Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving Ride

No photos today. I had the camera in my pocket and then it disappeared. Its in the house, but I don't know where I put it.

This morning hit -8F. I was very glad that kid #2 was not in a fun run/Turkey trot like we had been planning on. I never found out where and when it was. Belle and Foxy are back in the same stall/run because Belle has a 100 gallon stock tank with a plug heater. Foxy's stock tank doesn't have a plug and she plays with everything, so I don't want a floating deicer. It was either fork out another $120 for a stock tank and plug heater or just put them in the same stall and leave Lady on the other side of the barn with a heated bucket. (Foxy drinks too much for a bucket heater and she plays with the buckets.) The forecast said that Wed and Thursday were supposed to be super cold, so Monday, I dug out the one blue heated bucket that wasn't cracked to see if it worked, and Tuesday, I ran into town and picked up 2 new heated bowls for poultry and two heated water bottles for bunnies. They worked even in negative temperatures, which is so much better than last year. With less manpower, it is just worth it to spend the money on heaters.

We are down to 3 horses, 7 rabbits, 5 cats, 1 dog, 2 turkeys, no pigs (yeahhhhh!!!!), 3 active roosters, two roosters slated for the freezer, three unknown chicks(too young for me to figure out male and female) and a bunch of chickens(two silver laced wyandotte, two silver cochins, two buff orpingtons, four ameraucanas, 3 really nice barred rocks, 1 ok barred rock, 1 ugly, pathetic barred rock, 1 really ugly golden laced wyandotte, 1 rhode island, two black sex linked, two black sex linked crosses (ameraucana or rhode island, I don't know, and the roosters from the same nest have different dads, so these two might as well. When the eggs start coming, I might know, green or brown, but it doesn't really matter)

So after feeding this morning, we turned the ponies out for some much needed stretching. It gets dark so early that they haven't been turned out much lately. Lady is a fuzzball. She is in a really awkward stage and her conformation looks like an gawky teenager. Her run has a gate that she can see over when we come down to the barn and she waits there until we hit the wood deck and then she run into her stall to stick her head out of her stall. I need to measure her again because when they were out today, she looked almost as tall as Foxy. I think that it was just the angle because when I was ponying her today, she didn't seem too tall.

After all of the cooking and gorging, the temp was finally up to 30F, so Kids #1 and #2 and I went out to saddle. I was going to ride bareback until I decided to take Lady, too. I don't like to hang onto her and Belle at the same time because, with my luck, Belle would be obstinate at the same time Lady threw a fit and I would fly off. I rode Belle with Kid #3 and ponying Lady. Kid #2 rode Foxy. Mr. BPA and Kid #1 rode Mr. BPA's christmas present, the little green machine (an ATV). I love the fact that the horses don't care about the ATV. They went past and zoomed around on other trails and met up with us with no horsey freakouts. We trotted a little, walked alot, just enjoying ourselves. I dismounted just as the sun was hitting the mountains. Belle was the only one that was sweaty and not really bad. Lady had been dragging back and not wanting to go home since we turned off the trail, so Belle had been pulling on her. Belle was dry before I put her back in her stall, but I blanketed her anyway, since it is supposed to be super wind chill cold again tonight. Dusk was full on by the time we finished feeding, and I am sitting, eating my pumpkin and mince slices of pie as I type.

Not a bad way to spend the day.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

November greys

The new bunnies are here. They are pretty cool, too. (But not really grey. They are Silver Foxes, Black with white)
Here is Snow White.

.and Sinister.

Sinister really is bigger than he appears. I need to take him over to get him weighed when I have a spare minute, but one of our vehicles had the thermostat go out and we have not had time to try and get it into town to get it fixed. I have been riding the atv to work or walking. That is pretty cold when it is between 9-20 degrees outside. I would take Belle, but she needs to eat breakfast and I would worry about where to put her at school. Once I can set up a place, then I might take her. They tore down the barn at the K-8, but even that wouldn't help because I wouldn't want to leave her over there when I am at the high school. The high school has a field, but it is not enclosed. I need to take in some panels and I haven't had time for that, either. The ATV mostly works. Hopefully better now that it has been tweeked for Wyoming weather instead of St. George weather. We have a trailer for hauling hay and cleaning stalls.
Today, a neighbor came over with his tools and we fixed fence. The cows had kept coming through it and eating the haystack. It was waking up Mr. BPA (the haystack is right by our window), and he was getting sick of getting up in the cold and now he IS sick. The fence is now fixed, but these are pretty big cows, we might have to fix more fence later.

The water is all gone. We have an ugly mess. Since it took so long for the water to go down, it did not have any time to grow grass again. Hopefully next year will be better.


Compare to 5 months ago.