More Pics

Figured it's been awhile since I posted any pictures.

Can't tell that Dude is lopsided. I still need to take him to the chiropractor to see if that will help. I was trying to get him there this spring and it's already the middle of summer. Maybe next month?

Dude tormenting Fred the cat.

Sam. He's picked up a bit of weight since I first got him. He still looks tough. I figure it'll take about six months before he is back to the right weight and another three months after that to get him fat. Not sure if that'll happen since we'll be heading into fall/winter when he hits the nine month anniverary with me. But I don't see as many ribs these days as before. There's also absolutely no depression these days either. He's buddied up with Brego again so life is pretty good. Sam has the routine done pat. He knows which door to go to, to get into the barn for his grain. He's also learned that being in the barn isn't so bad. At first he was claustrophobic. I still can't leave him in the barn for very long even with Bob in there. I'm afraid Sam will bust out the window if I left him in the barn for very long. I wonder what winter will be like. I'll need to pu him in a stall that doesn't have a window!

I should do a blog about Sam and show the pictures of progress. Could be interesting. I was looking at his pics when he first arrived. It's definately an improvement although I'd still prefer an additional 100 pounds. I like my horses fat and sassy... or more like fat and lazy.

Up close view of Sam. I don't see any depression in those eyes. He also lost his mustache somewhere. I'm not sure if it's just a summer thing or what but it's gone. He had a bug fluffy mustache is it's completely gone. I wonder if it's not the soaked grain he gets, or maybe it's just the 24x7 pasture time? Who knows. But there's no more mustache. Hope he gets it back this winter. Sam's mustache was pretty cute!

Dude making faces at the camera.

Less Stressed

I'm much less stressed today. I'm not sure if it's a combination of getting stuff done at home and work or what.

I decided to bail on the horse workshop last night and get some stuff done.

I spent the afternoon/evening doing some fencing. I didn't get a lot done in the hour and a half I had before Mike came home. But I got enough done to pound in a few fence posts and string up some wire. I'm about a third of the way done in getting the permanent pony pasture done. I'm planning on running them in the trees behind their night pen. That permanent pasture is adjacent to the mare pasture so there's only two places where I need to do some serious fencing. I have one side almost done and the other one still to do.

I'm hoping to continue working on the pony pasture tonight before the mosquitoes come out. I figure I'll have to pull the ponies off every night before 8pm so they don't get devoured by the mosquitoes.

I'm looking forward to having something a bit more permanent for the ponies. I also got their temporary lawn pasture set up last night so that I could put them in this morning. I'm always nervous about putting them in a little area with just electric holding them in. I now have two strands of electric to keep them in but I'd still feel better if I had more permanent fencing surrounding them.

With Mike's help we were able to get the wind break back up in Maverick's drylot. The windbreak blew down (is that an oximoron or what?!?!). It didn't take long but it's been bothering me since Maverick is a fence pusher and without the wind break I figured Maverick would just push through the fence. It got to the point where he was actually standing on the wind break. So much for teaching him to avoid those kinds of objects.

I'd hoped to ride Maverick last night but by the time I got done with some fencing and getting the wind break up it was time to hurry with the chores before the mosquitoes came out. I feel so bad for the horses. At least they have a drylot and concerete to stand on if they want. The girls however have to hide by the big shed to get away from the mosquitoes. I love summer but I really do hate the mosquitoes.

This morning when I went out to do chores, there was such a pretty glow in the sky. We'd had a storm roll through and there were still some storm clouds in the sky (with lightening). There was a golden hue to the sky. I wish I would have been able to take some pictures. It was gorgeous.


Seeing the sky and cooler weather lifted my spirits this morning. And getting something accomplished last night also lifted my spirits. I'm going to hopefully hussle home and get back to working on the permanent pony pasture and maybe try to squeeze in a ride on Maverick or Chaos, but preferably Maverick since he hasnt' been ridden in a week, poor guy he's probably bored.

I need to get a list compiled of all the stuff that needs to get done before winter sets in. I know I shouldn't be thinking about winter just yet but there's so much that needs to be done it's going to take that long.

I thought I also found some additional hay but now I have to wait. The hay guy that we bailed on last time had an ad for some round bales of hay. I had Mike talk to him since he makes more sense on the phone than I do. I don't completely understand but it sounded like all the hay was already gone but he'd have more. So hopefully we're on the list. I know I already have my hay order in but I'd feel better if I had some additional emergency hay in case I "accidently" pick up a couple more horses. I always feel better having a bunch of emergency hay on hand.

Hopefully tonight the mosquitoes will stay away long enough for me to get chores done, work a bit on the pony pasture, and ride Maverick. Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe I'll get some good pics finally tonight!

Stressed

I've been too tired lately to do much more than minimal chores. I feel bad for the horses. By the time I get my lazy butt of the couch the mosquitoes are starting to come out. They are bad right now. We have had so much rain lately that there's standing water at the bottom of the pasture. Usually that never happens except in the spring. I can only imagine how boggy/swampy the CRP is right now.

I found two ads for hay today. I'm hoping to make a couple more contacts soon. I'd really like to have extra hay in the barn. I'm not going to be picky about the hay, well, picky as in dairy quality type hay. I just need average hay for Maverick and Brego this winter. I've decided I need to up Maverick's hay to get him back to the right weight, which means I need more hay. I also need to get him out on grass soon so that I can put him in with the big herd while I'm on vacation. Oh vacation, it can't come soon enough.

I'm hoping tonight to have more energy so I can start working on the pony fence. I have decided that I can't just leave the electric fence up. I put Tommy and Skippy in the pony lawn pasture yesterday and Skippy kept charging the fence, even with two strands of electric. I figured I'd better not push my luck so into the dry lot they went. It's frustrating to have all that good grass and not be able to have the ponies eat it. But I have to watch where I put them because of the mosquitoes. So there goes more hay feeding the ponies.

But I'm running out of options so I'm going to just throw a few strands of fence up and see what comes of it.

I need to get cracking on the other pasture for the mares. I'm afraid their current pasture isn't going to hold up as well as I'd hoped. I need to do a bit more fencing but if I don't get the other one up and running soon they will be pushing on the fence and either get into the CRP or out onto the road. Having a blind horse on a road is just not good.

I seem to be a bit stressed these days. I'm guessing it has to do with not getting the fencing done and trying to find more hay. I already put my order in for hay this year but if I get any additional horses this fall/winter I won't have enough. I'd rather have too much than not enough. I'm looking at not enough right now and that's unacceptable. And the weather doesn't help. I'm afraid any hay I get right now will mold, or get too hot and combust.

I'd like to work on the fencing but how do you put in big wood fence posts without an auger. The hand auger takes two people, we don't yet have a tractor we can borrow (although I think I asked for one three months ago). So that leaves me with the ol' clam chuck method. I don't want to do that but I'm thinking I'm going to start digging some holes to get the first fence in by the barn. I want that fence to be all wood so I might as well start digging.

This Saturday is another trail ride. I'll have to blog about this past weekend. I'm a bit worried about this upcoming ride, but only because of my lack of riding time on Chaos. I seem to be losing my summer.

I'd planned on attending a horse clinic/workshop tonight but with the overwhelming feeling I have right now I've decided to bail on the workshop and do some fencing. I'm hoping if I get something done around the place tonight that I'll feel productive and motivated to keep going. We are already half way through summer and I'm still at the beginning of summer instead. Next thing you know it'll be winter and I STILL won't have anything done that needed to get done this year. Lets just hope that this year will be a long fall or a mild winter so I can get stuff done.

Tired, Sunburned, and Happy

Tired. Tired and sunburned. Tired, sunburned, and happy.

Busy day today. I'm too tired to blog tonight but thought i'd just say that I was able to get everything done that I wanted to get done.

Oh, and I lost my good riding horse, Rain, to dad! I'm not sure I'll ever get Rain back as my standard mount for trail rides.

More Storms Rolling Through

Water, water everywhere! I know I shouldn’t complain about the rain because we could be in a drought. I am worried about getting this year’s hay supply in without getting rain. I’m afraid this area might be hard hit because of the rain. Can’t put up horse quality hay when it’s constantly raining.

My pasture is currently flooded. The horses go down to the bottom of the pasture and keep their feet cool by walking around in the huge puddles that are appearing. The little creek that runs in to the CRP is full. I need to build some type of bridge. The only way for me to cross the creek is to hop on a horse or jump it. I’m too short to jump on a horse out in the pasture and I’m too short to try and jump the creek, even in the best place to cross.

We had rain last night and another storm rolled through this morning. I woke up to lots of lightening. I figured it might pass before I had to go out and do chores. Not the case. Actually, the lightening I was seeing was from the storm that was approaching.

I scurried out to do morning chores in my pjs, hoping I wouldn’t get drenched and that I wouldn’t have any more escape artists.

I was getting the hay for Maverick when I heard the first rain drops on the hay shed roof. Luckily it always sounds worse than it really is. I scurried around and got Maverick situated for the oncoming storm the best I could. Babe and Queen were up by the corral panels I’m guessing trying to stay away from the mosquitoes, stay in the breeze, and stay out of the rain drops falling from the trees. Poor girls.

I was getting the hay ready for the naughty ponies and it started to rain more. I get a bit leery of being outside when there’s that much lightening. But what do I do but climb a metal corral panel during a lightning storm. I guess that’s what you do when you have horses.

I hurried on to work before the storm hit. It was either stay and wait it out or leave and get to work early. I left early and asked Mike to check on Maverick before he left. He never escaped from his dry lot but I figure at some point he’s going to push on that fence where the wind block blew down. I guess there’s always some type of fencing to do.

Last night we had to run into town to buy more grain for Bob. He seems to go through it pretty quick. We didn’t get a chance to run to Tractor Supply to buy the beet pulp but I’m hoping to make quick trip in on Friday.

The boys were a little miffed that I was home so late. I spent more time putting on fly spray because the mosquitoes were terrible. What hurt my feelings was that about four hours later a huge thunderstorm rolled through and washed off all the fly spray. I guess it helped them for four hours but I could have been inside where it was light, free of mosquitoes, and in bed. Oh well. I guess that’s what you do when you have horses.

I made an appointment with my farrier. He’ll be coming out tomorrow with the chute to trim Bob, Sam, and Babe. Babe doesn’t need the chute but I didn’t have a chance to have her worked on last week. I’m a bit worried about Sam. He hasn’t been done in over a year. Bob’s feet are bad. They are flaring out something fierce. I need to ride Sam before the farrier gets there, otherwise he’s very naughty.

I’m not sure how I’m going to fit everything in. I have tomorrow off so I’m hauling King, Chaos, and Rain to Madison so that dad and I can ride. We have a trail ride on Saturday so I figured we’d ride King and Rain on the ride. But I want to start getting Chaos exposed to everything so I’m hoping to ride him tomorrow too.

I need to run in to Sioux Falls in the later morning/early afternoon so that I can get Bob’s beet pulp. He’s been out for a week now and the beet pulp helps cut down on the amount of senior I use on Bob. I also want to swing through Horse and Hound’s clearance sale. I need a few new tack items so I’m hoping they have what I’m looking for. I’m always up for new/used tack as long as it’s a deal.

But then I need to rush home and get Bob and Babe ready for their tootsie trim. I also need to ride Sam to get the spunk out of him so he’s not so hard on the farrier. I always worry that the farrier will get sick of all my naughty horses and tell me to find someone else. Not many people in this area work on drafts. And my farrier is very reasonable. He’s actually the cheapest around but he does a great job and I don’t have to do anything but catch the horse. He comes out to my place instead of me hauling them and still getting charged an arm and a leg.

That’s about it for now. I need to add more pics. This blog is getting boring without any horses. Sorry Kaidan I know you’ve been expecting pics for a while.

Escape Artists and All Heck Breaks Loose

One day no excitement and the next all heck breaks loose! Those darn ponies do stir up the pot around here.

I moved the pony pasture to right in front of their pen. So the only thing I had to do in the morning was open the gate. I didn’t have to put halters on and lead them anywhere. I thought it was perfect. Except when I opened the gate Skippy was all riled up and kept charging the fence. I figured he’d settle down. He has in the past, although he doesn’t like that spot where I put him out to pasture.

I didn’t think much of it and went on to feed Maverick and headed in to work. At 2:30pm I got a phone call from Mike saying he was finally getting back to Madison after picking up the ponies. WHAT?!?!?!

It seems the ponies decided to make a break for it. Of course, you KNOW who the culprit was.. .guesses anyone? Darn brown and white pony.

Mike got a call from our farmer friend. Our farmer friend was out delivering mail when he stopped at a neighbor’s to drop off mail and they asked if he knew anyone that had horses. Ed knew right away to call Mike. That was at noon. It’s sad. We are THOSE people who always have loose horses running around.

Apparently a neighbor saw them running and was able to corner them and bring them back to their place. As they said, it was a rodeo earlier in the morning. They were out rounding up cattle and saw Tommy and Skippy running around. Unfortunately they were 4-5 miles away from Borderlands to the west. That meant those darn ponies crossed Hwy 19. Luckily it was during the middle of the morning when that road is normally deserted. I was completely sick! The neighbors had to corral the ponies and herd them back to their place. Luckily they had a herd dog that I think did most of the work.

So after Mike got the call, since he was in Madison, he went and got Dad. They flew down to Borderlands, hooked the truck up, and headed over to the neighbors. The ponies could have stayed but Mike and I both prefer to not leave our animals out where someone else has to deal with them.

So two and a half hours after that initial call, Dad and Mike are back to their normal routine. I’m seriously sick over it. Now what am I going to do with those darn ponies.

And today added to the excitement. We had a storm blow through last night and I’m sure that’s what caused most of the problems. I was running late anyway so was hurrying to go feed Maverick. I opened the door to the hay shed and low and behold who should be standing there munching on alfalfa but Queen.

Now how could a 30+ year old mare break out of 6ft high corral panels. I knew she couldn’t jump, she’s arthritic in almost every joint! I herded her away from the alfalfa and discovered that when I put the corral panels up that the one next to the red shed wasn’t really touching the ground. With all the wind, and possibly the mares bumping in to it all the time, the panel just swung open.

Luckily Queen didn’t take Babe with her. Nothing like having a loose BLIND HORSE running around! I was able to muscle around the now floppy corral panel and hopefully got it wedged back so that it won’t flop open again. I really need to get that alfalfa put away!

But once I get Queen back in the pen, and hear Babe on the other side of the pen, I turned around and there was yet another problem to be fixed!

The pen Maverick is in has a bunch of tin bolted to the fence as a wind break. One piece had already blown half way off a little while ago but Maverick wasn’t pushing on that fence. I guess because that piece was half off the other piece wasn’t protected. With all the wind we had, that piece flew off. Luckily it didn’t hit Maverick or even spook him for that matter.

What makes matters worse, Maverick is a fence pusher. He has no respect for fences. So I was surprised that he wasn’t in with the big herd. The only problem with him being in the big herd is that the big dry lot needs to have the fence repaired too! If he’s supervised an introduction would be fine but an unsupervised introduction would be terrible.

So there I was in my pjs and tinglies trying to muscle around this piece of tin IN THE MUD! Not to mention the tin is about 16 feet long by 4 feet wide. Ok, stop laughing. I’m sure I was a sight to see. I flopped the piece of tin up against the fence so that hopefully it’ll deter Maverick from pushing. But I don’t have much hope that it will. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that everything is as I left it this morning.

Least to say, the past 24 hours have NOT been dull. I guess next time I’ll knock on wood when I say there hasn’t been much exciting going on. I’m ready to go back to dullville at Borderlands.

Not much excitement

No great excitement yesterday at Borderlands. The mosquitoes are getting fierce. I'm glad the horses are vaccinated against west nile but I still worry. the mosquiotes are driving me in earlier every night. With the last rain we received, I now have standing water in the pasture. The horses love to go down to the low ground and walk through the water. I'm guessing it cools their hooves off. I just wish I could figure out how to remove the mosquitoes. I guess I don't and I just vaccinate and flyspray as best I can.

This morning the girls were up by the water trough. I'm hoping that they will start a new trend and be by the water trough in the mornings so I can pull off their fly masks at night and put them back on in the morning.

The flies are vicious also. Except these flies bite and never let up. At least they arent' the face flies. I haven't yet started putting fly masks on everyone but I'm sure the time will come shortly. Usually the face flies start showing up about August. I might start putting on fly masks just to help reduce the glare of the sun.

I need to take stock of the fly masks. I also need to do some repairs on fly sheets. I'd like to try a fly sheet on Dude. I doubt the fly sheets help with the mosquitoes but Dude has such an allergic reaction to mosquitoes. He swells up everywhere he gets bitten. I can't stall him because he'll tear the barn apart unless I put someone else in there with him.

I did get a chance to ride Rain last night. I haven't ridden him since the last saddle club meeting. We didn't get to go very far. I need to make a repair to my saddle before I get back in, otherwise i'll lose a stirrup. It's probably a good thing we didn't ride too long. The mosquitoes got bad and maybe now Rain will let me catch him again for another ride down the road. He was ready and raring to go I think. I'm sure they are all getting bored with just standing around. I know I get bored.

I move the pony pasture again. Now all I have to do is open the gate. The problem is I am starting to run out of places to put them. I may have to finally break down and actually do some fencing in the trees behind their night pen. It would be nice to have that grass eaten down so we can get in there and cut more dead trees down. I guess there's always advantages to that.

That's the extend of the excitement yesterday at Borderlands.