getting hay on a friday evening

Last night I joined my husband in his weekly trip to get our round bale of hay for the week. The moon was gorgeous up in the evening sky, and the road out to the hay farm was quiet and still. All along the way we saw herds of deer coming out of the woods in various open areas, grazing like horses that belonged there.

When we pulled up to the hay grower's house, he had our round bale skewered on his machine, and my husband pulled up so M. could simply back up and place it in our truck.

M. came out, and I went in to see if they had any eggs for sale this week. E., his wife, took me over to the little original farmhouse they've refurbished and use for their sales of eggs and certified organic beef. She made me up a nice dozen of what she calls her "top shelf" eggs - those that had irregularities in the shell and are thus not sold. She said those were the eggs for "sharing."

She told me the eggs come from the "Run Around Ladies" - who are free to forage at will, and thus the eggs are full of flavor and very rich.

M. pressed an entire collard green plant into my husband's hands, and invited us back in to sit by the woodstove while E. worked on dinner, husband wrote the check, and the dogs lay like black and white rugs on the warm floor.

I talked with M. about getting some hay to send off for an equine analysis. He had graciously given me his results, done for the nutritional profile for cattle, but I needed a few more minerals analyzed for the horses. He showed me the hay probe, and said he'd get the sample ready for when we come next week, so I can send it off. I offered to give him a copy of the results, so he can share it with any other horse customers who might be interested.

Every time I go out there I feel like I've entered an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. It's a way of life I value and wish we had more of, where the things we need come from people we know, and the exchange works for the good of both.

quiet end to a chaotic week

The sun came out yesterday, and the winds died down, and horses and donkeys were quite happy to get out again. I ended up opening the front and back fields, spreading hay in both, and letting them march from one end to the other enjoying the nice weather.

It is not totally dry but the extreme mushiness is gone and we're back to the regular version. Hopefully today's full sun will continue the process of drying things out.

Yesterday afternoon we did an interesting thing. My daughter and son agreed to come up with meals for 3-4 days, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks, and do the shopping while I sat in the Starbucks with a Caffe Mocha.

I thought they would come back with questions, but they went through the store aisle by aisle, and ended up with a well-thought-out cart full of very good and healthy food. I was impressed.

Last night we had baked ham, mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, and a lovely salad. For dessert we dipped strawberries and butter cookies into melted chocolate. It was a wonderful way to transition back to colder nights. The horses are back in blankets and Salina is in her knee warmers. The wood stove is going, and I'll have to bundle up to feed breakfasts, but at least we have sunshine!

Last night I ordered a small mesh hay net for each stall. I'm hoping to keep horses stocked for the entire night, reduce mess and wastage of the loose hay, and keep them busy chewing. Best price for these nets is at Smith Brothers, if anyone needs one.

Good friend, writing mentor, and bold writer Peggy Payne has a birthday today. Go over and say happy birthday, and soak in some of her exuberance and boldness. One way she's celebrating her birthday this year is taking an apartment in NY for a month to write, an idea that makes my skin tingle with excitement. It's not something I could do at this point in my life, but isn't it grand that I'll get to anyway, vicariously, through Peggy?

I'm taking my bold full week of writing later this month, and I can't wait.

Today is full of laundry, feeding the wood stove, dashing to town for a lunch with H., and reminding myself to embrace the sunshine with each slightly less mushy step I take out at the barn.

assorted and sundry

We had sunshine this afternoon, lots of wind, reportedly a stunning double rainbow, and then a terrible hour of wind and rain that blew so hard and so steady I stood in the barn with the horses so I could deal with a crisis if one happened.

A lot of folks have had trees come down today, and I am never sure which is safer for the horses - pasture (with trees and electric lines and fences and blowing objects) or the barn, where they could be trapped if something fell in. Our vet says if the barn is solid, keep them in. I let the geldings have stall doors open, and I stood in with Salina and the donkeys.

They are all so good. The pony helped me hold the flashlight with his teeth. They stood quietly and the geldings watched the roaring wind out back. At one point, after dark, there was a big boom and the power went out. I had prepared for that by filling all the water buckets earlier, and I had the big flashlight. I discovered that I can hold the handle along with the rake handle while mucking, a sort of "muckrake headlight."

Fortunately the wind began to slow a bit and we had power back within two hours.

This was the odd light that came right before the dark skies, hardest wind, and rain blew in.



And while uploading that one, I found these from last week, that I'd forgotten all about. The stare down!



Salina modeling her new knee warmers. I highly recommend these - although a bit of an effort to get on and off, they are warm, can be easily doubled to make extra layers, and they stay where you put them w/o being too tight. They also wash and dry back to perfection. You can find them online by Googling Whinny Warmers.



And, more donkey play. Rafer likes to be the Boss Donkey. Redford seems to be just fine with it.

yesterday was so chaotic I thought it was monday!

It was Tuesday.

Today it's raining, still more, and the wind has blown in. I'm glad for the wind's help in drying things out as the rain clouds leave, but with the ground so saturated, I'm worrying about big trees coming down.

It looks like we'll have some sunshine by tomorrow morning, and hopefully on through the week.

It feels impossible that today is Wednesday, like time has gone out of whack completely.
The funny thing is, there are calendars everywhere here and I still don't know what day it is!

I'll try to add some photos later in the day.

slightly chaotic monday

It was raining. The back gate was left open by accident. All the geldings were soaked to the skin when I got outside to feed breakfast. Massage therapist was due in an hour.

I got them in, fed them breakfast, closed the stall doors, mucked while they ate hay, and then came in and got cleaned up to get my hot stone massage first, in hopes that they would dry out.

One Corgi climbed into H's hot stone case. The other one tried to leap onto the freshly made massage table. Mystic-kit played music on the table cords with his paw.

I was telling a story about Dickens E. Wickens when the door burst open. It was Dickens. H. shut the door back and continued. By this time there were two dogs and two cats in the room with us.

Mid-massage, I heard my kids. "Keats! What IS that?" Keats the cat had brought in a bird, which was upstairs in our tree. The rest of the cats ran up (H. had to open the door again to let Mystic and Keats out) and chaos ensued. H. asked, "What do you want to do?"

"Just keep massaging," I said.

The kids opened the upstairs windows and the bird eventually flew to safety.

After my massage, I went out to help get the horses set up. Cody was being very antsy, so I ended up holding him. The pony was nervous about the hot stones, as it was his first time with them. I ended up holding him.

Keil Bay stood at his stall door and quite literally begged for a massage the entire time. The donkeys propped their little velvet noses on the stall door across the aisle and begged to come out. Salina knew it was not her turn for massage and she munched hay and kept an eye on the donkeys.

Keil Bay eventually managed to let himself out of his stall and into the barn aisle, where he stood gazing at the big bowl of hot stones.

H. brought me a bitless bridle to borrow and we tried it on Keil Bay. All the buckles had to be put to the last holes, his head is so big. He loved modeling the bridle. He was somewhat upset when we removed the bridle and he did not get that massage he wanted so badly.

Alas, it was still raining so no trial ride today.

H. and I decided that our word for 2009 is "balance."

H. made the very astute statement that perhaps mine is "balance w/o symmetry."

H. sent me in to take a hot bath with epsom salts to get warmed up.

While I was in the bath, jets going full blast, the power went out. It came back on.

All chaos aside, though, it's been a great day.