Wrapping Up Projects

It's been fairly quiet on the homefront (knock on wood). The last couple of days I've had just enough time to do chores in the dark and that's about it. I  miss being able to do chores in the daylight. I've been rushing through chores the last few days that I missed that Babe had cut herself.  The pen she's in now isn't ideal. But any other scenario I ran to put her in a different pen didn't work either. Luckily Babe is making the best out of the situation. She's such a trooper, love that mare. She somehow managed to bang her head the other day (not hard to do, poor thing). So now she's sporting a swollen eye and a cut just under her ear. I'll never know what she cut it on. Mike looked all over the place to see if there was something sticking out but couldn't find anything.

I wasn't able to catch the cut right away. It's hard to do a thorough exam of horses in the dark. But she's on antibiotics now just to make sure that she kicks the infection immediately. With the weather turning colder, I want her system to be prepared for weather and not run down. Always when I see injuries, I think worst case scenario. Maybe I've been hanging out with our vet too much. My biggest fear was that she was going to lose the eye (granted she's blind in that eye but that we'd have to physically remove the eye).

I guess I'm a little gunshy at the moment. We've had a rash of injuries as of late. It always seems to happen in the fall and I can't figure out why. Horses get sick or injure themselves in the fall right when I'm trying to pay for hay. Or they hurt themselves right before a weather change.

Today is our last really nice day. Hard to believe that it'll be in the upper 60s today and by Friday in the 30s. Don't get me wrong, I love nice weather but I worry that the temperature change will affect the horses. But when I look at the herd now, we don't have as many oldsters as we used to. The oldest is Babe at 30 and the next oldest is Jim at 24.

We were able to tackle one of the projects that have been hanging over my head for awhile now worrying me. Having moved into an old farm that used to have cattle, the drylot wasn't exactly in tiptop shape for fencing. Cattle and hogs are really tough on fencing. Horses are hard on fencing but I think cattle and hogs may be even harder. When we moved in, there was a dead tree right next to the drylot. We didn't want to take the tree down for fear of taking the fence down. Unfortunately no fencepost or tree can withstand the amount of runoff from the drylot (from the nitrogen in the ground from the cattle). So many of the old fence posts were starting to rot off. I expect they were close to 30 year old fence posts. In the mean time, the fencing started to decline and then this summer the big old dead tree finally came down, right on the fence. Luckily we only had one horse escape. Can you guess who it was....Chaos of course! On Sunday Mom and Dad came down to put up new fence so I can rest easier this winter knowing that the horses won't escape.  We'll have to do something different next year. It's not a permanent solution by any means but it'll withstand a few good snowdrifts for sure.

Now I can go into the old mare pasture and pull down the temporary fence there too. I still need to call someone to come and do some major cleanup (another story I'll share at some point...still in shock even though it's been months).

While Dad and Mike were busy in the drylot, Mom, Garrett, and I headed over to the neighbor's to finally pull down the electric fence. I had such high hopes that we would be able to use the one last portion of the pasture but there wasn't enough time and now there's really nothing of nutritional value. We'd gotten a cold rain come through the first of October so I brought everyone home. It just wasn't worth keeping them over at the neighbor's even if I didn't really want to start feeding hay. No one seemed to upset about being back home though. I'm relieved to have that project done too. I didn't want our neighbor to think we were ungrateful for such a kind offer of letting us graze his entire pasture. It held almost the entire summer and fall.

We did push in two new round bales for the big herd Saturday morning. That was after we went and picked up three round horse hay feeders. Someone was moving and selling their hay rings so we picked them up. They all need a little bit of work but it beats the old cattle hay rings that we were using. We also put on the cinch net. At first I was annoyed. Trying to put on a cinch net in the dark for the first time, I had a lot of foul words fall out of my mouth. Because it's literally like a gigantic hay net and I fight with hay nets all the time. Luckily Mike has more patience than I do and we got it on. And I will say one thing! WOW. I  need to go buy another one. The horses dont' make such a mess and they can't power through an entire bale in a few days. I'm really loving this cinch net. Wishing we could afford a second one even if we won't be feeding rounds all winter. But for now, it's a dream. I'll be pinching my pennies so that we can get another one. It'll pay for itself in no time.

So we are now ready for winter snow if it hits. I could handle nice warm rain but I doubt that'll happen. But we are prepared, at least somewhat prepared. I'll never be totally ready for snow, it's always such a shock to my system. But the major proejcts are taken care of. There are a few little projects I want to wrap up this weekend if there's time. Hopefully the snow will hold off a little longer. I'd love for another open winter but we desperately need the precip. So if we could get a little bit of snow and a lot of rain, I'd be just fine with that too.

And if I don't happen to hop on tomorrow, I want to wish you all a safe and happy thanksgiving.  This past year has been an amazing rollercoaster ride for me. I want to thank all of Borderlands' friends and supporters. It is so nice to know that although we may be small and now not as active as we once were (thanks to the little G-Bear), it's still a comfort to have that support and friendship. We truly are blessed at Borderlands.