Life In A Nutshell

The little G-Bear and I made it through our first day back to reality. I'm not sure if the horses like it better or not. Sunday morning I got up fairly early (thanks to daylight savings time), and headed out to do chores. I've been using the big rounds instead of the big squares to feed until the snow flies. The rounds take more time to pitch hay and I figured I could feed the rounds while I was still at home.

Knowing that I would have very limited time in the morning and at night, Mike and I decided that it may be best to simply push in a couple of round bales to the big herd. I couldn't toss out enough hay from the rounds to the big herd. I can handle tossing hay from a round bale to four or six horses but not all fifteen. It's just too much and takes too much time (and I use way too many naughty words).

I decided it was time to play musical pens so that I could get everyone set for the winter months. We still aren't completely done but are at least closer than before. I put the ponies in the barn and will be there until later this week when I can repair the blind pen, which is now the mare pen.

I added some additional corral panels to the old pony pen so that Bo and Babe would have some additional sunlight and space to move around all winter. By moving them, I had room to put Rabbit and Mayhem in the old blind pen. I can feed rounds to Rabbit because of her heaves. We will be putting the ponies in with Rabbit and Mayhem this coming weekend also so another reason why we can't have rounds in that pen. We still need to pull the round bale feeder out. It got too late when we were pushing bales Sunday night.

I wasn't sure how well I would be able to handle Rabbit or Mayhem. Having been laid up, I haven't handled either one of them very much. Mayhem did really well. She was a real champ walking around and investigating new objects. I'm hoping to get back to working soon. I wasn't sure how well Rabbit would do. She was acting like she was ouchy all over. I thought maybe it was her eye. Nope, she was just fooling me. She's turned into a "touch me not" horse and just getting close to her she flinches. It doesn't matter where I try to touch her, she flinches. I'm wondering if something in her past is causing her to think that she might get hurt. I was able to get the halter on without her thinking I was going to hurt her. I had thought maybe it was her eye but I discovered it was her ear and not her eye that was bothering her. She is most definitely blind in the right eye but she isn't too spooky about it. She's adjusting better than I had expected. However, if for some reason she goes blind in the other eye, I have a bad feeling that she will not adjust to her new handicap.

Rabbit and Mayhem settled down into their new pen right away. None of the boys seemed all that concerned either. I have to leave the electric fence up in the old mare pasture until we fix the drylot. Somehow Chaos managed to fall out of the fence and hang out with the mares. It's the second time he's escaped into the mare pasture. Darn geldings.

In the evening on Sunday we got home just before the sun set during a steady drizzle. Mike was able to get the bales tipped and ready to push into the pen while I haltered up all the geldings. Unfortunately, the little G-Bear wanted in on the action, so I had to take him for a drive while Mike did most of the work in getting the bales into the drylot. Poor Mike has done so much, he's a godsend. Mike pushed two round bales into the drylot and pushed another into the pen with Babe and Bo. Bo wasn't too thrilled. I think he wanted to be in with the big herd.

I do believe in miracles. I think Bo is getting better but I may be wearing rose colored glasses when I look at him. I had Mike take a peek too and he thought Bo was doing better too. But now that Bo has been in a different pen with different footing and he spent all day walking around this different pen, I'm afraid he may be a bit more sore than before. So who knows. We still don't know what's wrong. I have to get Bo's blood work paid off and Queen and Thor's euth vet bills paid off before accruing additional bills.  But for now, I think Bo is getting better.

I'm still a little concerned that not everyone in the big herd will get to the round bale. I want to sneak out tonight and see who is eating at the bale. I did notice that Dude wasn't at the round bale this morning and he would be the one to push anyone else out of the way. I am most worried about Zeke. I may start babying him a little bit more too. I'll be using him for Drill Team and I don't want him to lose weight. We may start doing beet pulp on Zeke, Jim, Bo, and Babe. I'm trying to get into the swing of work first before we get into the heavy evening graining.

I need to get over to the neighbor's and tear down all the electric fence. I swung over there last night to keep the G-Bear quiet while Mike was working his magic on those round bales (we don't have a tractor that can lift and move round bales. We are stuck pushing bales either with the tractor that isn't running right or the old farm truck). I noticed that one end of the electric fence was ripped off the fence posts and strung on a fence. I have no idea how it got there unless the neighbor messed with it or a deer ran through the fence and snagged it. I'll never know for sure but I want to get everything taken care of before the snow flies. We've already had snow so I want to get cracking on getting all the outside wrapped up before the ground freezes.

I know there's more going on but I'm drawing a blank. This momma's brain is done. I'll be happy to go out and play with the horses and then crash. I missed going to the last two horse auctions. It's probably a good thing but still disappointing that we can't do more.

We are looking at doing a fundraiser next month. Keep your eyes peeled for more details as we get everything ironed out. Also, I believe Borderlands will be donating a tree or a wreath to a church for their silent auction Christmas fundraiser. If anyone is interested, I can send you more information.