Quietly Plugging Along

We've been fairly quiet at the Sanctuary as of late. We've been so swamped with life in general that we haven't had much time to do anything extra with the Sanctuary. But yesterday we did get a little bit of free time.

In the evening, I moved Rabbit and Mayhem to the road pasture. I'd pulled them off that pasture the first of August. Two months later and the pasture is coming back nicely (thanks to all the rain). I wish I would have had the time and good sense to divide the big pasture when I said I would so that I could switch the big herd back and forth instead of letting them roam the entire pasture. Now there's no real new growth.

Having been on vacation in August and again in September, I didn't grain Bo over those days. You can see the weight loss. I'm disappointed. He was looking so good but within just a few days with no grain, it's very apparent that he's lost weight. I'm not sure what winter will bring with him or what to do.

A couple weeks ago, we picked up a flatbed full of alfalfa. We are still trying to find time to unload all 100 bales. We'd originally asked our neighbor farmer but he wasn't sure when he'd get to cutting his alfalfa and when the 100 alfalfa bales popped up, we decided to go with those. The neighbor farmer called on Saturday to say that he's planning on baling alfalfa this week (if it doesn't rain) so our order will be ready. So we'll have a few extra bales on hand, which is a good thing if winter is as hard is I'm afraid it will be. The neighbor farmer said he was going to bale today but we got a good downpour last night so I doubt it'll be ready to bale until the end of the week. Unfortunately, we didn't get the alfalfa bales until AFTER we got the big squares and we are planning on putting them in the hay barn. So that means a bit of tricky work to get them in the hay barn. I could maybe put them in the red shed but that  means i'd have to carry alfalfa bales through snow drifts this winter and that doesn't sound very appealing. Anyone want to help move alfalfa?

We also had volunteers come out Sunday evening to help groom horses. When I picked Brego and Ivan up, they were covered in cockleburs. Some days I really think I should roach everyone and be done with it. The pasture and drylot are starting to sport more cockleburs (the hard prickly ones that hurt) so now everyone is going to be covered in burs. Luckily, the volunteers were able to groom three horses and make them look ready for as photo shoot.

Sunday afternoon I had a little bit of downtime so I worked on mending horse blankets. I cheated and used the iron on patches on one blanket and one sheet. I still need to do some repairs on the sheet as the patches didn't hold (the tears were that big). I was able to water proof the two that I repaired and another blanket that still needs repair.  I'm out of water proofing but at least I'm that much closer to being ready for winter (I'll never be 100% ready for winter).

We also had one of our supporters stop out with a box full of apples for the horses. I know they will devour them! She also brought out a saddle pad for when I ride some of the more sway backed horses. She also brought out a sheet (it's in MINT condition!) I'm excited to try it on some of the Sanctuary horses to see who it'll fit the best on. I'm sure one of the Sanctuary horses will claim the sheet as his own (Rabbit and Mayhem will be stalled when the weather gets bad...they are death on blankets. The blanket and sheet I half way repaired were from Rabbit and Mayhem's escapades with their outer wear.)

I also kept working on scraping the garage. It'll look nice when I can finally get a coat of paint on it. It'll be one step closer to getting our place looking nice. Four years of not being able to work on the place makes a huge difference on the appearance. My hope is that the bad weather will hold off long enough for me to get the garage completely done and maybe let me do some touch up work on the hay barn. We'll see (Mike is working on the foundation of the house so we'll be lucky if we get more than the garage primed). If anyone knows any masonry people or brick layers, I'd sure appreciate the names and numbers of those people. If we can get someone to fix the house, maybe I can side track Mike into putting in fence posts in the drylot. We have one that we can't use because the fencing is bad and the other, the horses started climbing over it when I had to lock them in. So if we can find someone to help with either the fencing or the house, that would alleviate some major stress for us.

I'm sure we'll keep plugging away but can always use the help.