Getting Into the Swing of Things

Where do I even start? I don't even remember the last time I posted! Life has gotten to be a blur these last three plus weeks. Because Leila was supposed to be born just before Labor Day weekend and because Mike and I both had a serious case of postpartum, we ran away to the Black Hills for one final "family" vacation. We wont' be able to get another family vacation away from the place until Memorial weekend so we wanted to take the opportunity (and because we figured we were going to be in the hospital but she came a week early).

I still have a bit of postpartum going on but I'm hoping I'm getting into the swing of things now. My mind has been mostly focused on Leila so I haven't been able to think much about the horses. The horses have been on auto pilot for the past month so I haven't had to worry. But now that it'll have been a month, my mind is starting to get back into it. Which makes me start thinking about fundraiser ideas. Anyone want to brainstorm with me?

Yesterday we ran up to Madison and picked up some extra hay bales. I had to put King in timeout because he kept running through the electric. So I've been going through more hay than I'd expected. The mares' pasture is done so we put a bale into keep them occupied until we can get them moved to the other pasture.

Mike and Dad worked on refencing the drylot in mid August so now we have all of our temporary corral panels free again. We'll be putting them up where the chicken coop was. The excavator came in August and buried all the rubble so now we have a clean slate to work with. But we need to get fence up before I can run horses in that pasture. We left the concrete where the chicken coop was so we can start parking trailers on it instead of parking trailers wherever and killing off the grass.

We also ended up bringing Brego and Junior home. The pasture is pretty well done in at Mom and Dad's. It's nice to have everyone home again. Although there's more cockleburs at mom and dads so I'm going to have to spend time pulling cockleburs. Although we have cockleburs too, I'm just waiting for them...sigh.

While we were up getting hay, we talked with our hay guy and finally got our winter supply of hay contracted out. I was a little worried but in all truth, I'd slipped in thinking about the hay. Usually we have hay by now and are scrambling but I've been so preoccupied that it didn't occur to me until just this week. Luckily the stars were all aligned and we now have everything lined up but have to wait until after harvest to have them deliver it. It's not a big deal, we still have some hay left over from last year but I want to use that for when I stall horses during the winter. I'm not looking forward to stalling horses but it'll happen. I'm afraid we are going in to a hard winter and we'll need all the extra hay we can get.

And we were asked to take in two horses this past month but I haven't responded yet if we'll take them. I'm slow to take in any while I'm adjusting to caring for an infant but I worry about the fate of these horses. We've already had to turn away horses this year so I hate to turn away even more. We desperately need to get our 501c3 paperwork figured out but my brain isn't there yet. I want and need help. I try not to ask for much help but I'm asking now. Does anyone know how to put the paperwork together for a non-profit? I want to make sure that we can offer homes to senior horses and if they aren't senior horses but need to get out of their current home to at least work with another rescue to adopt them out. But for people to consider us, we really do need to be a 501c3 sanctuary. Can anyone help?

I'm sure I'll be slow to post for a little while longer. I've been out to the pasture and taking pictures but still need to download them all. It all takes time and when I think I can head to bed for the night, I realized I have an infant and will only get about two hours of sleep before the next feeding and diaper change. I won't complain though, but I may post weird blogs because my mind is sleep deprived.