Villhauer's Farm Blessings: 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.