Ramblings of a Tired Person

Last night I finally had a little bit of extra time to enjoy being out doors and not having to rush. I have yet to figure out the balance between work, children, and horses. I would love to hear what others are doing. I'm giving up more horse activities to spend time with my son. Not something I regret but it's still difficult.

But last night warmed my heart. A friend had brought apples over awhile ago and my son decided he wanted to help. So he and I filled a bucket full of apples so that we could toss them over the gate to feed the big herd. I'm not sure who was having more fun, the horses, my son, or Farley the dog (he loves to steal and eat apples).

That same friend who brought apples over awhile back brought more apples for the horses last night. They will be enjoying apples for a long time. We are having a playday fundraiser this Sunday and one of the events is crackers and carrots. I may change it to crackers and apples because we have so many apples (and apples take longer for horses to eat!)

We are in to feeding hay on a nightly basis (ponies get morning and night hay). It won't be long before I'm feeding both morning and night. I was hoping to hold off on morning and night feedings until at least mid November but I don't think that will happen. I'm afraid the pastures are done and the horses are going to start pushing on the fence. I wasn't planning on morning and night feedings yet so I'm a little worried that we won't have enough to get through winter. I sure hope the Farmers Almanac is wrong and that we have an open winter instead of a bad winter.

We seem to be having an extended fall so I'm very grateful for the opportunity to get a few more things done around the place. There's still the major projects that we need to tackle before the snow flies like fence posts/fence lines, a roof on the run-in shed, fix the barn roof, fix the house, etc.

There's simply too much that needs to be done. Mike and I sat down last night around 9pm and looked at each other and said we were both exhausted. How can we be so tired so early. In our younger days we'd be outside until long after dark getting things done and working on other projects. But these days things are different. It's amazing what a toddler will do to your energy level. Slow down long enough for them to relax and go to bed and POOF, you're as tired and sleepy as the toddler (or more so).

I'm really starting to stress over the playday. I know it will go fine but I'm still worried. I have to have 20 people show to cover the cost of the arena. I am headed out tonight to pick up stuff for concessions. It's all coming out of my pocket so I'm not sure that I'll really be raising any money. It could be that we end up losing money on this fundraiser. :-(  I guess we'll see how it goes. If it doesn't pan out well, then I guess we won't have another one (at least not in October!)