Queen, Hay, and Other Odds n Ends

I'd had a bit of a rough day yesterday so I didn't get out to do chores until dusk. Luckily the herd at the neighbor's is pretty easy to deal with. Chaos and Rain didn't want anything to do with me. Only Maverick seemed interested but that's because I was trying to fix Brego's flymask. I wish we could have the rest of the herd at the neighbor's but I don't trust Jim, Bo, or Zeke not to constantly test the fence and I'm in no shape to be catching horses.

Dude and King are enjoying life at mom and dad's. I'm considering hauling King home and taking one of the three naughty ones up there instead. That way King could be with the bigger herd and I wouldn't have to throw as much hay.

I'm doing whatever I can to reduce the amount of hay I have to use. I'm really starting to worry. We have 40 rounds lined up but the distance we have to go to get them will eat into any cost savings we might have had. I hate paying the same amount for half of what we will be getting. We are considering having someone deliver 34 of the 40 bales that we need and then only make one trip ourselves up there. We'd be short 6 bales otherwise. The flatbed we'd be borrowing holds 12 bales so I may see if someone in the area would be intersted in buying a few bales to help cut down on cost.

Our main hay supplier is supposed to be bringing our 40 big squares this Friday. I much prefer to work with big squares. We thought we might have had someone lined up with big squares but the price is exactly the same as if we were to buy the big rounds north of us. No matter what we we look at it, I can't afford this year's hay. I guess I'll be taking out a loan just to feed hay this year.

But back to last night. Ever since we put the mares into the other pasture, I haven't really seen them but for a few seconds. It's not like it's a huge pasture but I'm too exhausted to wander through the pasture to find them. Well, we were just about ready to go in and I hear this terrible noise. I figured I'd better go check and see what it was. I knew if I ignored the noise, I'd be in trouble the next morning.

It's a good thing I went and checked. That darn Queen managed to push a fence down and get in where Mike and Dad fenced some of the mare pasture off because of some junk we still need to clean up. How she managed to find the one weak spot, I'll never know. She hadn't been in there for very long but she wasn't happy about it. Mike got her out of there and the minute she was standing by me she let out a big sigh. I LOVE that girl. I was leaning on her back and she reached around and gave me a hug. I think we both have missed each other. :-) Because I haven't gone in search of her, I haven't given her grain. But because she was by the gate and such a trooper, I went to get her evening grain. Again, another big sigh when I put the dish in front of her. I do love that girl. I'm going to be heartbroken when we have to put her down at the end of the month.

I'm having a hard time making decisions as of late also. I know I need to set the date to put both Queen and Thor down. I also need to make a decision very soon about the hay. But my mind can't cope with all of these stresses right now. I'm sure I'll be able to focus later but right now I struggle to even figure out the day-to-day stuff, there's no way I can problem solve at this point. So if I sound wishy-washy, that's why. I'm simply happy to put one foot in front of the other these days.