Out With February....In With March

 It is so nice to have February finally coming to an end.  Even though it is a short month, it seemed to drag with day after day of crummy weather.  March always holds the promise of spring….and has spring break to look forward to.  And this year we have the added bonus of going south for 5 days for Dan’s graduation.
     Seen here, Chuck is looking into the barn stall.  This was taken last week....but is typical Chuck behavior.  He comes into the stall, usually after the horses have left, to look for food and water.
     Monday:  Joe and I both walked Amiga around by the garage and part way down the drive to see how she looked when walking.  We both thought we saw a slight limp, but were not positive.  Later when I let her out of the barn after her  "dinner" , I had to yell at Chuck and scare him back cause he was starting to come in to the stall...well this scared Amiga and she ran past me and Chuck out into the slippery mud...and she slipped and nearly went down on her side before recovering.  Swell.....hoped she didn't hurt herself again.  Boy does she have a flight response or what ever.  (I think they call it Brios or a hot horse)  Later when I put both horses in for the night she didn’t appear lame. Phew.
    Tuesday:  All of the rain, mud, and standing water  were now frozen from the
22 degree temperatures. I watched Amiga again in the morning and thought  she looked okay.  Both horses were sticking near to the barn out of the wind. I am ready to make Chuck roast.... he is so annoying.  And getting into a lot of trouble….as you can see one example in the photo above.

     Overnight it got even colder  because the wind picked up.  It stayed cold and windy all day on Wednesday, with a little bit of snow accumulating and drifting.   Here you can see it snowing a bit.  Chuck is eating out of the hay bin and Kaysha peeking out of the barn door.  The red ball is for the horses and cow to entertain themselves.  It is meant to keep Chuck and Zorro out of trouble.

    Thursday morning at 4:30 I was woken up by coyotes or dogs "barking".  It sounded like more than one. I don’t think they were too far off.  The sounds came from Becks field to the west of us.  When I opened the back door to hear better it got dead quiet, and never started up again....they must have moved on.  I don't think these canines come inside our electro-braid fence.  I don’t see foot prints in the snow.  Also, Kaysha has gotten zapped while crawling under the rope and will no longer go near it….so she stays on the inside of our fenced “yard”….and I am guessing they would stay on the outside.  
   (One of the barn kitties also got zapped while playing with the rope…it went hissing and screeching, all puffed out, up one of the trees that’s between the corn crib and fence. In the picture she has gotten over her fear and pain and is now playing) 
     I saw a German Sheppard and another black dog in the field about 1 mile west of us a few days ago. Maybe it is them I hear. I am not letting my kitties out of the barn over night until it is warmer,  they are bigger and there is plenty of rabbets for the wild "dogs" to hunt.  I have seen a squirrel regularly for a week now.  He and the rabbits come for spilled seed under the bird feeders.  He also gets into Chucks corn supply out in the barn where the tractor is.  My flock of foul fowl also come to the bird feeder. 

         This is my third, 5-day work week since Christmas vacation.  (2 snow days, 1 sick day, 1 institute day, Martin Luther King Day, and Presidents day)....five of these six occurred on different weeks.  Next Thursday I miss most of my teaching day for a science meeting.  The following week I miss 2 days for Dan's graduation.  Then I have 1 more 5 day week before Spring Break.  April and May are going to have many long weeks of teaching, but at least it will be spring…. and be more enjoyable outside here on the farm.  But it might make getting my school work done here at home more of a challenge because of the distractions. 
     Thursday evening I put a new Probiotic  vitamin supplement (Equi-Shine Daily Start)  in the horses feed. It is to help with their dry, itchy, flaky coats.  They both dug in as usual, and I went into the main part of the barn to get their hay.  Then both of them started going nuts. Amiga pacing around, pawing at the wall, looking in her feed bin…..Zorro stomping the ground and kicking at one stall gate and then the other.  They were both sooo mad. Guess they did not like their new vitamin supplement, so they wouldn’t even eat their oats.  So I turned them back out in the paddock.  Now what to do to get them to eat their vitamins?  I went on line to see if I could find any suggestions and e-mailed my trainer.                               
     To the left is
a picture of our feeding station for the horses and to the left of that, on the other side of the two glass doors, is where the barn cats are feed.  Bro, the male barn kitty, is keeping an eye out for possible mice. 

   When I put the horses back in the barn for the night, they both had 3/4s of their grain (with the vitamins) remaining.  By Friday morning though, it was all gone.  Friday night I put more of the supplement on their feed and they ate it all, without complaining.  Maybe it wasn’t the supplement bothering them Thursday, but something else, that or they have gotten used to it already.
    
     Saturday morning the sun was bright and warm.  Here the dog and barn cats can be seen soaking up the rays and watching me haul manure. 
    
     The horses got real agitated again Sat afternoon when Courtney and I put them in their stalls to get ready to go to our riding lesson.  Typically I only stall them for feeding or for the night if it is really cold….so maybe they are just getting mad because there was no food. Yet another undesired behavior I am going to need to work on.

Here the horses can be seen foraging for food.  Amiga is in the top left picture and Zorro top right.  In both group shots she is on the right side of the picture.  The last one shows them looking over the stall gate wanting to come in to get fed.

      The Expedition had a dead battery for some reason, so had to be jump started before we could load and go to our lesson.  Then we loaded (very easily and quickly) and were off to Wellgreen Farm, just over 2 miles down the road.  When unloading, Amiga bolted out of the trailer.  Zorro was all hyped up while lunging and raced around for 20 min.  Amiga on the other hand was quite reserve, yet a bit nervous at first.  She settled in quickly and, showing no signs of lameness, was ready to be tacked up.  Our trainer Marj continues to be very generous, letting us use her saddles and bridles.  Courtney and I both had a great lesson….we are learning so much, as are our two horses. We had a wonderful time at the end when Marj put on some up beat Hispanic music that we rode to.  Britney would have loved it because the lyrics were all in Spanish.  Marj came out on her horse Arboleda and gated around for our horses to watch and follow.  It was so much fun.  Once home, Amiga bolted out of the trailer again, so we reloaded and tried to get her to slow it down some. She was slightly slower but still came out at lightning speed.  Another thing for us to work on.

       This morning’s Sun rise brought new promise and wonder to the day.

It's Not Always As It Seems Or Was Planned

     Probably the title of this blog holds true mostly for Blogger. I am spending way too much time working on a single blog entry.  There has got to be a better/easier way.  Even though there is a learning curve, it is not very user friendly.  It won't let me move pictures around, AND what you see is not what you get....the edit view is different than the post view. So frustrating!
     I went shopping on the way home from school Tuesday.  In addition to buying needed supplies, I got two pictures to hang on the walls. (They were each $13.99 marked down from $70.00)  I don't love them....but I like them quite a bit. I would  never pay the full price for them though.  Here is a picture of them ....

which doesn't do them justice. It's not a great photo, and they are still in their cardboard packing. But it seems they will be a nice touch to the decor.  Now I need to figure out where to hang them up. I am thinking behind the TV...on each wall.  I may wait for help or advice from someone.... but this is why I don't have any pictures hung up on the walls yet.
      I also bought fabric and foam padding for Grandma’s chairs.  I just went with 1 inch thickness on the pad.  Hope I don't regret that decision later.  I looked at two stores, and spent an hour hunting at the second place through a bunch of remnants.  Hummed and hawed over several different fabrics I thought would be okay.  Again, I don't love what I bought....but it is
the best I could do.  There was one fabric I really liked....but it was short by about 10 inches.  Another one...was not for the sale price (I had strayed from the remnants table)....but I was not willing to pay the full price for it. So, all the chair stuff was a total of $22.50.  I feel good about that.  Now I need some extra time and motivation to get going on cleaning the chairs up so I can finish this project.  Projects never seem to get finished as quick as expected.

    The horses started racing around the pasture and kind of playing king of the manure pile when I went out to give them more hay on Wednesday afternoon.   Amiga started it by standing at the top of the manure pile rearing up.  Trying
to impress Chuck
and Zorro I guess.   She then raced down the pile and around the paddock running, kicking, rearing up, and making sharp turns and fast stops.  It was actually very cool to watch, although I was worried about her slipping on the icy parts.  She impressed me....it seems she was "Wildfire" .....sort of like.  (Lyrics by Michael Murphy:   “On Wildfire we’re going to ride her.    We’re gonna leave sod bustin’ behind.    Get these hard times right on out of our minds.     Riding Wildfire.”)   Anyway, she and Zorro got Chuck going and made me
want to join in on the fun and run and jump and kick up my heels too.  But, I remained composed and just watched.  I think they were all trying to warm up because with the wind....it was quite chilly out there. But who really knows what they were doing?  I accidentally overflowed the stock tank when adding fill water.....worried there would be a nice skating rink around it, I put some stemmy hay on top of it so it wouldn't be as slippery.  Then Joe and I headed to Rosies for dinner and ale with the summer golf league.  We reminisced of fun in the sun had last summer and dreamed of those days to come.  
     Thursday I had a really good riding lesson, even though it didn't go as planned.  Amiga loaded great....but Zorro was not at all happy about being left behind. Courtney was sick so didn’t join me as planned.  Once at Marj's, I groomed and tacked Amiga and took her into the arena to walk her around.  Before even lunging her, Marj noticed that Amiga was lame on her back right leg.  She was not putting all of her weight on it for very long….kind of limping.  She must have done something racing around in the paddock with Zorro Wednesday.  She had definitely been the more wild of the two.

So....she was not ridden for my lesson.  We put her in a stall and I groomed and tacked Marj’s horse while Marj gave Amiga an anti-inflammatory pain pill.  I had a great time riding Arboleda, even though I had planned to be riding Amiga. Arboleda was a lot of fun and very responsive.  And man did she have a lot of get-up and go.  Marj said Amiga's lameness is not bad and with some rest she should be fine in a few days.  She even sent me home with 2 more pills.  What would we do without her?
     Friday afternoon (5:30ish) I went out to do my normal routine of chores....but it was not completely normal.  First, because Amiga is on "bed rest" she has been in her stall all day, so she was acting quite antsy.  I watched as she paced in a circle in her stall, and actually kind of gated around.  She doesn't appear to be favoring her right back leg, but it is hard for me to tell.  I decided to give her another anti-inflammatory pill just in case it was needed.  Once Zorro was in his stall, she calmed down.  I fed the barn cats and Chuck and then headed to the chicken coop.  Everyone
was roosting so I did my normal head count.  Three  times I only came up with 8 chickens and a turkey. Upon closer observation (I now had most of them standing up because I was poking my head and flashlight in their space, I realize Flopsie was missing.  So, I headed back out to the barn yarn calling for her.  I looked everywhere I could think, even in the farrowing shed that the barn cats sometimes get into.  I thought maybe she had gone around the other side of the garage shed and into the chicken coop when I had come back out. (She has done this before.) She is usually last in the coop, so I doubled back and headed for the coop.  I paused to watch one of the silly barn kitties by the corn crib....when I heard this clucking.  My ears led me to look through the slats in the corn crib, and sure enough, there she was.  I went back around and in through the little door.  I can't figure out how she got in there, except through the holes we have for our home made hay bins.  But they were full of hay.  Maybe she had gotten in and then Chuck pulled the hay down or she pressed it down and couldn't get back out.  It was a relief to find her, and I carried her back to the coop.  Silly chicken.
      We got an inch of wet snow Friday night  so everything was blanketed in white Saturday morning.  In this picture I am walking on top of a snow drift…it is above the first line of electrobraid fence.

  It would seem that with the rope under the snow the electric current would short out and the fence not work....but this is not so as Carol learned the hard way last weekend.     
       It got very warm and rained some during the day Saturday. So, with the thaw, melting snow, and rain….it was really sloppy out….especially in the paddock.  I let Amiga out of her stall, (after 36 hours of rest) because it appears that she has no problem or pain walking.  I completely cleaned out both stalls and added fresh wood shavings.   The kittens "helped" by chasing the pitch fork through the saw dust.  I had the north wood stall door opened which was nice for the light and fresh air.  The barn cats ventured farther from the barn and were having a good time exploring.  Baby…. The chicken I taught to walk….was sitting on a nest in the barn for the longest time. I know she was working on laying an egg.



At one point Kaysha startled her and I don’t know what happened…. but she appeared to play dead.  She flopped over on her side and her legs went stiff.  That or maybe she was having a seizure.  I picked her up and her eyes were very dilated and her beak wide open.  I pet her, took her to the chicken coop for water, and she then seemed okay.  She followed me back to the barn where she resumed the egg laying process.  I kept an eye on her while I putts around the barn.  Finally, over an hour later, she got up off the nest and there was the egg she had labored at laying.  Wonder if chickens can pass out from lack of blood flow to their head while straining to get the egg out.  All my observations answer some of the questions I have but they bring up a bunch more new questions because things are not always as they seem.

Whether We Weather The Storm

       There are many different storms in life, most of which we all manage to get through.  And it's not so much whether we can make it through, but how we ride the waves and come out at the end.  Knowing and trusting God makes it so much easier to get through the tough times while not losing hope, faith, trust, or love. 

       After the snow day last Tuesday, we got sun shine on Wednesday, but the wind was still blowing.  Our drive was plowed 2 times Tuesday and once Wed. morning. All three times Andy (the plow man) was here I was outside. LOL  He must think I am crazy.  Joe talked to him about where to pile snow so that we have better access to the barn. He did a much better job, but it keeps drifting back across in front of the barn.  Because of the cold and continued drifting and blowing of snow, our riding lesson for Wed was moved to Friday.

       Friday morning we had fog and frozen frost but the sun broke through the clouds later in the day.  There was still a lot of snow and ice on the ground and it was cold, so I was worried about our late afternoon riding lesson.  I was more concerned about loading and unloading here and at Marj’s cause I did not want the horses to slip and get hurt or scare themselves getting into or off of the trailer.  That would make them completely lose their trust in me.... so I wanted to be sure they could safely do this.  We ended up going to the lesson and having no problems with loading and unloading.  We had a great time.  The horses have barn fever and were full of energy.  Amiga got tired after several laps of doing her gated trot.  Actually my legs got tired too. So we walked awhile before gating the other direction.

          I found out Friday that I will be able to retain part time status for next year.  Woot woot!  One less thing to worry about.  I developed a little "tennis elbow" from all the work I did on Tuesday; shoveling, cleaning stalls, and moving bales of hay.  Then Friday I helped move saw dust and had the riding lesson that I am now a bit sore from. They were calling for snow flurries Friday night.  For awhile it was snowing to beat the band.  It didn't last long and gave a renewed cover of clean snow over everything.

      Carol and her two Border Collies came for a visit over the weekend.  They were here most of the day Saturday and Sunday.  We always enjoy ourselves together, as does Kaysha with Carol’s two dogs.  We mostly just hung out and talked….but did go for three long walks, watched TV and took Grandma’s chairs apart.  I am going to re-upholster the chairs. As you can see below they are in major need of repair.
       Carol took lots of great pictures which follow.             
                                        Kaysha excited to see our guests arrive.

     Abbey                                                                                Ike 

Tie

                    Chuck sunning and chickens foraging.

       The barn cats were not near as excited to see Carol's dogs as Kaysha was.  They shot up the barn wall and perched on the rafters until the cost was clear. 
       I was glad to see they would be able to escape if a predictor came into the barn.

Grandma's chair

                         
       We didn't have school today because of Presidents day.  But I needed to go in to school to print and xerox several things, so that was kind of looming over head.  I did NOT want to change out of my PJ's, get in a cold car, go to a cold, dark, lonely school to work, get back in a cold car to come home and spend 45 min of driving time round trip.  I debated adding on upholstery shopping to make it seem more worthwhile.  As it turned out.....I never went into town.

        I have been catching bits and pieces of the winter Olympics. Carol got me started on it. It has kept me from house/farm/school work, but has been a welcome distraction.  All the figure skating events are my favorite.  When the commentator tells the stories of these skaters,  I realized most of them have had to weather one storm or another.....but they all made it through and were there at the Olympics!  And actually, this year's Winter Olympics had many "storms" or mishaps of its own.....but unfortunately not enough snow.

        A quote off Facebook: "The object is not to wait for the storm to pass.  The object is to learn to dance in the rain."

       I look forward to spring sun shine and flowers, but not the rains.   I'll try to be happy and enjoy what ever we get.

It Ain't The Cold .... It's The Wind

       Some days, over the past week or so, were not too terribly cold, but when you add the wind chill, it was. The horses are fine outside on really cold days, but if the wind is blowing, they need to have shelter form it.  This wind chill kind of holds true for in our house as well. When it is windy out it feels much colder inside because of the drafts.
   
We had a snow day today with 4 to 5 inches that had fallen by morning. It was the blowing and drifting that shut things down, along with it being forecasted to snow all day.  Here is a picture of Chuck taken when I went out to feed in the morning.  He is on the East side of the farrowing shed to
stay out of the wind, but where he can keep an eye out for his feed pan to appear.
       Grades were due by noon so I got those done before going back out to take pictures and play in the snow.  I went to the barn and cleaned up and re-organized our hay area and dropped 8 more bales down from the hay loft.  We are sure going through hay fast these days. Good thing we have plenty.

      
       Adding fill water to the 100 gallon stock tank, which is iced over and covered with snow except where you see the blue water heater.


One of the roosters picking his way through the snow towards the barn.

Barn kitty debating whether to venture any farther from the barn.

He decides to take the plunge,
leaps and bounds across the snow and up the hitching post.


Where one goes, the other will follow.




But then Chuck decides to get in on the picture.

And, at about the same time, the first kitten who was carefully walking across the top on the PVC pipe, slipped and fell off, landing on his back.  He made a B-line to the barn before I could get a picture.

Just before noon the winds shifted (actually completely reversed directions) and picked up more.

It changed from ESE to WNW.  So, the drifts all started re-drifting in the other direction. 

The driveway started accumulating snow as it blew and drifted across it.

We continued to get a light snow fall but with the blowing it was very white out everywhere.

        Now back to last week which was a pretty uneventful and unexciting week.  I actually didn't go to school last Tuesday either. I decided to take a sick day because I had a major head ache, ear ache, post nasal drip, sore throat, and felt a bit achy and feverish as well.  Joe followed suit....once I told him I was staying home.  He had had a bad cough and cold since last Friday afternoon.  His coughing had been waking me up at night which didn’t help me out any either.  I made hot home-made chicken soup for lunch, drank plenty of fluids and got plenty of rest.  We did not get the snow they had called for on Monday night....however it was very gray out and also quite windy Tuesday…good napping weather.
       Being sick made the week kind of drag.  I had to cancel our riding lesson Wednesday afternoon because we did not get the right electrical hook up for our old trailer and I was feeling too raunchy.  It was only 26 degrees that evening and with the wind would have been a very cold lesson.  Wouldn’t have helped my cold any either.

      Our egg production has gone up, 4 to 6 eggs per day.  Here you can see 7 eggs we got in one day a few days ago.  Having a light in the chicken coop has definitely helped this out.  The light comes on at 4am and turns off at 7am….once the sun is up.


It helps warm the coop on these cold mornings, and gets the chickens up early.  Before I get out to do my morning chores I can hear the rooster's muffled crowing from the coop.  To the right you can see the light on, all the chickens are up for breakfast, and the light of day is just starting to appear through the open door.

       We had a freezing rain while I was driving to school Friday.  Every now and then there was a snow flake, but it was mostly sleet with some rain. I was not looking forward to scrapping ice off my window in the school parking lot before heading home.  Actually, it wasn’t that bad, nor was driving home because it was only snowing. It snowed all day and night. 

We had some major wind out of the N/NE which is not ordinary.  The tarp covering the barn door opening was really flapping more than usual and had the horses very nervous.Some snow did blow in past the tarp to the west section where we keep the tractor.
Snow also blew in between the slats of the barn roof and dusted the alley between the two horse stalls.








We had more drifting, only in a different direction, so drifts made pretty patterns on the ground.  

I added our golden retriever Kaysha to one photo so you can see how tall the drifts are.

 







The horses and Chuck were covered head to toe with snow when I went out to feed them Friday evening.  I don't know why they don’t go into the corn crib.  I did keep the horses in the barn over night Friday so they could dry off and stay warm.  And I convinced Chuck to go into the corn crib by putting a half bail of the good hay out there for him.

      
      Saturday morning the sun tried to break through the clouds while I tried to break through new snow drifts with my wheel barrel form the barn to the manure pile.  I also shoveled paths through some drifts so I would be better able to get from one building to another.  I packed a lunch and headed for school to try to stay focused on all that I needed to get done, and to stay out of the way at home. Joe had 7 guys over for some Texas Hold'em.  Not having any distractions really helped me to accomplish a lot of school work.