Late Nights and Raccoons

Wow, Memorial Weekend came and went and I'm still trying to figure out what I should have worked on during the long holiday. We spent some good family quality time Friday and Monday. It was a good break from the stresses of life and Sanctuary work. I hate to admit it but I didn't post anything last week because I was out of sorts and didn't want to bring anyone down. I'm still out of sorts but dealing with it. Unfortunately, it's not all pregnancy hormones causing me to be out of sorts.

On Saturday I finally got busy and cleaned out the hay shed. It felt really good to be productive and get all the pallets stacked and ready to store until we get our winter supply of hay. I'm not sure how we'll store our hay this coming year because we are doing all round bales instead of big squares. It definitely changes everything up. We still have some square bales in the red shed that I want out. I think they are getting ruined in the red shed and hay is too darn expensive to get ruined.

I'm hoping to get the horses out on pasture this coming weekend. We'd hoped to temporarily divide the pasture on Sunday but the rains squelched that project. I'm hoping this weekend I can get out there and step in some poly posts and get some electric fence up. It'll have to be temporary until I can figure out how to get the fencing done the way I want it (and not the way we've been doing it). When we do put in permanent fence, we'll have to put in some wood fence posts/panels because of the hill in the pasture.

And we have a family of raccoons living in the hay barn. We've been dealing with raccoons in the grain bin and I've been fairly patient about trying to remove them but now there's baby raccoons living in the hay barn and that's unacceptable. Dad had patched the hole in the hay barn (it's only been there for 10 years) but now that they are in there, they can't get out. Oh there's a hole for them to get out, but it's the hole leading from the  main floor to the hay loft. On Friday, I didn't get home from hanging out with family until 11pm. That meant doing the shortened version of chores and not letting anyone out on grass. But as I walked through the dark hay barn, I heard something. I figured it was either baby raccoons or baby possums. Either way, not something I want to be near in the dark and alone. As I made my passes back and forth in the hay barn, I realized I'd better be in a hurry and have a flashlight in hand. Because it wasn't just the babies making noise. The momma raccoon was there and she told me in no uncertain terms that I was trespassing. Least to say, I got out of there as fast as I could. I spent a bunch of time in and out of the hay barn Saturday afternoon and didn't hear anything but I'm still creeped out by being in there at night so until we can remove them, I'm not lingering in the hay barn. If I were to get  bit, I'd have to have rabies shots and being prego, not sure how that would all work out.

Monday after we got home from hanging with family I put the horses out on the lawn for an hour. Everyone did really well and I was so impressed with them when I called them in for the night. Everyone went in without a fuss until Jim. I'm not exactly sure who the culprit was but someone came back in the barn to head back out to the grass and made Jim turn around. All I remember is seeing a bunch of bay and brown butts and getting pushed out of the way. Of course being prego, and not having a great sense of balance, the one little push that would have been easy to catch, didn't happened and I flailed around like I was falling from a 10 story building until I fell face forward. Luckily I caught myself but it left me feeling irritated to the max. Caring for horses is much different when you're pregnant. I'll never dispute that one again.

I did talk with mom and dad, and we agreed that their pasture is doing pretty well. Instead of waiting until August when the grass has grown and gotten hard and stalky, that I'll bring up a couple of horses so they can enjoy the pasture. Maybe if we don't over graze it, I'll be able to bring horses up again in August or September for a month. That's my hope but we'll see. I'm planning on taking Ivan and Brego. Brego needs the weight and with Ivan out of the picture, he won't be pushing Bo around (so I won't run the risk of getting run over as well). And with two gone, I can maybe consider putting Junior out with the big herd.

Junior has lost a lot of weight lately. I think he needs to be out on grass ASAP. He's on a bale 24x7 but I don't think it's the greatest. I have no luck with bays....Bo, Brego, and Junior. They are all such hard keepers. It's now my superstition that all bays are hard keepers (at least when I get them). I know it's not true but sheesh, how many hard keepers can a person get before you start to notice the coincidence.

I've been taking pictures when I let the herd out onto the lawn but haven't downloaded any pictures to the camera. I'll try to do that soon but I'm also looking at getting a new computer. The one we have is dying a slow and painful death and I'd rather get a new one before it actually calls it quits. We've been without a computer before and it's just not possible these days.

So, we've been busy at the Sanctuary but not with anything of all that much importance. Hopefully I'll get out of this funk soon and avoid all the irritations that have been causing me such grief as of late. I expect in another week, having the horses out on pasture will alleviate a lot of hassle for me and make life way easier for the next little while. Then it'll be time to focus on getting the mares used to grass and get them out to pasture.

There's always something....