Thursday, June 18, 2015

Swimming through Spring

It's been a bit so I figured I'd better check in.  Especially so I can show off the barn!  I did get the metal on it and I'm very happy with it!  I still need to finish trimming it out, but it's working great!!  At first the horses wouldn't go near it, but then one day I came home from work and saw both horses just standing in it.  Such a good feeling.  No worse feeling then putting a ton of effort into something, and then feel like the parties  you were supposed to be helping don't give a darn about what you did for them.  :)


Here she is!  I left one section open so that I could feed through it if I needed.

A view from the back.  I did add gutter on this side a few days after this picture.

So there you have it ... Stage 1 of my 3 stage barn is complete.

The baby geese I got earlier this year are now grown.  I think I will miss their baby squeaks.  the goose honks are now loud and present.  Geese are certainly wonderful watchdogs!

7 total geese now thanks to 4 grown babies

This spring has been the wettest I have seen in the 10 years I've lived here.  It rained constantly from April till June.  All the local ponds and lakes are full.  I sure am glad I got the barn done before the April showers hit.  That would have been one mucky mess I would want to avoid.  I think the news said that we have gotten more rain in the first 6 months of 2015, than we did in all of 2014.  It's been WET! 

The Farmer's Almanac
So this January I was at the local Tractor Supply picking up some stuff, and I saw the Farmer's Almanac.  I've seen these for years and never thought anything about them.  This year I decided to purchase one and see what it was all about.  It had some awesome reading in it.  Talked about when to plant crops,  best days to harvest, and all kinds of interesting stuff.  It also talked about the weather.

When I read this in January, it said that we would have a very wet year, with showers all the way into July.  Due to the past 10 years of near drought conditions, I laughed it off.  Well,  look who's laughing now.  That Almanac was right!  Pretty cool to see that it actually forcasted this year pretty good.  From this point forward, I'll be picking one of those up every year!

Pam
Last weekend I drove to my friend Bev's house and brought Pam home from her year of broodmare duties.  it was very good to see her and get her home.  Turns out that she is past her breeding years.  She tested positive for a pregnancy 3 times in the past year, but when they went to ultrasound the baby, there was nothing.  The vet found some things that are not ideal, and so it pretty much means that Pam's breeding days are behind her.  She's just going to have to get used to being a work horse now.  :)  I'll try and catch a picture of her.  The horses are currently feasting on my in-laws/neighbors delicious pasture grass and so they don't come back up that often.

I plan on doing as much driving as I can in the next month.  I have some stuff going on towards the end of the summer that is going to limit me and my abilities.  This means I'm going to try to get in my horse fun now, while I'm still up and working well.  I'll post pictures as I do.  :)