Happy 4th of July!

Aside from the fact that there may be some fuses lit later tonight, today is really just another midsummer’s day here at CCNF. We did finally have our first cria born in over a week early yesterday morning. It always makes us a little nervous when there are no births coming at regular intervals as it means our girls are conspiring to go on a birthing binge, letting them all loose at once. One new cria every 48 hours or so would be the preferred rate. Hey, it never hurts to dream.

That yesterday’s baby was both A. a Matrix Majesty baby, B. Brown, and C. female were all big pluses. At least someone around this place knows how to sire females. Pot calling the kettles black there of course. In fact it seems that MM (who will be at Snowmass until next April before returning here) seems to have a thing for producing brown females, given that this is the third he’s made in relatively short order: first Musette (aka the caesarean baby), then our female Margarita who we got from Alpaca Grove a few years back pretty much replicated herself (though with improvements), and now this little one out of our home made Ringo daughter, Marguerite (you know Padgetts, the grey Ring of Fire daughter). Marguerite’s, first kid, Ultraviolet (sired by Cameron) was the brown Champion at this spring’s NAAS show in her final season out, so we’re obviously pumped to see how her little sister develops as she matures. The very (way too) early signs are interesting though for sure.

Speaking of a Herdsire who does actually know how to throw females, yesterday also marked the return of Archangel here to his birth farm for the first time in over a year. With Elite Legend holding court for most of last year’s breeding season, the Arch had been chillaxing at his other home in Freeport, ME with our friends at TGF. Not that the old man was unrepresented this past year with a load of his grand kids holding slots in our show string, not least of which was some guy named Elixir.

It’s always funny bringing one of the heavy hittters back in to the fold at the Stud Barn. Yesterday it was only some of the newly promoted 2 year olds — though primarily Wayfarer and Invictus — who thought it was wise to pick a fight with Archangel, the “new” arrival. Ignorance is bliss as they say. Sovereign, Ring of Fire, and Cameron though each tough guys in their own right, remembered from years gone by that it was unwise to cross swords with Arch. As for the rookies, they eventually learned the same lesson: you may start a fight with an alpha male but the alpha will be the only one finishing it thank you very much. It took about 10 minutes or so for them to come to an understanding though all is copacetic now.

Hope everyone has a great Independence Day wherever you may be! Like the John Lee Hooker song says: boom, boom, boom, boom…