What a Difference a Day Makes

What a difference a day makes (and a whole lot of salt sand mix!) I wouldn’t say half of the ice is gone but a good portion anyway. The driveway isn’t a total sheet of ice and I can actually see some ground. It’s a mixed blessing to see the ground right now. If we don’t get snow, we don’t get moisture. But at this point, if no snow means no bitterly cold temps that they are predicting, I’ll take it.

Don’t get me wrong, I still slid around a lot doing chores last night but at least it’s not as hazardous (although I did manage to fall this morning up by the house). Hopefully with two more days of warm weather, we’ll be able to get rid of all the ice before the subzero temps set in.  We have too much to do to deal with subzero temps!

Last night I switched the big herd over to a new bale from the hay barn. I love new hay, although this bale is a bit of a pain. I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to get to the bale. It was right in front of the door and the only way to cut the twine was to squeeze in between the bale and the wall. I wouldn’t have even thought twice about it a couple years ago. But now that I’m older and fatter, trying to squeeze through small places isn’t an option. I did manage to squeeze through and now we are graced with light! Woot woot! I’ve been using the hay in the hay shed, which has no electricity. If I want to see anything, I pull out my flashlight that I constantly carry. Now that I’m in the haybarn, we have lights. I’m going to get spoiled!

Because we don’t have that much hay, I contemplated using older hay but then I was running the risk of losing more when I toss it over the fence. So I bit the bullet and decided to go the more efficient route. Once the first two big bales are out of the barn, I’ll be able to make chores go a little bit more quickly. I’ll be able to use my little yellow wagon. Right now there’s not enough room.

This morning when I went out to do chores, I thought I would have crabby horses, but no one was pushing anyone else around and there was absolutely no fighting. Even Dude who normally is a crab about having horses near him, was perfectly content to nibble on a small pile of hay instead of a huge sliver of hay that was a few feet away. Guess he was enjoying this hay. I sometimes think the Sanctuary horses are hay snobs. They know what type of hay they really like.

Now that I’m throwing hay to everyone both morning and night, I’m sure to have more hay in odd places. Last night, I had hay everywhere. I forgot how much I hate finding hay in my clothes. I should start taking bets to see where the oddest place I’ll find hay in the house. The oddest so far was finding hay in the freezer.

We have until Saturday afternoon to enjoy the warm weather and then the cold front is supposed to blow in. I need to scramble around Friday night and Saturday morning to get everything done. I want all the extra chores done before the cold sets in. I had thought maybe I’d sneak over to the horse sale in Mitchell on Saturday afternoon but we are going to the Rocky Mountain Elk Banquet instead. It’s for a good cause and it’s a lot less stressful. I may not go to another auction until March. I’m thinking maybe I’ll go to the Mitchell sale in March in honor of Bo. We’ll see how things progress.

Also, if you’re free and in the area, we are having a fundraiser meeting Saturday January 26^th at 7pm for those interested. If you can’t make it but have some ideas, I’d love to hear them. Just send them to borderlandshorsesanctuary@yahoo.com.