Thank God for the Break!

It's been awesome having time off. From school at least, if not the barn!

Shane's hair is beyond shaggy. I'd love to cut it, but he wants to grow a 'man-bun.' There's a cartoon character who's a volleyball player with one and Carrie joked about me getting one, but it stuck with him!

Not that I can throw stones. My own pandemic hair is probably the longest it's ever been. Carrie attacked my hair one morning and then told me not to move for a picture.

I've trimmed the beard since then. I got tired of my mustache curling into my mouth!

No school takes some of the urgency out of barn chores. There's no planning or class lurking if we take too long. Carrie's been feeling better, so we've been going out as a family. That's let us tackle some of the odd jobs that can be overlooked for a while, but elevate the operation when done.

Like poopbusting.

I don't remember the last time we dragged the dry lots. Shane got a kick out of riding around with Mom.

Maddy has been her usual itchy self. Carrie tried switching to a different allergy medicine to see if it helped to no avail. 

Maddy will walk over and ask for scratches when we're around. She's got her favorites and we've learned a number of them.

She's very expressive!

The barn is a source of community and we hope a blessing to everyone who's part of it. Laura had a bit of heartache when she was walking Ernie. He spooked and stepped on her ankle. I found out when Carrie bolted inside to get ice. Laura found out she had a fracture on Sunday.

Barbara showed up while Amy and Carrie tended to Laura.

There was a riding party in the works. Carrie was on Eowyn.

Barbara was on Maddie.

And Gay was on a mule for the first time in her life!

"The ears are a hoot!"

Pockets hadn't been worked in a while and was reluctant to earn his keep, but Gay got him moving!

It was Carrie's chance to introduce Gay to Eowyn, too. The point of buying Eowyn was to ride, so I'm glad that Carrie's been active! 

Barbara tried out Maddy's new saddle and declared it a success. Maddy's been feeling good lately. A couple rides back, Barbara asked for a canter on the trail and Maddy offered to gallop....and gallop she did! We hadn't realized she was a speed demon and Eowyn couldn't keep up!

I took a few pictures to chronicle the fun before going inside to be with Shane.

The windows were up to get fresh air and I heard my name on the wind later. Abby was beside herself. All of her girl buddies were saddled up and she was all alone! The anxiety made her make a fool of herself.

Carrie asked me to stall here and close the curtain door.

I brought in Eddy to give her a buddy. He happily went to eating the remains of Pockets' hay while she marginally chilled out.

I went back to playing Legos with Shane. I was thrilled he showed an interest, so we made a concourse for his airport, a bridge, some mansions, and a bank, etc.

I went outside again when I heard horses squabbling through the window. 

The ladies stabled Pockets on the boy's side since Eddy was in his stall. They hadn't closed the curtain door and Magic and Pockets were acquainting themselves with each other!

Horses were a big part of the break, but we finally had board game time! Carrie and I finished Pandemic Legacy Season 0! It was worth the preorder. We played 5 Minute Marvel as a family several times, and Shane and I played a round of Horrified.

Shane spent a couple of hours looking at some of my Battletech stuff and asking questions, so we ended up playing a mission. One of my sourcebooks was for the animated series (that's canon as an animated series in the universe!). Shane was curious, so we looked it up on Youtube and watched some episodes. It's no masterpiece, but it was a shared moment.

The days blurred together, but Sunday rolled around. We saw highs of 70s early in the week and ticks became active again. The prediction for Sunday morning was mid to upper 30s, but it dropped into the 20s instead.

Laura was shambling around, so we did the majority of the barn chores. Carrie gave her 'das boot' to help and walked Ernie for her. Shane helped by playing announcer with Amy.

The sun warmed the air and it turned into a pleasant day with a high just over 60° F. Scott, Mark, and Hazel came over to grill and hang out!

We opened up a bunch of windows and the adults played 5-Minute Dungeon and The Crew while the kids curled up with tablets on the couch. 

And I didn't take any pictures. Can you believe that?

The one picture I have is from when we played The Crew. Carrie had a crazy hand and wanted to show us after the round.

I realized I didn't have any good kid pics as we were saying goodbye, but it was too late!

Landie came over an hour later. Shane 'babysat' her. They played hide-and-seek, Legos, and Shane read part of a Dogman book to her. There was a My Little Pony break in the middle, but Landie isn't the type to stay zoned out forever.

Carrie got jumped on by both kids multiple times! 

Shane got in a little trouble after his shoulder nailed her in the chest! "You're not that small anymore!"

It would've been nice if we could've had another playdate somewhere in the break, but double visits on Sunday was a strong finale. 

Have I mentioned I've enjoyed the break? Cause I did. I was productive, too. I wrote 22 blog posts over the span of 5 days! I didn't do any grading, but my students didn't do much over the break either. I'm as ready as I'll ever by for Virtual School on Monday and I hope they're in the same boat. There are three weeks to go until winter break. We've got to cover polygons, quadrilaterals, and basic circles before taking a couple of weeks off to forget it all!

Harvest Time (11/18)

I took Loki outside for his lunch time run, but the car he ended up "Go-go-go"ing for was not an ordinary car.

It was a much bigger boy. The kind of boy you'd hate to have tailgating you.

The harvesters showed up a couple of weeks ago. They took a few swipes of corn, packed up, and left. We weren't sure why.

They came back out in force today!

They brought a tractor and hopper to cart away the goods, too.

Big machines are cool.

The combines were as big, but, as crazy as it sounds, these would probably still be ranked as 'mediums' in the farm machinery world.

The horses were surprisingly calm. Well, except Magic. He flipped his tail, voided his bowels, and tried to get someone else to panic with him.

He settled down once he realized no one else cared.

They came out over a month later than last year. I don't know the significance of that, but the fields look similar now.

The combines had big light racks.

And they didn't stop when they sun dropped.

Or when it first got dark.

They stayed out and worked much later than I expected. Modern-day farming is an interesting life style.

They left the harvesters out in the field and slept in the next day. The ground was frozen when we went out for horse chores...

...but the corn guys didn't come back to their 'office' until near the afternoon.

They kept at it until they finished. It looks very different across the street...

...and behind the barn.

Carrie picked up an emptied cob to show me what the harvesters leave behind. 

And I showed all of these pictures to my classes. I think it's that interesting. I even wrote a blog post on it!

It got cold

It wasn't a surprise the weather turned cold. Maddy flipping her hay bag over the electric fence, so she couldn't eat was a surprise.

Mid-November mornings dropping below freezing? Par for the course. Maddy's had a thin skin of ice I broke through, so she could drink for the day.

We haven't had much freezing weather this year. Freezing weather means extra work. It's less comfortable to do the extra work in, too. We have to make sure water buckets aren't frozen, break ice when they are, and be vigilant about draining the hoses and water heater to prevent water freezing in them.

We ran out of propane early in the week. I had to haul down buckets of hot water from the house. Shane's bathtub is right next to the water heater, so the water heats quickly. It's a lot heavier than it looks to lug down to the barn, though.

Horse blankets are the other source of new work. Whenever the weather dips below a certain threshold (which varies depending on precipitation), the horses get blanketed. Most have two different blanks for different situations and some of them got new gear this year.

Laura got Ernie a new heavy blanket with a 'scarf' for his neck.

Carrie bought Eowyn a fancy, clearance blanket with a neck extension, too. Eowyn's clipped, so she's almost always blanketed at night.

The hope is that if properly blanketed the horses will stay warm, healthy, and eat a little bit less (They eat "to get their engine going" and stay warm).

As you might expect, the blanket situation changes with the weather. Carrie was out and I got the call to "Please change out Ernie's blanket" on my lunch break.

I'd swapped him into his light blanket and Ernie decided it was a great time to pee. 

He must have failed to appreciate what I was doing for him.

The blanketing situation is going to be on and off for the next several months. By the time spring rolls around, I'll be thrilled to put the blankets away and turn the horses loose on fresh grass!