Icy cold

I’m not much of a cold person. I prefer weather above 75 degrees, though I can handle cold.  This winter, however, seems to be testing my resolve.

The temperature usually hangs around 7 degrees in the morning during feeding time, and somewhere around 10 degrees at night. Days haven’t hit above 25 degrees for a week or two.

Water troughs are frozen – so are my fingers and toes - and no amount of hacking gets rid of the ice. We have de-icers in the tanks, but they have to be rotated to get everyone thawed out so no one gets dehydrated.

Paddocks are rock hard. Great in keeping the hooves short, but hard on the horses’ feet as they navigate the craters made by a previous thaw.

How soon ’til spring?

Merry Christmas!

 

May God Bless you and yours!

Finding time

Between the new job in the “real world”, the old and new writing jobs, and spending time with my family, I wasn’t sure I would get around to doing any work with my horses this winter. 

After hubby sold my mare, I got to thinking: I’m out of horses to ride.  I have two up and coming horses: my gelding and my filly.  With little time on my hands, I decided I needed to come up with a training schedule. Looking over my day-to-day schedule and carving out time took some effort. Do I cut into writing time? Do I cut into my “down time” (aka TV time)?  What about my exercise time? My reading time? Skip the shower and hit the barn?

I have options. Do I really need 30 minutes to exercise in the morning? Cut it down to 15, walk to the barn rather than drive, (add another 5) , and use the extra time with the horses.  Shower is a must before work, but if I head to the barn right after work, then I can spend a little more time with the horses and shower just before bed.

All in all, I found that my “no time to do it” granted me a full hour with the horses – thirty minutes per horse per day, or sixty minutes for one horse every other day. The great thing about finding time, is it is flexible, and so am I.

Knowing she’s better off

I hate selling horses. I admit I’m no good at it. I’m not a salesperson and try to pawn any horse buyers off on my husband.

Last Saturday, he sold my little Palomino mare. I know it was coming as we’ve had lots of interest in her, but it still bothers me to see her pen empty.

I know she is in a good home. In fact, I know the guy who bought her and plans to have his kids use her for 4H.  How could I not be happy? She’s going to a good home where she will be used rather than wasted as a pasture ornament.

Still … Knowing she’s in a better place in my head, doesn’t stop the ache in my heart knowing she won’t be at the barn next time I feed.  And yet knowing she’s in a place where someone will love her brings a measure of peace.

Tack room trouble

During the summer when we aren’t doing as much riding as in the winter, our tack room doesn’t see much use.  I dared to venture in today and to my surprise I walked from the doorway to the other side without a single “EW!”

This in itself is an accomplishment.  Over the summer we have had pack rats move into the tack room. They are everywhere.  All the horse treats have been nibbled to dust. Rat poop layers the floor, and the real lucky get to see the little buggers are they scamper across the room.

Then add the bats. I actually don’t mind the bats. THey don’t live in the tack room per se, but in the barn itself. The only time I have a problem with them is when I feed at night after dark and the flying mice dive bomb me.  Usually the bunchkin and I sit on a hay bale and watch them fly. 

As if that wasn’t enough we’ve got spiders. On a good day spiders don’t bother me. I kind of like the creepy creatures, but the big hairy ugly ones? Not so much. Our tack room has hobo spiders and brown recluse spiders in hiding. Be wary where you stick a hand as heaven only knows what might end up on it.

I see a winter project in my future.

Preparing for winter

Yes I know it isn’t even September yet and I’m thinking of winter? What about fall!  Fall is still there, but since we are usually still putting up hay until mid October early November, I can’t really say I get much vacation time. Winter is my free time. I work in the afternoons when the bunchkin is at school and during the mornings – after feeding – I get to play with the horses.

This winter we have three projects going: hubby’s six-year-old mule, my four-year-old gelding and my three-year-old filly.

Some may remember this mule has been on the project list for a few years. This year he seems to be serious at taking a shot at getting her halter broke.

For me the goal is to get both my two under saddle.  Look for upcoming posts with pictures to follow the prgress of the three horses.

Blew it – on purpose

I recently posted some horses online to sell.   The other day I had a gal come to look over one of the horses.  She liked the mare wanted to take her home that day. Even had cash in hand.

I blew the sale.

On purpose.

The fit wasn’t right for me.  Even through the gal handed the mare well in the round pen, and my dear little horsey behaved herself, I didn’t feel the connection. I don’t know that she would have been able to handle the mare once they weren’t enclosed.

Maybe subconsciously I don’t really want to sell the mare, but I honestly felt it would be wrong to sell this horse to this particular person.

Has anyone else ever blown a sale just on a gut feeling?  . . . Curious.

Moose in my backyard

Early this summer our neighbor chased down my husband saying there was a baby moose in the field next to our horse pastures and he thought the moose went into our hay field. We hopped on the 4-wheeler to check it out thinking that maybe he was seeing things. We don’t really have moose in our area.

silly us! Turns out it wasn’t a baby but an old cow moose.  She stayed around about a week living by our pond, then disappeared. We’re guessing she headed to the mountains south of us.

A few weeks later the family took a drive into the hills and came across a bull, cow and two calves. Guess I can’t say there aren’t moose around here anymore

Barn Pictures

Thought I had more sved, but this is all I can find. The three posts here are the ones that were rotted and started to fall with the heavy snow.

Barn raising

Ok, so it isn’t really a barn raising, more of a barn fixing.   Last winter some of you many remember our barn started to go down from the weight of the snow. Thankfully we were able to save it, but it has never been the same and we haven’t really been able to use it.

This week we have finally had time and money to make the repairs for the barn to stand on its own again and be used once more. (Which is good as I plan to start working Smudge soon and really want the round pen under a roof. I admit, I’m a fair-weather rider. I prefer the warmth to the cold.)

For under two hundred dollars we will get all six posts put back up and settled in place. As I write this, my dear husband is lifting one section of the roof, cutting off a post and drilling out the rotted wood from the cement in the ground.  Once he finishes that, we will set the new post, board up the sides, fill the hole and start all over.  We can do one to two posts a day and hope to have them all done during this nice 40 degree weather we are having that is supposed to go away this weekend. 

I will have pictures for you soon.