Obstacle Course and Playday 1st Place Prizes

In the past, we did not provide any prizes for our annual playday. Once we tried handing out ribbons but didn't think people really cared if they got a ribbon from a playday or not.

So this year, we are trying our hand at prizes for first place on each event. The following are the prizes for first place for the adult class. I'm not sure I have them all so there may be a surprise or two tossed in as well. Hopefully we wont' disappoint, but the kids class will be candy bars! Because who doesn't want candy bars as a prize?!?!

There may be a few more prizes to come but these are some of the ones I have on hand. If any interest you, come on our to the playday or obstacle course, saddle up a horse and go like crazy!

I'm sort of winging it with the prizes so hopefully these will tempt everyone into coming out and participating.  And a huge thank you goes out to Jessie P for helping get some of these prizes rounded up. We can always use help (and donations of any kind).

We'll have other items for sale as well. Proceeds will go to the 2017-2018 Winter Hay Fund to keep the senior horses fat and sassy (I mean happy).

So, please spread the word. The more people at the fundraiser, the better we will do and the less stress I will have after the event to come up with funds to cover the remainder of the funds. And a huge thank you to Modern Woodsmen for putting up a matching funds game up to $500! For some, $500 might not seem like a lot, but to us at the Sanctuary, it's a fortune and we are very grateful and humbled by the generous offer for this match game.

Can't wait to see everyone at the fundraiser THIS Saturday, October 14th!

A Day of Training with MSAR CD

Over the shoulder bag (this is an awesome bag with many compartments!)

Clinton Helps the Old Guard CD

Coffee picture (standard 8x10)

Coffee cup and coffee

Baking gift basket with lots of goodies hidden inside

Free haircuts to Stewart School (4 of these are available to choose from) AND Subway in Hartford Giftcard

Coffee cup with coffee

More Adventures in Roofing

We ran out of nails. Otherwise, the roof would have been close to complete. There's still a lot of extra work to get done on it to make it "Done" but we could have finished had we not run out of nails. Or at the very least, we wouldn't still have a hole in the roof.

In the below pic, Mike is taking off the second vent. No  more eeire squeaks in the night when there's a slight breeze. No more creeping me out with the squeeks in the morning and evening chores in the dark of winter. We are both glad to see it go. The problem, we ran out of nails and that vent equals a hole in the roof.

No problem. I checked the 10 day forecast Sunday and we aren't to get any rain until Saturday (Saturday?!! But that's our playday!) And what do you know happens Monday? It rains. At least it didn't rain buckets and buckets of water. Just enough to make me heartsick.

We are picking up nails tonight and hopefully getting at least one sheet up to cover the hole tomorrow.

We still have about 10 full sheets to put up but without nails, it's impossible. I'm hoping we can find enough time this coming Sunday after the playday to get the rest of the sheets up. Fingers crossed. I so want to get the majority of it done. If we can get most of it done, I'll feel better if the snow flies early.

And speaking of snow, it's already snowing in the Black Hills and we had a freeze watch last night. We got to 31 degrees and I had to scrape my windows. Usually I'm caught with my pants down with freezes and water but we are going to get a NEW automatic waterer this week and hopefully find time to put it in soon. At least before the first constant freeze and/or snow but that will be for another post.

So the above is the view I had to leave the barn at. Lets hope we can get it wrapped up soon. It DOES make the barn look nice. If only we had more time to get everything done. I need a much longer fall!.

The pictures are all out of order but you get the gist of it. I'm happy the cedar shingles are going. They were starting to fall off anyway and take nails with them. On the bright side, even with the big hole in the top, the big hole on the other side is now covered so we are leak proof (except for the gigantic hole from the vent).

Steady as she goes and we'll get it done...fingers crossed.

Side-By-Side

Where one goes, the other follows. This is the typical width and breadth between Ivan and Brego on any given day (unless they have their heads buried in the hay (and then they are only separated as far as the hay ring divider.

I don't typically have to look far if I find one, I'll know the other is close behind.

And yes, Ivan is much bigger than Brego. The pictures never do Ivan's size justice (not to say that Brego isn't decent sized), Ivan is just big.

And yes, the shed behind them is the one without a roof due to the EF2 tornado that missed us by a half a mile. This is exactly why you add hurricane straps to a roof (even if we are land locked and no where near a path of a hurricane. We DO have tornados). It's been a number of years since the tornado missed us and I am still, not so patiently waiting to put the roof back on but there are other fires to put out and it's still on the list, even if it's at the very bottom. Anyone want to help put it back together? We have enough material to get it back in working order, just need the extra help.

$5 Friday

It's $5 Friday! Did you know $5 buys a bale of hay and feeds a horse for a day? So skip the coffee and help keep a senior horse fat and happy this winter by donating $5. It's amazing how fast $5 adds up.


We are fundraising for our 2017-2018 Winter Hay Fund. The hay is here and how we have to come up with the money. We have our upcoming Playday where proceeds will go to the Winter Hay Fund. But if you can't make the playday, or want to help out a little on the side, donate $5 to keep a senior horse happy.

Our small Sanctuary is supported by many donors who cannot share a lot but what they share is huge and means a great deal to me.

Every donation matters, and we are grateful you have chosen to help us with our mission, "Giving each horse a dignified retirement".

Did you know, $5 buys one bale of hay and feeds a horse for a day? We have 15 horses in our Sanctuary enjoying retirement. It might not sound like a lot, but each horse gets individual care based on their needs. We are starting to feed hay now that October has arrived and the pastures are drying up. We will continue to feed hay until the end of May. Would you like to feed one of our Sanctuary horses for a day?

You can donate to www.paypal.me/Borderlands or send checks to:

Borderlands Horse Sanctuary

PO Box 35

Humboldt, SD 57035

Playday and Obstacle Course Prize Teasers

What's the best way to coax people to attend a playday/obstacle course fundraiser? Why, winning prizes of course (or so I hope).

So I'm posting a handful of prizes that will be available for the first place winner of each event.

Any of these interest you in winning? We also have items up for sale that I'll post as well as another way to temp you into attending. 

Don't want to participate in the playday or obstacle course? That's ok! Spectators are always welcome and encouraged to come!

Please spread the word and share far and wide. This is our biggest fundraiser of the year because I'm really limited on how much time I get to focus on fundraising (rather than caring for kids and horses). 

Proceeds will go to the 2017-2018 Winter Hay Fund to keep the senior horses fat and happy all winter long.

Lets Talk Shelters and Shelterbelts

No pictures for this post (because I'm lazy). As I was working from home at the paying job,  I saw a tree company stop over and cut down a couple of our trees (and a few branches). I'm excited but also bummed because it means a bill. So, lesson learned. If you get a notice from your township/county, do what they asks. I expect we'll get a hefty bill for not taking care of the trees even though the letter had been sent more than a year ago and the guy that maintains our road volunteered to rip out the trees for us. Lesson learned.


But I guess it's like when your car breaks down and you have the means to do it but not the time. So I'll use that as the way to swallow my pride and write the check.


I didn't do my research for what is required in the state of South Dakota for "minimal care" of livestock. Horses are still considered livestock so people can get away with having less shelter. Not my thing.


We have two run in sheds in the big pen. One unfortunately does not have a roof thanks to the EF2 tornado that missed us by a half a mile. Still means the winds were strong enough to flip the top off. So, lesson learned on that. You DO NEED hurricane straps even if you don't live where hurricanes are (but do have tornados and straight line winds!)


We do not have a shelter in the smaller pen and I would desperately like to put one up. We had a tarp shelter a few years back but it didn't last more than a couple of months. Lesson learned on that one. Get the stakes put in the ground before the ground freezes. I don't think it would have been a total loss had we staked it properly.


The big pasture goes directly into the big drylot so the horses have access to the run in shed 24x7. The other two pastures dont' have sheds and I hate it. But, they do have shelterbelts. Where the mares and Junior stay all winter has a fantastic shelter belt. Where they stay in the spring and summer, it's not as great but there's more wind to keep the mosquitoes off.


I'd like to build a couple of shelter and we have most of the supplies to put one up but not enough time (or expertise). So if anyone has the skills and desire to put one up, let me know. Or if you want to purchase a prefab, premade shelter, that would be great too! Just let me know. I can't pay you for your work but I CAN feed you!


I'm also finding that our shelter belts are starting to die off. The trees to the east of the drylot are all dying at a rapid rate. There weren't many trees to begin with but that's because the runoff from the drylot killed off most of the trees. The nitrogen was too rich. I don't know if we'll be able to put new trees in or not.


But there's a lot to learn with shelters and shelter belts so if you have questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. Lots of lessons learned on my part.

Drizzle

It's drizzling out. We are supposed to get some decent rain again. I'm not going to complain though. We need the rain to help with the pastures.


On the bright side, we had about an hour of daylight Tuesday night to work on the hay barn. We normally do our weekly shopping on Tuesday (parents are watching the kids) but figured if we had an hour or two of daylight, we could get a bunch done on the hay barn. Unfortunately, we didn't get started until late and then had to put hay in so that cut down on our time to work on the barn. But we did get a row of purlilns up and they look so pretty!


We are about 6 2x4s short of getting the purlins up and we are actually a few more short because we didn't get the right size to go all the way across and have to cut a few boards to fit. But right now we are just focusing on getting the majority of the barn covered before the snow flies. I'm not sure how cooperative these Ondura sheets are when the cold sets in.


The weather was nice last night even though you could see the clouds were starting to roll in. We snarfed down supper and all headed outside to put up two sheets of Ondura. Now we are officially a third of the way done!!!


There wont' be any time tonight to work on it what with the rain. The cedar shingles make the roof very slick so working on the roof tonight is a no go. I've been trying all week to do some planning and prep work for the upcoming playday but the kiddos have needed me so nothing has been getting done.


I'm trying to be more organized now what with the paying job making me work extra hours just so I can keep up with the workload. But that cuts into time with kids and caring for horses and Sanctuary work. So I'm not sure how long I'll last before I say I'm fed up with it. But I need the extra money to help cover the hay bill. So I guess I'll just plug along until I can't do it any more.


We are planning on working on the hay barn this weekend. Not sure which day but I sure hope we can get another good chunk of it done. I'd love to say we'd get it all done but I know better. Trying to be a bit more realistic. I'd love to see the west side of the barn completely repainted but I don't see that in the cards. The little building I painted last year needs another coat too. It's fading so fast and it makes me so mad to see all my work fade away. I may just have to take time off to work on it and see how far I can get. I know I'll be happier all winter looking at a freshly painted barn (well one side anyway) than I would if it was half painted. We'll see how the paying job goes and the weather. Anyone want to help? I could sure use the company while scraping and painting (you don't even have to do any work, just come out and keep me company).