Signs of Spring

The signs of spring are really starting to show. Last week I heard and then saw the first robin of the year. I've only seen the one but I'll take it. I've also seen a lot of geese flying.

Daylight savings time is also here to stay. I'm excited to get that extra hour in the evening but it sure is hard doing chores in the pitch black mornings. I was enjoying the morning pre-dawn show. And that reminds me. Last year I started blogging the first day after daylight savings time. It's been one heck of a year.

The snow is also melting quickly, causing major problems. The CRP is flooding. Luckily the pasture has enough of a hill that the lower part can flood and I still have pasture enough for the horses. The flooding is bad enough that our CRP is taking over the gravel road! I'll have to post more with pics later.

The horses are also starting to shed out, some more than others. Babe is really shedding. Others like Rain aren't anywhere near shedding out. Although Rain never really sheds out too much.

The horse pens are a mess. Luckily I have enough concrete, except that it's all under manure and ice still. I'm slowly working at getting the manure into piles. With 14 horses to care for all winter, working, and the terrible weather, there was simply no way for me to get out to the pens to clean them before the manure froze to the ground. I'd hoped to get a tractor in the pen to do most of the work but it doesn't look like that will be the case. Everything is so soft I don't want to tear up the yard. So instead, I'll put the shovel to work.

I did get the chance to clean out a little bit of the barn and that seemed to help. There's still standing water but it doesn't seem to be as bad. The water table is just as bad, if not worse but maybe it's just that it's flowing into the CRP instead.

The CRP is full and taking over the road. It's also backed up and wrapped around us. Who needs a mote! I'm a little worried that the bottom part of the mare pasture is going to flood out. I'll be rather disappointed. We just put that fence in and now the water will take hold of it. I'm sure nothing will happen to the fence it's just surprising is all. I need to walk down and check the fences in the mare pasture anyway so I'll investigate the flooding. The water was never this bad in the years we've been at Borderlands. Even when we had that major water break out to the horse water trough the water table was never this bad. At that time I thought it was bad we sort of flooded out the neighbor but in reality, this is 100 times worse!

Hopefully tonight I can post some of the flooding pictures. I was hoping to go out with the waders to see how deep the flooding really is in the pasture. I walked out just a ways into the water and it was already up to the tops of my rubbers. And that was on Saturday afternoon, before the CRP started taking over the road. Maybe tonight, now that it's daylight savings time (yet another sign of spring), Mike and I can set the live trapped to get the skunk living in the pasture, and I can go play out in the water.

Now if I could only figure out how to manage my time a little bit better to take advantage of that extra hour of daylight!