The farm life has become full time for us (if you hadn't already discerned that).
Carrie checks on our fat camp candidate's weights several times a week (old picture, but shows the tape used since horses are BIG).
Carrie moved our daily supplements into a system of cups. They're all pre-made assembly line style and marked to know who they belong to. It speeds up food preparation.
We have two trashcans full of feed. The red one is Triple Crown 30% Ration Balancer. The smaller silver one is full of ground flax seed.
The chest freezer has become the home of a couple hundred pounds of sweet feed from the Augusta Co-op.
We're stocked up so that we won't need to worry about picking up supplies for a while. We keep everything locked up solid to keep mice out.
We've had vets out twice in the past week (Friday 3/27and Monday 3/30).
It's standard practice for the vets to have you or an assistant move your horse around, so that they can observe and diagnose them in motion. There's more guessing involved with horses than with people, because A) they can't talk and B) it's really expensive to try and MRI a large animal.
Carrie wanted a second opinion on what was going on with Maddie. She's been on doxy for the itching and presumed Lyme's and we thought had pain in her front hooves due to being pre-laminitic. The doxy hadn't stopped the itching, and Maddie still showed some signs of being ready to crow hop when she hit a trot after a week treatment.
The vet had a second vet come out and the new diagnosis is stifle pain. It's still possible there's some long term Lyme's that's causing her to itch her butt all over the barn.
The vets came out Monday to look at Ernie due to his long term lameness. As far as I know, the root cause is still undiagnosed.
If it's midday the horses will settle in for their normal naps.
Eddy used his hay as a pillow one day!
He's the second horse I've heard snore (but not as loud as Kitty!).
Speaking of Kitty, Madeleine came out to ride her Sunday. We hadn't seen her for almost a week. It sounds like she's planning on moving back home at the end of April. The original plan was after graduating UVA, but the virus launched all of those plans into limbo.
Barbara and Heidi came out to play with horses on Sunday, too. It was a hot day for spring in the 80s!
We had three riders in the ring for the first time.
Carrie had Heidi hop off mid ride to try some shoes on him. He was short stepping. Carrie had bought them for Maddie when we thought she had hoof pain and not stifle pain.
Turns out Maddy has slightly wider feet than Eddy! It's the draft blood in her.
We had some unusual visitors on Sunday. Erick and Henry have been cooped up at home, too! Erick builds cross country courses for shows across the country...that have all been cancelled.
I imagine it's fairly unique to be sitting at home bored with a ton of heavy machinery! We asked/hired Erick to come out and spread our mound of gravel dust into "Maddie's lot." The boys 'helped.'
Both boys have been starved for a kid connection. We told Shane it was fine to play outside, but no visitors in the house (and no wrestling!).
Henry took a turn driving the front end loader, but the shaking out the gravel just right required more finesse than he had learned. Erick took over and the boys danced on the pile as Erick scooped it out from underneath them.
I was a little concerned, but I looked to see if Erick was bothered at all. He wasn't, so they danced away! Shane even jumped in the bucket once.
I asked Erick later if it bothered him and he said, "We're at that point when it comes to entertainment." Ha!
They weren't totally useless. I need to coach Shane on how to use a shovel properly at some point.
The boys went into the garage every now and then to cool down.
They found a bug zapper in the garage while smashing rocks and ended their play date hunting wasps. It turns out water, electricity, and shoes are super effective against wasp type enemies.
The upside of the gravel dust will prevent erosion, mud, weeds, and it looks nice. The downside is we'll have to scoop pony poop instead of mostly ignoring it.
It had to happen to become a long term solution. Maddie needs to be rested to heal, but she detests being stalled.
Other than the vet visits, everything I've posted happened on Sunday. I thought we were done when Ellie showed up!
We were going to stay inside, but I asked Shane to take Loki out to go potty before my book club. Loki had been penned for most of the afternoon so that he wouldn't try to bite the tires on the heavy machinery!
Of course, Loki took off like a bullet to the barn. He and Buddha got sprayed with a hose to drive them off when they started running around Magic's feet as he was getting washed!
I tried to stick to the shade under the lean-to and the pole-barn while the kids played, but the sun got me. Should've been wearing sunscreen (Ginger-life).
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