Hauling Hay and Vet Appointments

I got a call last night that our hay can now be picked up. The September flooding in Madison flooded out the road to where our hay is sitting. Now that the crops are out of the fields and the ground is slightly harder now, we can start hauling hay home.


We plan on doing that this weekend. Our hay guy was going to get it out of the field this weekend no matter what so there's no threat of it getting snowed in. Where it's at, is a prime location for snow drifts and making it impossible to get there with a truck and trailer. So we'll be hauling home 55 bales of big round bales. I'll be happy to have them home. Not so happy to pay for the hay. We've been really low on fundraising this year. We've been doing donations through Facebook but discovered the third-party company helping is taking a huge chunk of money so we'll be boycotting their donate button from now on. Sad cuz it was handy. I expect our donations online to go down. But to find the $4,000 to pay for the hay is going to be tough.


But once the hay is home, I'll heave a sigh of relief. It's one less thing to worry about for this winter. I expect a bad winter but know if we are prepared with enough hay, that I won't have to worry about keeping our seniors fat and happy, which is our ultimate goal at Borderlands.


In other news, my farrier is willing to help haul horses to the vet on Monday so I'm waiting to see if Monday works. It's also the nicest day this week (and will probably be the last nice day until spring).


I don't want to go tho.


It means we have to say goodbye to Lace and I'm just not ready. But time is running out to say goodbye and ensure she stays happy and not in pain. Her legs are failing and with the colder weather setting in, I want to do right by her. So we'll be saying goodbye to Lace next week.


We will be doing x-rays on Ransom to see what his feet look like. I expect they are bad so we'll have to make the tough decision to say goodbye to him as well. It's a tough decision no matter what. But I have to say goodbye to Lace and take care of her body now that disposal is an issue these days, it makes sense to make sure Ransom doesn't suffer either. We'll see how it goes.


I'm going to try and get Jessie into the vet as well. I'm not sure if that will work though. She might not load in the trailer. If she loads, she might lose her mind. And if she loads and lets the others load, I have to make sure Diavlo doesn't lose his mind. I'll be taking all his family away from him. He's finally leaving Jessie's side to graze in the non-existent pasture. Ransom is out on the pasture because he doesn't feel good enough to be in the big herd to eat hay. So that means he's staying far away. If we lose Ransom, I may put Diavlo in with Jessie since it'll just be Mayhem and Jessie in the pasture. If we keep Ransom, then he'll go in with Mayhem and Jessie but that'll make Diavlo mad. But I can't keep up with four horses on a water tank. As it is, Jessie drinks a LOT of water. That or it's Mayhem but I can't keep up. I wish we would have been able to get the water lines buried but that didn't happen. I'm going to really push to get water lines buried next spring so that I don't have to deal with hauling water in the winter. We are so busy these days I need to come up with ways to shorten my chores so I'm not out doing chores late at night (like I do most nights after the kids go to bed). It's really tough to don the heavy winter clothes to do chores at 10pm in the dead of winter.


We have lots going on in the next week. There's going to be many tears on my part but that's a part of Sanctuary life. Laughter and joy when we open our doors to a deserving senior and even more tears when we have to make the decision to say goodbye.


I'm feeling overwhelmed with everything going on. My head and heart can't seem to take everything that's going on. I could really use some moral support right about  now.