Finally, a Post

Sorry for my laps in blogging lately. There is stuff to blab about but I don’t seem to have the energy lately. I think it’s the stress of knowing I won’t get everything done before winter rears its ugly head again. I’m at least a month behind. I can only hope that the ground doesn’t freeze and the snow doesn’t fly until the end of November. I’m not even sure where to start to get you caught up to speed with everything going on. So I guess I’ll just do a huge data dump of everything on my mind and you get the joy of piecing it all together.

I didn’t put two and two together earlier. I was told from my normal hay guy that I have 80 big squares. Who knows the price but they are baled and waiting for delivery. But I ordered 100 bales. The other 20 were supposed to come out of a different field but that didn’t happen. My hay guy dug up all his ground and put most into corn and beans. Everything else he’s shipping to TX. So I have no idea what it’s going to cost me and I wont’ know until January at the earliest. I did just write a big fat check for last year’s hay. That’s right, I had to use up everything from last year and then pay for it. It’s odd but the hay guy wants to wait until January but then the weight tickets disappeared and it took until last month to find them. So the 70 bales from last year and the 8 round bales to feed the horses this summer cost me $3700. Who knows what this winter will be like.

But because I was in a panic, I found someone on Craigs List who was selling hay. I do have hay lined up from a guy an hour away but hauling 20 bales 6 at a time would take forever and cost so much in fuel. So we went yesterday to look at some hay baled out of CRP grasses. It looked good and is only about 10 miles away so I took them all. 39 bales at $40 a pop. It will add up but I gotta have the cash on hand when we start picking them up Wednesday night. Anyone have a flatbed that wants to come and help haul? We are taking three at a time unless I can borrow another trailer (or someone else wants to bring their trailer and donate time and fuel). Luckily the guy is really nice and is going to haul the rounds to the end of his driveway and let us use his tractor to load them, since he wont’ be around when we can get there. It’s going to be a nightly ordeal until we get them all home. I don’t look forward to it all but at least we’ll have the remaining hay. There is a chance I’ll get some additional hay out of a different field from my uncle so I’ll have extra, which we’ll need to keep the blind pen full of hay until late spring.

Mom, Dad, and Grandma came down Sunday to help around the place. Mike has been scrambling to get a plow on the old truck. Our neighbor plowed us out all last winter but he’s moved so it’ll be up to Mike to clean out the snow for us to get to work and for me to work with the horses. Least to say, it’s not going well. The last time I looked, the fuel tank was hanging from the frame. Realize it’s a rust bucket of a truck. I hate to even take pictures because it looks bad. But it runs (when there’s a fuel tank) and it can go through snow since it’s a three-quarter ton and it saves using my truck. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully we wont’ have any snow any time soon and Mike can get the truck back up and running with the snowplow attached.

While Dad and Mike worked on the truck, Mom and I cleaned out behind the leanto of the barn. It’s been a junk pile for the past few years but I need it cleaned out so we can put up a little building for the older mares. The building will help save me time so I can throw the old mares in while they eat and leave the other mares out (so I don’t have to stand guard). By cleaning out all the old wood, I can now get in and start digging fence posts. Anyone want to help? I need a new fence line put in ASAP. We cobbled it together last winter/spring and the horses stopped pushing on the fence when we moved the horses out of that pasture but now that we’ll have horses hang on the fence again, it’s now become a necessity to get a new fence up. I also have to patch the blind pen fenceline. The first snow, and a few of the fences will just fall over. That’s the “blessing” of moving in after cattle were there. All the wood fence posts are rotting away and all the other fence lines are mangled. I keep my fingers crossed every time I have to open a gate on an old fence post. Hopefully there will be just enough time for me to dig enough holes.

Babe is going downhill, so is Thor. I’m really worried about Babe. I think Prince is really hard on her. I now have to halter and tie Prince up and halter and hold Sahara while Babe and Thor eat their grain. I need to figure out a different fencing situation so that I can give Thor and Babe additional food/grain. If I could tie Sahara up, it would be a big deal but Sahara still doesn’t stand tied. I’m trying to figure out her quirks but don’t have time to mess with her. I threw Sahara and Prince into a stall Saturday night so that we could push our last round bale in to the blind pen and give Thor and Babe time to eat their grain in peace. Bad idea. When I went to pull Sahara and Prince out, I ended up getting Sahara behind Prince while I was standing at Prince’s side. Prince thought I was Sahara (being that he’s blind and it was a new situation) Prince thought I was Sahara and bit me. Totally my fault but boy does it hurt. He left a huge bruise on my rib cage. I’m just happy it wasn’t three inches higher. ;-) hahaha… I just heard every woman wince.

I’ve decided to stall Sahara and tie Prince next to Sahara while I grain Thor and Babe. That’ll give the two older ones time enough to eat in peace and will give Prince time to learn how to stand (which he does) and will hopefully give Sahara time to adjust to being stalled and not stand right on top of someone. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully Sahara doesn’t break this stall door too.

I think there’s more but my mind is mush. I’ll try to snap some pics but I make no promises. The days are getting shorter so much faster. I’m struggling to get even the basic stuff done before dark.