Storm #2 On Its Way

Storm one is done and we’ve cleaned up from most of it. Storm two is on its way. Not sure what to expect but I’ll make sure this time to put the hoses away. Last time for whatever reason, I ended up leaving the hoses out and it took me until yesterday morning to dig them out from under about six inches of snow. I want to top the tanks off tonight before the next storm comes (and before all my activities start gearing up if the weather doesn’t get bad).  I’ve read conflicting reports on what exactly we are going to get in the next couple of days as far as amounts and type of moisture. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised though. At least it’s moisture and maybe it’ll drive us out of the extreme drought standing into a more mild drought standing (my preference would to not be in a drought at all!)

I did hear rumors that most pastures would only be at 80 percent this year anyway. Not good! If we don’t get more moisture, I don’t know if our pasture will hold up to even a month of grazing. Even with the fertilizing and spraying we did last year, we only had a month of pasture before it burned up. Luckily the neighbor let us graze his big pasture and we made sure not to overgraze that. It would be nice to not have to worry about overgrazing or making sure that the pastures hold. I’m afraid we have too many horses for our pasture in the condition that it’s currently in. I’ll probably send two horses to Madison for the summer again.  Even if it’s only for a month, two less mouths on the big pasture would be helpful.

I’m going to push to get the second mare pasture fixed. I’m not sure we’ll be able to afford it but I have to do something. I doubt that the pasture near the road will hold up to two mares all summer. I’ll need to switch them to a different pasture later in the summer. It may be that I have to do some temporary fencing in the front yard (something I’ve avoided doing up until now). I guess we’ll just see how much moisture we get and how well the pastures hold up.

In other news, I’ve been fairly lax lately on poop patrol, or as Dad and I affectionately call it, Waste Management. Unfortunately I can’t put the hay in the hay rings any more. The drylot turned into mud and I can’t get my hay wagon down to the feeders unless I want to risk tipping over the wagon or losing a boot. As it was, I almost lost one of my boots when I was jumping from one mud pile to another mud pile. And for the sake of this conversation, we’ll call it “mud”.

With nine horses in one pen and all the other demands on me (other horses, baby, husband, extracurricular activities, paying job), I haven’t been very good at keeping up with cleaning out the pens. Usually we get the tractor in to clear out the drylot but I don’t think that’s going to happen this time. The tractor is pretty much on its last leg and I’d rather not use the last little bit of it pushing manure. So I’ll be out there from now until who knows when, with my little shovel plugging away.

It seems everything is on the brink of total breakdown.  It seems every time I park a hay wagon or a wheelbarrow full of hay, one of the tires goes flat. Of the two hay wagons and two wheelbarrows, one of each has a flat tire. I’ve been limping along with the two wheeled wheelbarrow for the past month now. I was hoping it was just my imagination that the tire was going flat, nope. What I don’t understand is, I’m not hard on the wheelbarrow. I don’t go off-roading with it or ram into too much stuff with it, so how is it that I constantly have flat tires? I gave up using the hay wagon with the flat tire. But now the second hay wagon is on the brink of total breakdown. I am very hard on these little hay wagons. I seem to have the ability to break welds on these little hay wagons. Mike fixed the old hay wagon and I think it the same thing that broke on the other hay wagon is about the break on the newer hay wagon. I’ve been limping along with the newer hay wagon but it’s about to break. I think for now, Mike was going to steal a tire off the newer hay wagon and put it on the old one until he can do some serious repairs.  I’ll at least have one hay wagon working that way! I guess I shouldn’t complain. I use those hay wagons twice a day every day for about six months out of the year. They do get a beating.

The hay supply is holding up better than I had expected. Of course, when we bought the big rounds, we had to buy an additional ten bales to get the load. (It was an all or nothing sort of deal). At the time, we assumed we’d sell the ten extra bales. I’m glad we didn’t. With the hay crisis we’ve been dealing with, I think it’s probably best that we hang on to those last few precious bales. We are down to only five round bales left and I plan on using those when Mike goes out of town again next month. I’m hoping that we’ll have a few bales left over for the summer months until we can find a few round bales for Babe. She can handle the pasture but I don’t have anyone for her to hang out with so I’ll probably drylot her with a round bale. I haven’t actually figured out what I’m going to do with her this summer now that Queen isn’t around to keep her company.

This summer is going to be a guessing game on who goes where and when. I need to add Bo back in to the big herd when summer comes and that’ll be ten horses out on the pasture until I can take two to Madison. Bo is an instigator too so it’ll be that much harder to catch some of the horses. I’m going to have to get them used to being caught. But I guess I don’t need to rush on who goes where just yet for pasture grazing.  I need to get through the next snowstorm first.