Catch-up

We're all caught up!
John and I rolled 12 of the 16 round bales that were delivered last weekend into the hay barn yesterday. When unloading them from the big delivery trailer they often land on their flat side. When it comes time to relocate them into the safety of the hay barn we have to flip them on to their round side, and man, is it hard! These bales weigh about 750lbs! It's especially difficult to flip a bale when you're laughing... And then add in the extra challenge of a gaping whole eaten out of the core by two fat donkeys. It's hard to roll an uneven round bale!

But we managed to roll them into the hay barn, cover them with tarps, and drag the remaining 3 bales to their new pastures. None of the pastures were actually out of hay, but the horses still think 'new' hay is sooo much more exciting than that 'stuff' they've been eating for five whole days.
Pokey and Tav were very polite when we had to drag through their pasture and out the back gate to bring Pasture 5 a bale. They both minded me when I told them to "keep back". But as we raced to get into Pasture 5 before the boys noticed, they started galloping towards us! "FOOD!"
John and I have this routine down pat and the horses have finally started to realize that they are not allowed to eat the hay as we're unloading it! We keep them away from the drag for safety reasons, but also don't want them taking a bite out of the bale netting.

I stripped 6 stalls yesterday - removing almost everything from Pokey, Tie, JW, Betsy, Dancer, and Shellie's stalls. Then we brought two enormous truck loads of shavings and divvied it up among the freshly cleaned stalls.
I spread about 15 loads of old shavings around the area along the path towards the hay barn. It's hard to say when an area is 'at capacity' for being used to spread manure, but I plan to start spreading elsewhere soon. But now that the area is all cleared of brush I will be making it into a play area! Barrels, cones, tarps hanging from the trees - this is going to be fun! Perfect for doing your Natural Horsemanship training and bomb-proofing.

A special thanks to Alex for picking up several wheel barrels of manure from the pastures! I love to see a pasture without piles of manure in it - the way it should be!

If you're interested in working off a portion of your board, consider joining us on a "work day". Stay tuned!