Apples, Grass, and Quandary

The days are definitely getting shorter. I'm going out earlier and earlier to do chores. The horses are starting to fuzz up just a little. The horses have been enjoying apples these past few days. We had apples donated for the horses and they've been devouring them ever since.

I've been throwing hay to the ponies, much to my and their dismay. There's really no more grass left on the lawn for them to eat. I was going to put them by the red shed a few weeks ago but then we had our hay delivered and that was the end of that idea. Until now. I think there's just enough grass for them to graze on for the next few days. So I'm planning on putting them back on grass for about the next five days. Even a few days is better than no days. I'm running low on small squares of hay and I'm not yet ready to break open a big bale. I don't want to open up my winter hay supply when it's only the middle of September.

Tonight I'm going up to Madison to pick up Ivan and Brego. I was hoping to keep them up there for another month but they ate down the main pasture. What's still available is pasture that requires some fencing. So instead, I'll be happy that we had three mouths up there until last weekend (I brought Dude home with me last weekend when I was up to Madison for a trail ride).  After I loaded Dude last weekend, Ivan and Brego let out a collective sigh. When I got home, the herd was happy to see Dude. Dude is the leader although there's little packs within the big herd. But I think Chaos was happy to have Dude home. Chaos is second in command and was in charge while Dude was away.

I'm also in a bit of a quandary. My head and my heart are on the same page but my ability to speak out is my stumbling block. I am rather outspoken when behind a computer but very timid and shy in person. On my way to and from my daily travels, I've noticed a horse out in a pasture losing weight. I questioned a couple of friends to find out the status because maybe there's something wrong. I was told the horse was simply old. That's no excuse for a thin horse with an entire pasture to eat and no competition. My horses look plump with an overgrazed pasture (except for Bo but he looks ok.). It could be that the horse has finally hit that stage where he/she can no longer maintain his weight without extra grain (like Bo). But this horse was fat last winter/spring. It's only been in the last two months that the horse has dropped weight. I don't know the people who own the horse and I have a hard time walking up to someone's door and saying that their horse is skinny. So what do I do? Perhaps there's something more going on behind the scenes that I don't know about so I dont' want to jump to conclusions but still....there stands this horse and I can't get over my fear. It's a total copout and I hate it.

I know it's not horse related but it is somewhat Sanctuary related. Our place looks dumpy. We've been there for nine years and the last four have been too chaotic to do any repairs on any buildings. So now the place is looking really tough (add horses to the mix and you can definitely see how much disrepair there is). So yesterday, I took time off the paying job to scrape and paint part of the garage. What a difference a coat of primer will do for a building. Of course the building is fairly old and that means very thirty wood! I'd already scraped and painted the hay shed doors. They'd been bothering me for a long time (since I go in and out every day twice a day in the winter I was fed up with bare wood). There's still plenty of scraping and painting to do but at least I'm one step further. So now I'm in the middle of scraping and painting the old garage and the hay shed. After seeing the fresh primer (not even the paint), I'm ready to tackle every building to make the place look new again! I doubt I'll get anything more than the garage done but if anyone wants to come out and help, it would be greatly appreciated. I think we'll get the opportunity to borrow a paint gun so after I scrape and prime the building(s), the actual painting should go lickity split (or at least that's my hope). Anyone willing to help out?

I'm going to take a blog hiatus for a few days and have some family time. I'll be back next week.