A Day In The Life...

This weekend didn’t go as planned. The death of the washer and drier changed a lot of what I had planned. But even the replanned weekend changed. Here’s a rundown of what we did this weekend. It might help explain my exhaustion every night.

SATURDAY
We made arrangements for the farrier to come out Saturday morning to do a couple trims. I’d asked the farrier to bring the big draft nippers. There’s no way we will ever be able to get Thor into a chute and trim his feet. We could get him into the chute but he would get too upset when trying to work on his feet. Instead, the old fashioned draft nippers would be the route to go to keep him calm. We scheduled the farrier visit for 9am sharp.

At 8:30 I was out rounding up horses for the farrier. I had Dude, Zeke, and Ivan tied to the trailer. I was doing chores with the farrier pulled in at 9am sharp. From 9 until almost noon we diligently worked away at horses. Dude and Zeke we did the normal way. I haven’t worked with Ivan enough and we decided that instead of risking it, we’d use the big nippers. When we got Ivan, we were told that when they had their farrier out, Ivan had slipped and fallen on some ice in the barn so they weren’t sure how he would react. Ivan doesn’t like having his feet picked up. It’s something I need to work on in my limited time. But for now the big nippers will do. We also tackled Rabbit’s feet. The farrier believes that Rabbit foundered at one time. If he could get in and trim the proper way, he could get the flare fixed. Unfortunately, Rabbit knows how to work the system and none of us are willing to get hurt simply to do a trim. So we used the nippers method. I’ll continue to work with Rabbit in holding her legs but she’s a stinker. She really does know how to work the system. Last but not least we tackled Thor’s feet. We’ll do another round next month. With him going blind, I didn’t know what to do with his feet. But now we have the method of using the big nippers and that seemed to do the trick. Thor stayed calm the entire time and no one got hurt.

I needed a break after the farrier left. I’ve managed to mess up my back again doing who knows what so I needed a little bit of time to sit. We were running low on grain so in to town we went. We were in town from 1:30pm to 6:00pm and we only hit three stores, Tractor Supply, Campbell Supply, and Menards. Luckily we hit some grain sales. Hopefully I can sneak back in this week and pick up more. I figured we might as well save a few bucks and stock up now that we hopefully won’t be experiencing any more humidity.

At 7pm I headed out the door to do some chores. Before we left on our family vacation, I’d hauled the horses back to the big pasture. I wanted to haul horses back to the neighbors so we loaded up Jim, Maverick, Rain, and Chaos. I figured I would take the first four that came up to me. Big mistake. Maverick hasn’t been to the neighbor’s since he was three. Maverick ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran…..and ran. We filled the water tank and decided to go back for two more. I did some chores while we filled the water tote and haltered Ivan and Brego. We loaded in the dark but those boys behaved like champs. Hard to imagine that last year when we picked Brego up from the trainers he wouldn’t load and Sat night he loaded in the back of the trailer with just the yardlight to see by. We dropped Ivan and Brego off and Maverick was still running everyone around. I wouldn’t have minded but there was one strand of fence. Not enough to keep horses in as far as I’m concerned. We went home and finished up chores and I ran back to the neighbors to see if they’d calmed down. Nope. So I caught Dude and hauled him over and did a swap out with Maverick. By then it was 11pm. We took the trailer back home and I went back to the neighbors to make sure everyone one settled for the night. We finally got in the house at almost midnight. By the time I sat down in the recliner my legs ached. I wear steel toed shoes to protect my feet on the off chance a horse steps on them. The only downside is that steels are heavy and tromping in steels all day sometimes wears me out.

SUNDAY
I wanted to sleep in. I wanted to not wake up until noon. But that didn’t happen. I did get to sleep in a little bit but was worried about the horses. I puttered around in the morning and then headed over to check on everyone. Good thing I did. The fencer had fallen over during the night and ripped the ground wire off so the one strand of electric wasn’t even on. I’d pulled fly masks off Saturday and by the time I got there Sunday late morning the horses were covered in flies. So I grabbed the fencer and flew home and have Mike fix the fencer and grab some fly spray. We raced back and got the fencer hooked back up and I was in with the horses putting fly spray on when I had my next panic moment.

The fence wasn’t on at the time. I saw Chaos test the fence. I was putting fly spray on Dude when I noticed everyone staring at the corn field. Next thing I saw was a brown butt. Crap and double crap. Jim scooted under the fence and was loose. Normally not a big deal but Jim in notorious for being hard to catch. My worse fears flashed before my eyes. A loose horse in a corn field. I’d never be able to catch him and he’d eat himself sick. Jim saw me approach so he took a hard left and headed down the driveway. I started walking briskly and told Mike to get the car. We watched Jim go down the driveway and then I lost sight of him. I figured Jim had taken the driveway and was headed south. Mike saw him first. Jim was down in the neighbor’s low area headed for our place. Jim popped out onto the road and was walking home. I hopped in the car and we started following. I was petrified that a car would come over the hill at warp speed like the typically do on our road and hit Jim. Talk about nerve wracking. Had I known what Jim was going to do and know that no cars would come over the hill, I would have enjoyed watching Jim step through his gaits. He’s a beautiful mover. Let me say he has some gorgeous knee action when he flies. We got behind Jim but once Jim noticed we were behind, he took off at a gallop. Luckily he galloped up the road and took a hard right up our driveway. I’d taken his buddy away Saturday night and didn’t think that Jim would be all that upset. Guess he was. Teach me not to take best friends when I switch pastures. Luckily we were able to catch Jim once he was near the barn. I put him in the big pasture and haven’t spoken to him since.

Meanwhile, Sam spent all of Sunday whinnying. None stop. When chore time rolled around I gave him his grain and decided it was time to risk it and take Sam over. Sam would whinny and then Dude would whinny. I was already on pins and needles having horses in a pasture with one strand of electric and the whinnying, normally enjoyable, just caused me more stress. The minute we unloaded Sam and put him in the pasture everyone calmed down. No whinnying, no running the pastures, no testing the fence, no nothing. Guess that’ll teach me. Dude has a particular herd group and I didn’t have all of his members. Talk about herd dynamics.

I’m sure we did more Sunday but the rest is a blur. We didn't get accomplished two activities we had planned. As it was, we didn’t get in from chores Sunday night until 9:30pm. We'll tackle those tonight because it HAS to get done. I try not to over emphasize my exhaustion but at least this gives you a clue as to our daily activities.