Summer Scenes at Ravenseyrie

 

Ousado (Altamiro x Bella)

We’ve been having a lovely summer here at Ravenseyrie!  This is our 19th year living on Manitoulin Island, up on The East Bluff, in Gordon/Allen township, just outside of Gore Bay, Ontario.  We love living here and have no regrets about immigrating from the states and becoming Canadian citizens.  This felt like home even in the first year and continues to provide for us a challenging, but wonderful way of living.

Up here on the East Bluff, spring and summer are typical dry - some years very, very dry.  Most summers, our well dries up and we resort to using lake water for household and garden needs, which Kevin hauls up from the Ravenseyrie shore on Lake Huron’s North Channel.  Thank goodness for our lake access, our Kubota tractor, our trusty little pumps and our holding tanks.  

This summer we’ve had wonderful rains (it is raining now!) and it is amazing to have water on tap in mid-August - a first for us!

The wet weather sure did the hayfields on Manitoulin Island a lot of good - lusher growth than we’ve ever seen, it made it difficult for farmers to cut and cure hay because the rains were too frequent.  Fortunately for us both the farmers we purchase hay from (Bill Fogal for our home range and Larry Cress for our mares living on the range in Tehkummah) cut their fields during adequate “hay windows”.  Larry has delivered a winter’s worth of hay to the mares’ range for us and Kevin will pick up the boys’ hay in numerous trips with his tractor, since the hayfield is just down the road a bit from us.  

Art sales in my gallery have been wonderful and helps us pay for the hay, which is a considerable sum.  We are always SO thankful when a winter’s worth of food for the horses has been procured and paid for.  Winters are very harsh here and knowing the horses have aromatic “dried summer” to fill their hungry bellies is a huge relief.

Please enjoy some of the images of our summertime.

Kevin 

Silvestre (Altamiro x Ciente), aka The Tank, with Interessado and Legado

Altamiro (Ultrajado x Pompeia), aka Big Daddy, with Capaz

Scotland Road Hayfield

Scotland Road, Almost Home

The Big Wide Open at Ravenseyrie

Canada Thistle

Whitetail Doe

Echinacea 

Fidalgo (Altamiro x Belina)

Interessado (right) and Ousado

Ousado

Ousado (Fidalgo in background)

Volunteer Sunflowers and Oats

Ousado, loves getting photographed

Capaz (Interessado x Pinoteia)

Legado (Altamiro x Sovina’s Zorita)

The Group of Four (Interessado, Silvestre, Legado and Ousado

Fidalgo (Altamiro x Belina)

Fidalgo

Ousado

Legado and Ousado having a discussion

A Beautiful Spring

Spring came early this year, after a rather easy winter.  With spring’s arrival, the bachelors in their chosen cliques become even more defined in their territorial behaviours, though this year, thankfully, their aggression among themselves is not as fierce.

The rangeland is rich with things to eat, both here on the home range and down on the range in Tehkummah where our mares live and all the horses are fat from it.  The black flies and mosquitoes are out and this keeps the horses on the move.  There are days though that are cooler and breezy and the torment of biting insects slackens for a time and there is much dozing in the sun.

We are thankful each time spring comes and the grasses return - it is this wonderful habitat here on the island that makes it possible for us to continue to safeguard our wild horses so they can live as much as possible under their own autonomy.

 

 

Images from January 2024

We had a couple of back to back snowstorms, but overall, so far this winter has been on the mild and friendly side of things.

The horses are doing well!  We've been able to continue to support both our groups, the nine bachelors who are with us here at Ravenseyrie and the eight mares who we are thankful can continue to enjoy living wild on their range an hour's drive from us.  

All are getting older!  Zorita is 22 this year!  Altamiro, Bella and Belina are all 19!  Even our last two offspring (Ousado and Rija) who were born the year we shifted from breeding conservation of our Sorraias to supported separate herds will turn eleven this year.

I remain so thankful to be able to share my life with these wild horses and continue to draw artistic inspiration from them.  Kevin and I both feel that our lives and the health of the land have benefitted greatly by the presence of these equine friends.