quarterhorse/missouri foxtrotter named Josie. She is the queen of the herd. So when anything goes on around the ranch she is right there to oversee things. She is like a protective guard dog and watches over all the other horses and they all respect her and acknowledge that she is Boss. Its interesting how horses will establish a leader among themselves. Josie has always been the leader no matter what horse we have at our place. She has even protected some of the weaker horses when being picked on by another one.

I see that I have a new follower of my Blog. Welcome Tillie! Thanks for being interested in my notes and pictures.( Say hello to Amy) The kids have been busy decorating the house for Christmas and it looks great. Even have the tree up and decorated too. With all the new snow we had last night, it really looks like christmas is soon to be here. They were really excited this morning when schools closed and they got to stay home.

Our Happy Place

Buck CreeK Horse Ranch
Our Happy Place

A little place of escape from the big world of life. Sometimes the best things in life are the simple things. For us it has been family togetherness and living here at our Buck Creek Horse Ranch.

A few years ago we were living in the city limits and our kids were young and we had a small house. As they grew bigger we found that our little house in town was quickly becoming smaller. My wife(Lana) decided that it was her goal to someday have a horse to enjoy and give the kids something we could do together as a family. Of course living in town meant we would have to board our horse, and in time, we ended up having more horses.

This is when we decided that we needed to move to a new place where we could keep our horses with us in the country. For a while we thought that we might never find a place affordable, but finally a small property south of us became our best prospect. All of sudden things started happening fast and we made an offer on the property. At the same time, we made a deal with someone that wanted our house in town. So with two house deals being made and arrangements for moving, we found it was best to get out of town to allow the new owners to move into our old house. Only problem was that after we left our home in town, we found out the woman in our new place needed more time to move as her next home was not finished being built.

Oops! Now we were homeless! So with the help of Lana's sister from Noble Estate Vineyard, we moved into her motorhome and parked in the local RV campground and set-up to live for about 3 weeks. Now we learned what being a close family really was. There were five of us and a homeless teenager we had taken in during his time of need. Total count: two adults, four kids, three cats and a dog. Those three weeks dragged on and on, but finally the day came that were able to move into our new home in the country and it was all worth the wait.

We finally made it! This is our Happy Place. Just enough land to keep our horses and enjoy living in the country.

Lana has always been a Quarter horse lover and we started our ranch with a mixture of breeds. But our latest venture is Norwegian Fjords. We did not know much about the Fjord horse, but Lana's close friend Amy convinced us to buy a Fjord mare that was soon to have a foal. Thank-you very much to Amy (and Catherine Lassesen of Hestehaven in Days Creek, Oregon) for helping us purchase such a wonderful breed of horse. So now we are home of the Buck Creek Fjords. We also are currently boarding Amy's Fjords and so we have many Fjords at our ranch.

So life here has been wonderful at our little ranch. This is our Happy Place in the big world, and no matter what, we have a safe place for our kids and horses to live and enjoy the quiet time away from the busy hustle and bustle of every day life of the working world. Our belief is that family togetherness is the best way to raise kids. The Norewgian Fjord is a perfect family horse and we love our Fjords as if they were our kids. They have a warm and friendly manner about them that grows on you and all they want in return is your attention.

Fuzzy Fjords

The weather is definitely turning cold and our Fjords are getting their winter coats on. These pictures are of Elisie, mother of our two young Fjords. As you can see she has her long fur coat on. She looks pretty shaggy right now. Soon we will have to bring out the scissors and give her a haircut. We have other kinds of horses at our ranch (quarter horses) but they don't grow winter coats anywhere near as thick and long as the Norwegian Fjords. We got into Fjords through our close friend Amy, and she is a part time hairdresser/stylist and Fjord owner. We like to kid around and joke about how we are the only ranch family that both we, and our horses, have the same hair stylist. LOL!!

Thanksgiving is gone by and now its time for the countdown to Christmas. Time to start digging out the christmas decorations. Our son Jeffrey is getting excited about setting up the tree and putting up lights. Some day when our young Fjords get old enough, we are looking forward to training them to pull a hay wagon and then we can give people wagon rides at christmas time and other holidays.