Denim Deb Hay, hay, hay. Thank the Lord!

[Farmfresh]

I feel your pain.

My hubby took three days off last week, so that meant I had him underfoot for five straight days. He was in a horrible mood for the first two of those days. (His work is currently driving him crazy) So between staying out from under grumpy's feet and trying to work around his "vacation" schedule, I was struggling to accomplish anything last week. He is back to work today and I hope things will be going smoother there for him. This means that today I am going to be trying to play catch up. I still have this lousy cold, so let's see how that works out.

We round pen our horses free, so they all have learned to accept and respect the cues from a long longe whip. Now I can just point at them with my finger and they will all move back from the gates. My sister's horses are a HUGE pain. They either try to squeeze out the gates or just stand in front of the car and won't move! She has one big gelding that was blocking my path one time and I honked, yelled and even threw rocks at his butt but he still wouldn't move. Frustrated I finally rolled the truck carefully up and bumped him in the hindquarters! Finally that worked, but just a few steps at a time. Crazy stuff.

 

[Denim Deb]

I can move my horses w/no problem-when I'm NOT running a tractor! Well, I got a whole truckload of wood. There's still way more that I can get, but the chain kept coming off my saw. After the 3rd time, I said forget it. I can't figure out why it keeps coming off, and didn't really have what I needed to really look at it. I'm hoping I can get my hubby out there w/his chainsaw on Saturday. Even if he just cuts it, that would be good. I'm probably going to have to split it to even get it in the truck, so I can always go back and do that a little bit at a time.

 

[Denim Deb]

I am sooo tired right now, I can barely stay awake, and it's only 6:30! But, I'm getting a lot done. The wood rack in my basement is full. I shouldn't have to put any more wood in it this week since it's been so nice out, I haven't needed a fire. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I doubt I'll be able to do any wood. But, when I do some more wood, it will go in my wood shelter!

RU is still away. I didn't realize she was going to be gone so long. I thought she'd be home yesterday, but she won't be home until late tomorrow. Even though none of her horses were out of hay, I stuck some more out today. Both the mares and the geldings will need it tomorrow, and I didn't really want to be putting out hay in the rain. My guys needed it, so I stuck out a bale for them. I'm really getting low, but have been trying to let the puddle in front of the gate dry out B4 getting more. It makes it hard to get in and out of the field w/out getting stuck. But, in spite of the fact that we haven't had any rain for several days now, there's still a puddle. So, I guess I'm just going to have to call my hay guy and see when he can bring me out more. He has some larger bales for the same price, but it's a different hay. I'm going to see if he has more of them. My horses have been going thru a bale in 4-6 days instead of a week.

I had hoped to get the fence done on my field this week, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. There's also the possibility of rain on Thursday, and on Friday, I'm going over to where I used to work and giving her a hand for a couple of hours. Actually, this is working well. If she needs help, I come up w/a date and time that's good for me. Plus, she gives me old (black locust) fence posts, and old (oak) fence boards as well as any downed trees she doesn't need. She doesn't need to pay someone to come and get rid of the trees for her, and I get fire wood for nothing more than the cost of the gas to cut them up and some time.

I'm really progressing w/the house cleaning. The house was such a mess that it's taking me forever to get done. But, if I have done the amount I want by the end of the month, I'll be able to decorate for Christmas when I want to, instead of right B4 like I've done the past several years! And, I'm never in a hurry to take the tree down. I'll admit that I like having it up. I've thought of just taking the decorations off and leaving it up, but I don't think the family would go for that.

I've been taking pics of all my animals on my cell. Only problem being, I don't have a clue as to how to get them off of there so I can post them. I have pics of all the horses, the cats and the chickens. I still need to get them of the goats and the bunnies. Someone told me I could try to e-mail them to myself. It didn't work. I'm hoping I'll figure it out B4 long so y'all can see my "kids".

We were supposed to have a riding club meeting tonight at my tack shed. And, since it's so warm out, we were going to have a fire. I got the fire all ready to go. All I needed to do was add some newspaper, then light it. Well, only 1 other person could make the meeting, so it's been postponed. I'm not sorry since I'm so tired. I just wish it had been postponed earlier in the day. I had to run out there anyway because I didn't put the cats in for the night. So, I ran out and did that, plus I had 2 bags of trash to get rid of. I wasn't worried about the trash, but I did have to take care of the cats.

 

[snapshot]

Deb, as a photographer I used to leave my tree up and decorated all year (when I had my house). Never knew when someone would decide to do their Christmas photos. It was in a corner of my living room/ studio. I had a straw type trifold door around it and a matching color sheet over the top of it. It was barely noticable! I uncovered it on Thanksgiving eve!

 

[Gypsi]

Deb, as a photographer I used to leave my tree up and decorated all year (when I had my house). Never knew when someone would decide to do their Christmas photos. It was in a corner of my living room/ studio. I had a straw type trifold door around it and a matching color sheet over the top of it. It was barely noticable! I uncovered it on Thanksgiving eve!

Now that's an impressive system! Just bought a tri fold room divider at a garage sale, frame's good, cardboard's melting, figured I'd make something of it... this might be the something!

 

[Gypsi]

Deb,

Now I know why I don't have horses. Thought about a goat, glad I didn't, with no forage this year. That is a LOT of work.

Gypsi

 

[Denim Deb]

We've had too much rain this year, which in a way is as bad as not enough. I still see fields where they haven't been able to harvest the corn, and much of the hay was cut late. Since mid August, we've probably gotten close to the normal rainfall for the area for the year! If I could figure out a way to send it all south and west, I'd be more than happy to do so.

 

[Gypsi]

Hay is running about $135 a round bale here. I don't know where they are bringing it in from, but it's not local I'm pretty sure. Guess I'll go to your page and figure out what part of the U.S. you are in. To put things in context.

 

[Denim Deb]

South Jersey, about a half hour from Philly.

 

[Gypsi]

You ARE up north. I find it helps me to know what area a person is talking from, as far as gardening, or heat, etc. I learned to really do that on BYC . com, as the problems in the north, with chicken's feet freezing to their perch, were a lot different than I faced down here. Although when we had our record low temps last winter, those posts about water heating devices for chickens became suddenly relevant. I still have one to build, JUST IN CASE of a deep freeze.