A non equine catch up post

 There is always something going on around here. Fun stuff like a new batch of kittens to try to socialize; Misty had another 3 kitten batch, same as the last- 2  females and 1 male. My neice decided to take all 3 which is nice; they will be all together and be endlessly entertaining! 

Simon

Sassy

Shumai

They will leave on July 6. I almost kept Sassy....

Ted built me an enclosed garden for my perennials. 

The start of the project

It isn't really big, but it is plenty big enough for my 2  roses, and several other perennials, like the 2  scabiosa ( pincushion flower) that I decided to buy after seeing them on the 4R ranch blog. 

   

A work in progress- we dug out the sod with the tractor and brought up a big bucket of composted horse manure, perfectly composted into topsoil. He built me a gate on that right side.

Time to add the wire mesh...

And done! I planted 2  Jackmani clematis to grow up the old garden gate that I found lying around and attached to the wall. 

Done just in time, as we had a half dozen muley bucks stroll through the yard. 

Hope that last one is still here in hunting season!

Last Friday I had cataract surgery on my right eye, what a difference! Who knew colors are so vibrant! Looking through my other eye now is like looking through a dirty window, so I am looking forward to getting it done soon too. Meanwhile I am not supposed to do much bending, lifting or working in a dusty environment so doing horse feet will have to wait another week. Rally and Patsy were really coming along well with trimming so I need to get back to that asap. 

Time

 Look what my creative and talented husband made for me!

Those were rusty old hames that you couldn't tell had brass tops. He wire brushed everything to clean it up- that took days! The horseshoes are unused, a front shoe and a hind shoe, and we had the decal of Beamer made at a local shop. The clock mechanism is battery operated.  The leather straps are original to the hames, cleaned up and reconditioned. I love it!

I managed to get the foaling pen cleaned up, still a bit of ice here and there but it's melting fast. The bonus to living on a sandy based farm is that the water soaks in quickly and we don't get a lot of mud. The puddles go away within a day as the ground thaws. With today being the vernal equinox, I hope this next blast of cold and snow flurries that are predicted won't amount to much. The mares are out pawing every day and ignoring their hay - they snack on the hay in the morning and evening but spend the day out in the field. 

Velvet is huge, but not bagging up yet. As soon as she does I will start bring her in at night to the foaling pen, but foal watch will be when she shows other signs of being close to foaling. Sure hope we get decent weather in April!

Misty the Siamese female barn cat didn't catch when she was bred in November as was evidenced by her being in full raging heat last week and having all the tomcats vying for her favors. They pursued her for a week, then poof they were gone. So we expect a litter mid May. 

Hahaha looks like her head is on backwards, but she's just cleaning off the tomcat spit.

More projects done and what the heck is that

 At the close of the day yesterday we were blessed with a spectacular sunset. 

2 more of the winter projects were done yesterday; we borrowed the landlady's Bobcat and now we have clean corrals. I moved Beamer to the round pen while his pen was cleaned. 

Definitely the right machine for the job!

He has gained back the weight the lost during breeding season- thanks to a beet pulp/oats mix. I like to add oats to the soaked beet pulp as it forces them to chew and not just gulp it down. 

We also got the straw in and now the mares have a deep bedded shelter to lay down in. 

So far, Belle is the only one who lays in the straw, the other 2 mares couldn't care less. 

Now to the "What the heck is that" part...

The other day I noticed that Beamer's bottom lip was hanging down, so I took a closer look. 

I wasn't prepared for what I found. 

Yes, it is some kind of tumor. We have a vet appointment for Friday. They need to determine what type of tumor it is to see how to proceed. I have several concerns about that, especially if it is indicative of tumors anywhere else in his body. I will keep you updated. 

So far it doesn't seem to be bothering him; he has a good appetite and is in good spirits. I'm hoping for a simple removal and be done with it. 

Done and done

 Got a couple of things done in the last week; painting done in the living room dining room and kitchen- finished. Landlady picked up 3 more gallons for us for the hallway, master bedroom and bathrooms....

Also got the curtains sewn up and installed, looks much more homey now. 

And- I settled on a name for whatsername. 

I will continue to greet her every morning as Hello Beautiful, but-

Umm yeah not the kind of butt....

Hello, my name is Ruby. 

In and out

March came in like a lamb and went out like a lamb, as is usual here. What a beautiful sunny day today!

I managed to get a moon shot this morning as the waning gibbous moon lowered into the western sky.

I must say, I am happy with the moon setting on my camera!

Then I turned around and looked to the east and caught the lovely morning colours.

No editing needed there! It was breezy today but warm with it. 

Ted was busy today, he installed a pump in the well for our personal use, namely the horse water and any other water use we may need at the barn, like horse baths or washing vehicles. It is powered by a generator he bought with his tax return.

Ain't she a beauty?

Now we don't have to bother the neighbours with using stuff that goes on their power bill. It will get a fair bit of use this year as Ted is building me a "cabin" for my camping out adventures at foaling time.  More on that as it progresses; I will wait until it looks good and then do a full post on it.

Meanwhile, Beamer and Jayne are doing great; enjoying some time in the grazing  paddock every day and soaking up the sunshine. 

Sadly, our gestapo  government decided to shut everything down again, so no Mass in Church for Easter. I expected that. Everything- restaurants and bars, sports etc. I am so tired of all this. 

The winter water tank

If you recall, I mentioned that Ted was going to build me an insulated water tank for the winter. 

He got it done just before this cold snap hit, and I am sure grateful to have it!

In typical Ted fashion, it took him a while to complete the job because he was being meticulous and planning carefully. 

Basically it is a white plastic 45 gallon drum (purchased from the car wash and thoroughly cleaned to remove any soap residue) laid on it's side, on a base of 2x3 lumber with insulation between the lumber, and insulated with blue board all the way around it. For the drinking hole, he utilized the plastic where he made the cut as 2 of the sides, and added 2 more plastic pieces for the other 2 sides.

They are flex-taped on the underside to prevent leakage. (Flex tape really does work! It get's a thumbs up from Ted!) The plywood top is covered with a sheet of aluminum and the edges of the hole which were folded over are siliconed to prevent any sharp spots. Then he added wooden strips along the top to hide and protect where the tin was fastened. 

Guess who had to be the first to try it out! It has no sharp spots to injure nosy horses.

It is also up off the ground so that ground frost won't affect it. 

So far, it is working well; it has less ice than the other water tubs; the opening is plenty big for mature horses to drink from ( it's 15 inches square) and I can get my sieve in there to scoop out the ice I break. 

The cost to build it came in around $60. We used as much free material as we could; to buy all the supplies new we would have to add another $250 due to the current high cost of lumber, plywood and aluminum. 

We saw

Busy place around here with the sawmill going. Took Gussie for a little bareback ride to check it out in action

.

The guys had cut down a few trees that had fallen with a bit of debris on the dyke so I rode up there to check it out, and look what we saw. 

Wait for it....

Pretty cool for this time of year!

The other day when they first set up the sawmill I took Beamer down to check it out; there were a couple of little kids there with their dad and the girl got to get her first ever time on a horse and ride on his handsome self. I didn't get a photo but her dad took a few. The little boy was funny, he declined to ride, saying "maybe when I'm 9 I'll ride ".... hahaha his sister is 9.

Beamer, of course was perfect for the little girl.

Riding day 56 & 57

Winter projects

It's kinda nice that December is starting off mild. Since I am not using stock tank heaters at this point, I don't have to deal with a lot of ice on the water tanks yet. I have been trying the salt water bottles with limited success.

I have been using pop bottles, I think they are tougher plastic than the milk jugs. I started putting them in before it got to freezing hard because I wanted to see if a certain little busy body would think they were toys and try to grab them out and play with them. But to my surprise he didn't. 

I was visiting a friend and here is what her winter set up looks like:

The tank is inside one box and surrounded by styrofoam, and then a larger box built around that with spray in insulation. You can't do a spray insulation around the stock tank itself because you need to be able to remove it to clean it. She does have an electric heater in hers, and this set up would probably reduce the amount of electricity needed to keep the water at the temperature of the thermostat on the tank heater.

Ted picked up some plywood to start this project, hopefully he will get to it soon. He has a few other things on his agenda right now. We have a friend with a portable sawmill and they have been busy falling danger trees at a friends place as well as a few trees here to be cut up for lumber. We will get some of the lumber for a few projects. 

I rode Gussie down to where they felled the danger trees- check out the size of these cottonwoods.

They have been cut into 16 ft. lengths. That should be some nice lumber! 

Riding day 55

Done and done!

The shelter is done and horse approved. All made from locally sourced material, from the repurposed pipe for the skids to the locally cut lumber and tin from a locally owned hardware store. Ted and his friends worked on it on the weekends as they had time and I sure do appreciate them giving up their free time to help get this done. I did make a video of it's progress but it's over 12 minutes long so not really worth putting on here, but here are photos of its progress.

 The laminated beams installed

 The back header is on, and working on the front headers

Moving it with a skid steer to finish it on site 

 On site at its location in the mare pen

Installing the facing spacers

 Ran out of lumber to finish the roof joists, had to wait another week.....

Roof trusses and facing all done and roof strapping on

 The tin is going on!

Last sheet!

The horses are now moved and little Moondance just had to do laps around his new pen!

6 ft walls

Everyone in place

There is still some finishing work to do- end caps for the pipe, bevel the edges on the walls, trim the last sheet of tin where it ran off a bit on the end,  and remove the pipe that was welded in the center of the floor as a brace for moving the building. But -dang! I have one skookum tough shelter! It measures 13 x 22 ft.

Have some more gravel to put in then the rest of the mats will go down.

Nearly done!

We are a day late getting the shelter done, the tin goes on today. The last wall and the strapping on the roof were done yesterday before the beer clouds rolled in.... 👀

Moondance continues to delight, and I just have to video his antics.

He sure is athletic! I think his career could be in Working Cow Horse, roping and/or barrel racing. I had to laugh yesterday, he was herding a bird on the ground, one of those cowbirds that sit on the horses; it was hopping around and he was following it.
Gussie and Belle have been together for a while now and later today will get the mare pen back.

You've been promising that for a week, what's the hold up!

Once all the tin is on, I will put together a video of the building of the shelter from start to finish.It's quite impressive!

Stay tuned - next Saturday I will have a surprise!

Still in the Belley

The waiting continues. I have my spy camera to keep an eye on Belle when I am not at the barnyard.

The view from the spy cam

I have a bed of straw for her outside of the shelter to encourage her to foal out there, then after foaling I bed the shelter for mama and baby. The shelter can be closed up with a panel and gate as needed. She sleeps on the straw at night, with much groaning as her belly is huge right now. I still think not as big as she was with Eli, though.

Gussie is in heat, and Drifter is beside himself trying to figure out why she smells so good but doesn't know what to do about it. Lots of butt sniffing and lip curling but that's about all. I will separate them soon and on her next heat will see if we can help him figure it out. I think separating them will help, because Gussie is getting impatient with him and chases him off when he gets too pestery. She's like, Just hurry up will you!

It's ok Drifter, you'll figure it out eventually.

Meanwhile, the shelter for the mare pen is making progress; the main structure was moved in yesterday, but that's another post. It will be a week or so before it is finished and ready, as the roof needs to be framed in as well as the side walls, but here is a sneak peak :

All that cross bracing will be taken off, it was just to stabilize the structure for moving as Ted had to build it up by the shop so he could use the welder. This is 20 ft. long and 13 ft. wide, lots of room for the horses! The front is 12 ft high and the back wall is 8 ft. high, and it's all made out of rough cut lumber from a local mill, with the skids being recycled 6 inch gas line pipe.

I moved Gussie and Drifter into the pen that adjoins the foaling pen until this shelter is safe for them to use.