WEG 2018!!!! And a neat product recommendation

I'm super excited!  Cheri and I are hoping to represent Stonewall Sporthorses and bring Gwyn and Nyx to North Carolina to the Tryon International Equestrian Center where the World Equestrian Games are being held.  It's a year and a half away, but planning needs to start! Woo!

Fuzzy bum

Snacks while I clean so they stay out of my hair

THE BEST ANIMAL PRODUCT EVER!

It's a curry comb glove.  I've heard from people with movement limitations like arthritis and ED that this is a great product for them because they don't have to grip a brush.  Our cats LOVE it.  Gwyn LOVES it.  Saffron is tolerant but she's really unsure of any grooming if she's not haltered and tied. Work in progress :)

You order it to size but I would recommend going up a size if possible. I'm an 8 usually and I ordered as such and it's a touch too tight for my personal preferences. My hand feels claustrophobic in this glove.  

Kaylee helping me.

"Mom, the small human is out there unattended. You sure?"

The tiniest human got her first floor time in the barn and had fun discovering hay. :D 

Kaylee helping feed.

Gwyn is such a fantastic critter with these kids.

Bye Goober! I have to go to work!

Fuzzy nose after our groundwork last week.

We learned kisses!

We've done some car shuffling since I started my job. As the truck is a lease I was putting miles on it WAY TOO FAST. So we pulled insurance off the truck, I got Eric's car and he got a nice new Volt, a hybrid electric.  So now I get to play "What fits into a Chevy Sonice from the farm store when you already have 2 car seats?"

Answer?

Definitely two, could have done 3 bags of pine shavings, a 50lb bag of horse feed, two 40 lb bags of pine pellets and a 40 lb bag of Stall Dry.

Farm store car tetris COMPLETE!

I couldn't see out the back though....

Safety first!

Weather Guesstimation

The big front pasture drains better than it used to... but we still have an ice skating rink.

I don't keep a hose attached in the winter (it's probably faster just lugging buckets, honestly)  But I can pretty accurately guess the temperature based on how easy it is to use this pump.  Does the handle lift easily? 25 deg F or warmer.  Is it a bit sticky? 15-25.

Do I really need to put my weight into it? Below 10.

Today it reached the 40s.  Everything is wet and my barn is flooded because the ground is still frozen enough that's there's no where for the water to go. Thank goodness the hay is off the ground.

It's also, thank you ridiculous weather, now a good time for maple sugaring. I am NOT ready! Noo!

Happy Solstice and Welcome Winter

Happy New Year as well!

We now have a facebook page, huzzah.

We had snow and the snow is gone. The weather was gorgeous for New Years weekend here in Michigan and we spent today outside with minimal outerwear. Temperatures are supposed to drop though, so it's back to deep freeze.

Saffron now has her own turnout sheet for those blustery wet cold days. Since the wind whips right across our property it seemed a good investment. I'd often see Gwyn out in the open without a care in her sheet while Saffron would be huddled by the tree line. Now they're both out.  These are just rain coats, if you will. Neither critter is clipped so they have their own fur for insulation. When the temperatures really dipped, poor Saffron was shivering, so I knew we were in need of something for her.

Eric got some pepper seeds for Christmas so we're sprouting them and have decided to set up a hard to utilize corner of our kitchen as a mini greenhouse. Seedlings will be moved downstairs and eventually into the aquaponics set up, since having the plants will increase our fish survival. Plus a coworker of Eric gave him a small fish tank so we can run a mini aquaponics set up and get some seed water for the larger set up.

We need more grow lights.  That's the TL;DR

Goals and To-Do List for the Farm in 2017
-Have a successfully cycling aquaponics set up: any size
-Regularly harrow the arena
-Replace and regrade the footing in the pens
-Spread manure in resting pastures
-Fix lawn mower
-Finish the drainage stream through the pasture
-Fix the drainage path from barn to stream
-Acquire wood chips for pathways
-Revamp play set (replace tarp, fix lean on the A-frame)
-Plan and plant front garden

Our christmas tree, still with root ball. It will be planted in the spring, until then, it's living inside!

Itty bitty but pretty!

We made our own plow for the driveway. It worked really well. I'll go more into that in another post.

Me dressing up to go feed dinner.

I added barn lights because my imagination was going crazy. I kept opening the door in the dark and turning on lights with my heart racing, expecting to see something waiting for me. Logically I know it's silly, but this helped.

Saffron's new blanket. 

Keep Saturn in Saturnalia!

Our stockings. The left one is mine, made by my grandmother. The other three were made by my mom for E, K and H. Hazel has the biggest stocking of them all.

Ranch Sitter for Christmas

We returned today to Michigan after spending a week with my family in Connecticut (part of which was 2 days of driving each way)  I hired a house sitter off of care.com and it was a rousing success. Our cats were only starved of attention, they had lots of food, water and a clean litter box when we arrived. My barn was clean of manure and an appropriate amount of hay had been consumed (I pulled bales down prior to leaving)

We got back to town just as the snow that heralded the freezing rain was starting. All the hooved critters were hiding in the barn, sensibly out of the driving, freezing rain. I was glad to see them and groomed Gwyn then snugged her up in a fleece cooler and rain sheet. If I had found her medium weigh she'd in that.   I'll pull it off her tomorrow, the temperature is supposed to warm up and she's been fine with just her winter coat. Apparently, though, she got herself trapped in the front pasture last night (the wind must have blown the gate closed) and it scared my farm sitter. I laughed. Because it's Gwyn.

In other encouraging news, the donkeys have fully embraced the stall guard as a protector of a sacred space that Gwyn cannot enter into. Arwen was a little hesitant at first to go under it but she figured it out on the second day of use.

I was going through video of Arwen from when we first brought them home and she has filled out SO MUCH!! She looks vastly different when you compare July/August to now. Hurray!

The critters before I left:

All the hay I pulled down aka let drop because I'm safe like that

"Mom, you're interrupting my dinner"

Taken today:

Frozen mud in Gwyn's tail. It's also in her fetlock feathers. I tried brushing them out but mid 20s F makes for difficult mud to remove. I definitely don't want to rinse in this weather so waiting for a thaw (i.e. tomorrow) is the plan

The fuzzy beast. She looks pretty good. No skinny critters on my farm!

FLUFFY PONEH!

Wrapped up snug and cozy.

The start of the icy rain. 

First snowfall!

I love how the donkeys have really warmed up and begun letting their personalities shine. I went out today to get them set up with hay and fresh water for the evening and as we're tossing down hay, Saffron comes in and just starts braying as loud as could be. Gwyn was standing in the stall, pressing against the door whickering and Arwen was watching expectantly.

I ended up tossing a few flakes of hay outside so I could work in the barn in peace. You can see their paths through the pasture in the snow. They're not staying in one place. They're fuzzy and warm, despite the snow and cold and are drinking plenty of water, so colic risk is low.  Obviously winter isn't over, it's only just begun, but I'm happy that things are going well so far!

I'm also really loving my hay pillow slow feeder. It keeps them eating consistently through the night and has lasted to abuse from Gwyn.  I started using a Tough-1 slow feeder at the same time and it's already destroyed (The brand name is a lie, this is the second product of theirs that hasn't lasted at all, the first was a water bottle holder that broke on first use!)  Gwyn discovered immediately she could eat from the top if I hung it low enough for the donkeys to also eat from. Then I tried hanging it high and it tore. Then I just hung it and said to hell with it and discovered the webbing had been chewed through, making a slow feeding just a regular feeder. Not impressed.  But my hay pillows. Those zip up and are durable, even with hay bits getting caught in the super heavy duty zipper all the time.

My one complaint is that the mini size pillow is a bitch to load hay into unless you break down the flake and make a mess.  But I'm making due. I wish there was a size between the standard and mini. Standard is perfect for Gwyn. I can fit 4-6 flakes in depending on my determination/laziness and I clip it low so she's still in a more ideal grazing position, rather than eating from an overhead hay rack. But high enough she won't paw at it and get a foot caught.

We weathered the storm well and got about a foot of snow, more than predicted. All of my cold weather prep worked great! The only last minute thing I needed was a long enough extension cord for the tank de-icer. The cord connection is now propped up, off the ground, so it won't get soaked in melt and there's plenty of water that's ice free and some that isn't in heated buckets that got a little slushy. One of the buckets was dry, and a few were down from yesterday when I filled them, so I'm happy to see they're drinking. No colic here!

I did check on them because in the back of my mind I was worried that no one was blanketed. But the donkeys seemed toasty warm, Gwyn was melting snow and her belly was totally dry and they had plenty of shelter to stand in and dry off out of wind if they needed. Obviously the temperatures weren't crazy low, but it's still good to see that Gwyn has a good enough coat (something I'm always worried about).  Since I'm not riding this winter I'm trying a low maintenance approach with her regarding weather. I'm keeping an eye on her, but otherwise not micromanaging. Everyone is barefoot and snow is packing in their hooves then falling out and not balling up. Hooray! So many things to think about with winter! Rate of hay consumption vs supply available sets us up well for the whole season as well. I'm going through a little less than a 1/2 bale a day. Keeping them eating keeps them warm. There are several eating stations as well so they keep moving. Now that my one slow feeder is toast I've pulled my hay net out of the trailer and I'll probably fill that and hang it outside on the hitching post for daytime munchies and use the hay pillows for nighttime into morning.

This was early in the day yesterday. You can no longer see any grass in the pasture or yard.

It was a sunny day today and everyone seemed happy! 

Paths through the pasture