Anna, I love your pictures. For some reason the theme song from “Dr. Zhivago” keeps running through my head. What a lovely, lovely home. I especially like the photo of the stork on the bed!
And I wanted to say that this is one my favorite photos ever posted on COTH! Just look at that noble head!
Please keep us posted on all the crew, but most especially the Adventures of Puika!
Best regards,
“Hitch”
Anna- Your animals seem so happy! Thank you for sharing your pictures. What an amazing place. Good luck with your Puika. He is one lucky horse 
[QUOTE=AnnaCrew;3098818]
Trot Left, I know it all and I do enjoy every moment in my paradise!
Call it semi-alternative lifestyle… 
Yes, this is my little paradise (but I still have a large apartment in city if I need spent a night there, but I do not miss city at all and go there only where it is really needed)
Trot Left, if you have plans to visit Europe, you are welcome to visit us any time! We like to share our paradise, but be ready - it will be working holidays then for you! Here is always too many things to doo… so friends who visit always must participate![/QUOTE]
Hi Anna, I PROMISE to work my butt off if I ever get the chance to vist Europe!! :yes: Also, I am intreiged (cannot spell) by your semi-alternative lifestyle. I think some of us in the States need to vist you and your farm for a while to get the true quality of what life has to offer. By reading the threads here I have learned SO MUCH FROM YOU! It’s funny, you need our help with your wonderful horse but we need you for all the other reasons!
Thank you for that!
[QUOTE=Trot Left;3104190]
By reading the threads here I have learned SO MUCH FROM YOU! It’s funny, you need our help with your wonderful horse but we need you for all the other reasons!
Thank you for that![/QUOTE]
Trot Left said it exactly right!!! :yes: Thank you!
I shared this thread with my sister this morning and she is now also a Puika fan. Each picture shows how happy he has become with your care, what a regal horse he is!!
Wow!!! Your pictures put the biggest smile on my face! I love Barry, Alice and Lucy the best!
I love this photo. This is one that should be framed. :yes:
Please forgive me for not reading through all 12 pages before posting, but I have a question.
Does he have any pasture companions or is he all alone?
He is a handsome boy and looks to be very sociable, which is what led me to wonder whether he might just be lonely for a friend of his own kind (or perhaps a donkey).
[QUOTE=anita m;3104881]
Please forgive me for not reading through all 12 pages before posting, but I have a question.
Does he have any pasture companions or is he all alone?
He is a handsome boy and looks to be very sociable, which is what led me to wonder whether he might just be lonely for a friend of his own kind (or perhaps a donkey).[/QUOTE]
I forget, but I don’t think it’s feasible because he doesn’t actually live in a pasture. He lives on a chain when not in his stall. I think Peter and Anna spend so much time with him though he doesn’t have a chance to get lonely.
Puika has not have a friend. Other neighbours had an old stallion, black one, but he died from a tumor 5 years ago (he was 37 as far as I know then) and since then Puika had not seen another horse. He loves cows and at present he has a stall mate - one young calf, she is about a year old now, very, very sweet cow. She wants cuddles each time when we go into stall, and of course, she gets them. And treats, and brushing… She knows what good life means. They are separated by box walls but there are big gaps between the boards, so they can reach each other and lick each other. Puika is much more happier in the pastures when the cows are out so he usually goes along with cows.
I know also that he does not like ducks and geese and can be easy spooked by them - white geese must go out of Puika’s way as he refuses to walk if geese on his way.
When he will be moved, there will be no place and space for such a barnmate as cow - that section is only 5X6 metres, and I somehow must to fit a box there, and left some space for weekly hay load. So we are considering about a regular size goat. We already had found one, which we liked, she is about 3 mo now and I presume, Puika must be used to goats, as prewious owner of our house had goats, and they lived in the section where Puika will go. But we are still considering.
Puika has improved, yes. I would still not trust him 100%, but I had not seen his teeth at all for last 2-3 weeks. Now he has new, much nicer habit, just turns his head down and rubs against you - for that he always gets a lot of praising, cuddles and kisses, and then he just melts.
Farrier is coming this Saturday, so I want to hear his opinion - I presume we had done all that he wanted - Puika has lost some weight, he has build up some muscle, had some excercises, and every day we teached him to lift up his back legs on command - he is much better now - he tries to hold the legs up longer. But would it be enough?
Farrier is also very good at horsemanship, he is working on large racing horse breeding farm, so probably he will check out what and how we have done with his training and what must be the next.
He will trim Puika’s back hoofs that had grown in wrong shape a bit, but nothing really bad. And then we can just hope that his back right leg will improve by itself. It has already improved - at the beginning he was tucking it in much more, now you can hardly see it, so weight looosing already helped. That is exactly like with large dogs, it is easy for me to understand.
I have just read all 12 pages and am in love with Puika!
Anna, you and Peter are amazing and I admire your willingness to do what you are doing. Not many would be willing to do it and even fewer would be so quick to ask for help…
Your farm is lovely and reminds me so much of some of the houses I saw in England.
Please continue to post updates. We love hearing about your progress and your culture.
Leisa
[QUOTE=AnnaCrew;3101458]
Hmmm, I do not know actually what to tell… The manor first is mentioned on documents in 15th century. As far as I had researched, behind there is a very interesting love story - Hermann, the knight of Teutonic Order got the place as a feud - for that he needed to marry the daughter of the previous leird of the feud - Tall Claus - when she “will be that age”.
It is how written history of our place started.
Our house is part of the manor - castle is 2 miles away from here. Our house was where the reeve (estate manager) lived so actually it was the working centre of the manor.
Castle is new, built at the end of 19th century, then demolished in 1905 during the farmer riots, then renovated, and now there is the local primary school located. Picture here:
http://www.tip.edu.lv/zemite/skola1.jpg
In our place there was a huge stone build barn for 500 dairy cows which was partly destroyed during the WWI (The one end survived, it is where Puika is living now), the stall (it was rebuild and turned into tractor car park during soviet era here, but old walls have survived and in the one end is also old forge where farrier had worked), and under it there is a huge wine-cellar, which needs to be cleaned out - soviets filled it with granit rocks and sand by some unknown reasons).
Under our living house there is a running spring with beautiful water, so there is a well that we are using instead of tap water that we do not have
Foundations are 9ft deep, solid granit rocks weighting few tonns each, so nobody can destroy that (really, a messile is needed there), walls are brick, nearly 3 ft thick, so also not easy to destroy.
House had an old red tile roof that was destroyed by soviets, replaced with asbestos, and now we had put the silly roofing on but at least within a distance it looks like a tile a bit.
All the original oak beams are in the perfect condition - it is my pride and joy. I also renovated the brick floor that was originally here, so living room with original arches now looks nearly as it was 200 years ago.
Sadly the huge bred aven was also destroyed by soviet “reconstruction”, but you can not have it all! Instead of that we just had build a simple open fire.
House has 8 running stoves and avens that must be fed during the winter, so about 10 m3 or wood we are burning here each month during the winter months.
Pastures you saw, grass is really rich as we have heavy red clay here - it is ideal also for garden trees like aples (trees grow slowly, but reach very interesting age - one apple tree we needed to cut down, and it was 180 years old - on sandy soil appletrees would never reach that age).
What else to tell?[/QUOTE]
Oh wow Anna, you need to talk to my husband!
We are shopping now for a house/farm. I am from England, so a couple of hundred years is not very old for me at all, but he is from Kansas, so he is very afraid to buy anything more than 25 years old!
There are 2 houses for sale in our price range around here that I love, one was built in 1842 and one in 1906, hubby thinks they are too old even though they are very charming!
I keep on telling him that from my perspective they are not that old at all!!
I am officially starting the Puika Fan Club 
I love him… he’s so beautiful and you can see how happy he is in the pictures. I get so much enjoyment from reading your updates Anna All your animals are so cute and your home is lovely!!!
I love this picture, too…
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/barryz15/Horse/PICT2400.jpg
Puika Bump back to the first page
OK, OK, Fan club must to get some hay today…
Farrier was here, and my hands are sore… Puika was not cooperating with his back legs again, so the back legs were tied up… and I was holding the end of the rope. Good job that I’m quite a strong girl
So now all 4 legs are done right, hoofs are thick, strong, no splits… but when layers went off on the back right leg, farrier discovered more rot than he expected.
Hoof now is cleaned, and the medications are on, but tomorrow… Grr! It will be just Peter and me to put the stuff on again… And it will be not easy. Other than that all is ok, and by farrier’s opinion, that rot soon will be gone, nothing nasty.
The main thing - hoofs trimmed now in a right manner so they are leveled up for next two months.
And another good job from today - we found an usable cart for driving him so next week, when cart will be delivered, we shall be able to work him more! What a relief! So we are putting our act together, slowly, but at least something!
But I’m sooo tired now!
Wow. I had not seen this thread before now, but I just read the whole thing!
It’s so refreshing to hear about beginners who took on this project and went out of their way to get proper instruction, advice, and help (from us, and riding lessons, and good farrier and vet care, and deworming!). It sounds like you are feeding the big guy just right for the amount of stuff he is doing too. You are taking very good care of him, and all your other animals look so healthy and happy!! You are doing 10 times better than 90% of the American riding public! And it’s so exciting to read about you both starting to ride and getting saddles and carts for Puika. You two are totally hooked. I can’t wait for spring for two reasons now: So I can ride without freezing, and so you can make Puika a nice turnout and new box!!
Question: how do you shower ;)? and do you have… a toliet? I am not very well travelled (yet!), but I do not think I could do without my nice hot bath and flushing toliet!!:yes:
Do people in Latvia ever blanket thier horses? Not that Puika really looks like he needs a blanket, I am just curious.
I sat down last weekend and read every page of this thread. Unfortunately I was in the middle of developing a massive sinus infection so I read and then need to take meds again which made me sleepy so I never posted. I almost forgot about this until I saw it again today.
The inspiration from this thread is amazing - two people, never owned a horse before, take on one of Puika’s size, and find themselves horsemen (woman ;)) at heart! Then! Then we see this huge herd of dogs, cats, birds, beautiful flowers and lovely home - it’s no wonder they have devolped such a good realtionship with this big horse in almost no time flat! It takes good people to have a large herd of animals thriving like yours Anna and I’m sure Puika thinks himself the luckiest pony that ever lived to find a home with you and Peter!!! :yes:
I’m not the least bit surprised you have found your way around horses so quickly - although different, they are much like large dogs and you obviously have lots of experience there I wish you the best of luck in the future and I can’t wait for the next installment of “The adventures of Anna, Peter, and Puika” :winkgrin::yes:
Oh, I’m joining the fan club too - how can one not love this whole crew?!
Ruth, I know what do you mean, but… There are many other ways to do the same things… Imagine a big bath in front of open fire… Believe me, it is great fun and BTW, quite romantic too…
Toilets still are waiting for a proper solution (like proper bathroom), we have plans to build an anex for all these things as to get pipes through the current foundations is impossible.
But like all country houses here, we have an outside loo (sounds dramatic, but in our climate it is not bad solution at all, at least everything is kept away from house) and for very cold weather we have things called biotoilets on ground floor and upstairs (even with flushing perfumed water ), so we can still keep our city habits.
I can get a gas cooker if I want here, and other things like that, but you know, the roastbeef tastes really different when cooked on wood fire. Takes a bit more time as cookers are warming up slower, but we are used to it… like, in half our I will start cooking, then it is time to start the fire now.
Alternative way of living here (or old fashioned way) takes more time and better planning, but again - it is very relaxing and we like it better. But yes, we do not have shower as we do not have tap water! 
About blanketing:
Yes, we do… in two completely different ways:
a)modern way (believe, many stables here are really great with all the top gear from all around the world and some horses bred here, go for 6 numbers on auctions in the world so they are treated like best horses in any modern stable;
b) old fashioned way like 200 years ago, when horse got a blanket in a cold day while cart or sledges were loaded/unloaded and hot worked horse needed to stand and wait cooling down in a wrong way.
Fancy modern stables do have fancy horses who need modern blanketing, but, for example. our Puika, who is Latvian breed, is used to country, old fashioned way and would get a blanket if he would need to wait in sledges, untill wood is loaded on.
Other than that horses mostly are kept inside during the cold weather as they have nothing much to do in pastures which are covered with deep snow at -25 C.
3 days ago we had our last snowstorm hopefully, and today was +11 C! It is our changing weather. So farm animals here just need more attention during the time out - if it is too cold, they go inside, if too hot - inside again. We pamper them a lot, really.
Anna-- things sound like they are progressing very well with Puika, and your house is gorgeous!! I am honored to be a member of Puika’s fan club, and I love hearing about all the adventures you are having. Your home is lovely, and your descriptions of the land are wonderful. You are truly an inspiration to us all. Keep the updates coming, and I can’t wait to hear how much Puika enjoys the cart!!
+11C!!!
I am in Canada, and am SO JEALOUS.
It is barely +1C right now. Our snow is killing me.
Anna, I love your house. Canada is much like the US in that most houses are considered “old” if they are approaching 100. My house was built in 1912, our friends behave as if it is a cave from prehistoric times I, however, love the character and history. It does not matter we don’t have a single straight or square surface in the entire building!!!
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