The Barn Update

 When Eowyn went off to attempt motherhood, Maddy moved back into "her lot."

I've actually come to prefer Eowyn being in the dry lot. 

Eowyn's neat. She always pooped and peed in the same places. When there was hay, that was where she was. Nice, easy, and predictable.

I like Maddy better overall, but she's more social. She hangs right by me as I try to scoop and...

...Hey! I'm trying to take a picture!

And that tells it all. Maddy will try to block me from the bucket to make sure I give her scratches. She'll step in and kick her own poop as I try to scoop it (Remember the old nicknames I used to give her?).

The personality and expressiveness is why I like Maddy, so I can't be too mad at her. She makes the funniest faces and shows appreciation whenever she gets any attention. 

Though I wish she wouldn't treat the whole barn as her personal scratching post.

She's got history with the water trough.

I love the expressions and the life she shows.....but I wish she didn't have the itches that drive her to it. 

The good news is Maddy eats a lot less hay than Eowyn. Whereas I was hanging nearly a bale a day for the big girl to gorge herself on (and she always wanted more), I can hang a bale and Maddy will take her time and finish it over 2 to 2.5 days. 

Meanwhile in "the Ladies' Lot," Abby and Eowyn are back to being gal pals. 

Lilly is the odd mare out.

The odd mare out who Carrie found lame a few days later. 

Carrie had a mini-meltdown. She feels like she can't catch a break. Her main ride, Eowyn, developed arthritis. So she switched to Lilly and Lilly's now ordered to rest. 

Here Carrie is hosing down Lilly's legs to ease some swelling after she lunged her to see what was going on.

Our best guess is Eowyn or Abby made her strain herself running in the pasture. Carrie had been on a break from riding, so it wasn't her. The girls can be buddies and do a big group grooming (pictured!), but I've seen the taller girls run Lilly off before.

So Carrie put Lilly in the dry lot with Maddy. Lilly likes Maddy. Maddy is the only horse on the farm she's dominant to! It means extra poop Shane and I have to scoop.

Carrie's decided it's time to put Lilly on a diet, too. She wants 12 lbs of hay measured out for the ponies to share at each feeding (Carrie measures, but, truth be told, I go with my best guess).

Lilly will share with Maddy some times, but she will also drive her off with teeth and ears (especially when the hay is first hung). 

In a show of intelligence, Maddy has discovered that she can stand in the shed and eat from the other side. For some reason, Lilly doesn't run her off as much then. I don't know if it's because Lilly views the slats as being between them or if Maddy's far enough away it's not worth the effort.

So does Lilly's acceptance of Maddy eating on the other side stem from feeling less challenged or is she not smart enough to realize they're sharing the same hay bag? Every time I see one horse do something 'smart' another horse does something to make me wonder...

Whoops. They're looking at me. Best to change topics.

The downside to Maddy's eating technique is she's started to use the run-in as her own personal outhouse.

Carrie switched up Maddy's supplement cups and added in something that's given her diarrhea for a week. She'll fart and it'll drip down while Shane and I are scooping the lot (You can see why I stopped scratching her back legs....).

Why is Maddy alone in that picture? Lilly comes in to eat her breakfast in her stall. We let down the lines and she walks herself in. Otherwise, if we feed the girls together Lilly will eat her food and then shoo Maddy off and start to work on her food.

But overall, the "Ponies' lot" is working. 

Unlike the hose. It developed a week a month or two ago. It still works for now, but it'll need to be replaced eventually.

It doesn't need to be pretty or perfect to get the job done, so it stays.

I could say the same about the boys' eating habits. They're way messier than the girls and strew their hay all over. And then Eddy comes out and pees in it at least a few times a week.

Normally, we all go out as a family in the mornings to work on chores. Shane and I have the same routine every day: We deliver food and hay, scoop poop, and clean up. Carrie often makes the meals, but then her routine varies. She may check on individuals, administer medicine, or pick a special project if her energy level is high enough.

One day, she used the mower to tackle the weeds overflowing from the social corner.

They were too big to chop up, so her special project also became mine. I put the cuttings into the wheelbarrow and walked them off to the tree lines.

The horses are always fascinated by any change in their environment (Maddy got over her curiosity when she realized Lilly wasn't monopolizing the hay!).

Aside from the random lameness, the horses are all healthy. The land, less so. The ground is extremely dry.

We've been in drought conditions.

Supposedly, our area has gotten enough rain to be promoted back to "Abnormally Dry," but those rains seem to frequently go around our farm. We'll see lightning to the north, east or south without it falling on us.

We've had some rain that's prevented the grass from dying out entirely, but with the horses grazing on it it's not enough to sustain the pastures. And this is after we paid to have baby grass seeded.

Three weeks after the above picture, it's not looking much better. Carrie closed the horses into the dry lots to prevent them from fully killing the grass.

There are some green spots, but Carrie says they're deceptive. Those are the patches where the horses poop. The equines won't graze there, but will instead tear the other grass up from the roots.

So it's back to winter work conditions. Instead of one bale a week, we're throwing 1 to 2 a day. The poop is piling up, too, now that the horses have to go in their lots.

I went outside to get a few up close pictures for this post, but pictures don't communicate the crunching sound you hear when walking through the pastures.

Loki helped.

You can see the drought's effect on our lawn, as well.

The weeds are doing fine, though. We never did any gardening this year. Grandma probably thinks it's a terrible shame, but I was happy to get out of the work even if it does look much better.

Then again, the weeds give me some hope. Life finds a way. I don't think the grass is dead forever. A couple of weeks of rain and lower temperatures would hopefully restore a measure of health to our pastures.

I caught this weed growing through a hay bale in the barn. Why can't grass grow that crazily!?

So rain and lower temperatures would be the best thing that could happen for the barn. I went out today to turn the fans on at noon. We turn them on for the horses whenever the temperature hits 90° or above.

To thank Shane for his work (not that he has a choice), I bought some Splatoon books I plan to parcel out to him every few days. He likes them and I like him reading, so it's a win-win!