Currently, I'm working two jobs. There can be weather delays for one, but not the other.
The horses need to be fed regardless.
It's been more work lately, because I've had to dump poop buckets by hand. This involves schlepping across the yard or the arena.
The arena is the easier walk, but I have to lift the bucket over and climb the fence. We own 30 feet off our fences, so the goal would be to 'throw' the poop further out......but that doesn't usually happen.
I go out until the brambles or the hill threatens and then I try to throw/dump everything in a way that the bucket's momentum doesn't carry me with it.
I've trekked across the yard, but the tall grass makes the walk much more effort.
But why would I be doing this when there's a perfectly good spreader?
It started with stall cleaning. The bedding doesn't biodegrade as quickly and Carrie wanted pissy hay off where it was less visible. I've been doing that for months and months.
The (heavier) buckets full of poop started sometime after we closed everyone into the dry lots. We collected and spread so much poop that the bridle path started to look like one of Shane's peanut-butter-Nutella sandwiches (but maybe with some greens mixed in!). Carrie put a moratorium on spreading. She didn't want the yard around the house to be oversaturated either, so she asked me to haul as much as I could (It was a lot).
I've started to use the spreader more now that I'm on a time-crunch now that Carrie's out of commission and I've doing everything, but the yard is filling up. We need nice weather to kickstart more decomposition and more grass growth. I saw someone offering to sell horse manure for gardens online and told Carrie we should put up an offer for "Free shit." So far, she's leaning more towards a designated compost pile.
Maddy came off of stall rest this week. She's been an unhappy camper and not afraid to show it. I've had to strip her stall every several days (bonus work...).
Carrie gave me the clear to move her back out to her dry lot once Pockets moved on. I started hearing a loud banging while I was scooping poop on the mares' side and rushed over to see what was going on.
Maddy went for a swim. I don't know if she was feeling playful or pissed.
It made a terrible mess and she rolled right through all the mud.
She did it again when I was on the other side of the barn, too.
I wish I knew what was going through her mind!
I got some great pictures out of it. She stretched so much while she was rolling it almost looks like she tried to walk on two legs and slipped on a banana peel!
She sure seemed thrilled.
I was less thrilled about scrubbing out the mud and gravel.
I set up the hose for a refill and then moved everything half under the electric lines. I was hoping it would allow her room to drink, but discourage kicking.
It didn't.
Take two, I moved everything further under the lines. I've caught her drinking and I haven't caught her kicking since, so I'd call it a success.
Lilly's preferred her little lot to being in a stall, but just barely. She's pawed up the mats where I put her hay and knocked over her water bucket before. I tried to put her hay in a slow-feed bag and anchored it with a stake in the ground.
Carrie nearly had a heart-attack when I told her. "Fiberglass can break!" I figured the worst that would happen would be Lilly pulling up the stake, but I didn't want my couch-ridden wife to have a panic attack, so I went back out and undid it (Trial and error, right?).
It's a short commute to the barn, so it's not a big deal to walk back and forth. I've played fetch multiple times. Carrie hired a teenager to ride Eowyn for exercise and wanted to look over the saddle before she arrived one day.
I fetched the saddle and held it so she could attach the stirrups and then brought it back down. I greeted the teenager and showed her where all the gear was, too.
\
I went back inside, but 15 minutes later Carrie wanted me to run down and close the far arena gate. The bridle path was submerged and Carrie wanted to make sure people knew it was closed!
I need to scoop up the hay around the boys' feeder. They've been wasteful lately. I've been hoping they'd eat more of it, but Ernie showed me that was a pipe dream. He stretched out and peed right into the fallen hay ("Fresh hay only, human!").
You'd think he'd show some gratitude after I had to run out and switch him to a heavier blanket one night when the temperature was supposed to near single digits.
I make Shane help out some. Mostly on Fridays and Saturdays. He's limited in what he can do, and sometimes it's easier not to manage him when I'm in a time crunch. Sundays boarders come, but I still have to go down to socialize, lift hay bales and dump poop buckets.
There were a couple of random tasks this week. Someone was in a hay crunch and asked to buy a few bales.
There barn was currently on a quarantine for an equine related medial issue, so everyone wanted to minimize contact. Carrie had me stack 6 bales on the driveway and prop the gate open.
Loki comes out most days, but it is a pain when the weather is nasty. I have to clean up him and corral him to dry whenever we come inside. Max seems to think of his pen as hers.
She's always had a thing for dog food, but I was surprised when she moved to claim his nasty towel!
I'm happy to let her use it as a bed if it prevents Aria or some other cat from peeing on it.
Anyway, lots to do! I took Sundays off from writing the blog to focus on other styles of writing, but I've been putting my energies into barn management instead!
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