Insulation, wiring, walls!!!!

Mike and I worked on the new kitchen yesterday.

The pocket door between the pantry and kitchen is installed. We decided where the next light was going to go in the ceiling and wired it in. We put up plywood on the walls. We even got out some paint to do a sample to see if we liked the color!!!

So, the next step is to build the cabinet where the sink is going to go and get the plumbing all ready. Then to put the wall in behind the new stove/range hood-microwave... it's moving along. Slowly, very slowly, but progress none the less!!!!

I can't wait to have my new kitchen in!!!!

My hubby can be so wonderful some times!!!

Also, got the divider put back up in the stall. Have rubber mats down. Just need to hang the bucket hooks and I'm all ready for Gus!!! The 3rd can't get here fast enough!

We have Babies!!!

I was walking out to the barn to do chores yesterday when I heard all this peeping and squaking. Peeping??? Peeping!!! Yes, we have 4 baby chicks. Mom is doing a great job! (I know, I know, for all you naysayers out there that said incubator hatched chickens won't sit on a nest and raise their own chicks.... I have 4 examples of how much that is NOT true!!!!)


So, Jeckyl, my little rooster man, who came all the way back from South Carolina with me two years ago is still strutting his stuff! He's a banty mix... the girls are golden comets, buff orpington (pictured), and silver laced wyandotte - a pair of each - there were 5 eggs out of 8 that hatched, but only the four made it.... so.....

We have babies!!! Yeah!!! It's so much easier having mom raise them than me doing it... and if they lay a batch each year in the spring ( I know, I know it was kinda late, but we have enough facilities to keep them warm and they will feather out before the cold weather gets here) we will have a whole flock!!!!

So, I went from 2 roosters; to 1 rooster and 6 hens; to 1 rooster and 11 hens; to 1 rooster, 11 hens and 4 BABIES!!!!!! My little flock is growing and we are getting about 6 eggs a day .. the teenagers will be laying by October so I will have about 9 - 12 eggs a day... wow.

We have babies!!!!!

Another day on the range...

I miss riding. I miss the quiet rustling of leaves, the soft thump of the horses hooves on the trail through the woods, the quiet squeaks of the leather of the saddle. The sun, sprinkled on the trail, through the leaves. The gentle breathing of the horse. The deer flashing through the woods. The quiet, quiet woods. No cell phone. No teenagers. No housework. No work. Only the spiritual communion between me, the horse and nature.

Sigh.

Just under three weeks.

I made a deal tonight with a friend for her horse that she is looking for a home for because she, sigh, has too many horses and has to sell one before she buys another one. Her over abundance is now my dream come true!

My new guy is a thoroughbred named Gus. He is between 10 and 13 years old. Only 15.2 hands. He is a quiet ride and they have used him to shoot off the back of for their cowboy mounted games! He goes out alone, he rides bareback, he gives HUGS!!!!!

Oh, I can so hardly wait!!!!

And my partner in crime, who I have been texting tonight, while growing and gathering my courage to let my wonderful, caring, loving, supportive husband (yes, I was buttering him up!!!!) said "You need a horse to ride. You are too stressed." may be going with me to pick him up.

YES!!!! YES!!!! Woooohooo!

So, in less than three weeks, Gus will come into my life. I can't wait. I've seen his pictures. He is such a sweet soul!!!

SO, now getting things ready and chomping at the bit until September 3 gets here, lol. Mike's birthday and I get a new horse!!! I'll have to convince him to ride with me now!!!

Hay, hay, hay....

The local hay guy stopped by today and left a note on my door... ?want hay?

Two phone calls later (my husband to the hay guy, my husband to me on my way home from work) we have hay showing up tonight. So much for working on the house. :(

We picked up our new stove and range hood/microwave last night and were going to install it in the new kitchen tonight. Not.

Instead, hubby got the hay elevator down from the hay loft and set everything up. Hay guy came, unloaded load of hay, got paid, went home.

At a bale a day, I now have 4 months of hay in the barn. So far. Thursday night, more hay!!!

Wonderful!

It's hell getting old...

Helped my sister, Sue and her husband, Dan, build a new porch on their house. The only casualty was my husband, Mike... who tried to catch some sliding sheets of plywood with his ankle. We iced him down and made him elevate it. This is 24 hours later. He's fine.. just left a great bruise on his ankle. It's not swollen today, even though he was on it all day long. He did listen to me and wear his boots to help with support and I had taped it with vet wrap to help support it. He's walking fine, today. He says the reason he's bruising like this is that he'll be an old man in a few months... 50 years old, lol!!!

Another 'Rescue' Up On Charges :(

Another email. Another newspaper/news article. Another horse rescue gone 'bad.'

How did it all go wrong? I'm sure it all started with a needy horse and someone who thought they could take care of it. I can see taking in one or two, maybe 4 or 5. But 33? 24? 11? 77? 112?

I, personally, don't know anyone that can afford more than 10 horses, max. The one couple who come to mind have grown children (out of the house), both have very good jobs (off the farm) and half the horses on their farm are boarders or are there for training. Usually it is only two or three horses or ponies, with at least one being a geriatric who is spending their last days in luxury.

How does it all go wrong? Do they just get up one day and loose their job? Their credit starts sliding with the farrier, the vet, the grain store? And, once it starts slipping, just keeps snowballing down a huge hill toward destruction? Don't they have anyone they can ask for help? Do we make it too hard for them to ask for help? Are we so busy counting the forests that we forget to take care of the trees?

I realize that all the rescues are swamped. Dogs, horses, cats, rabbits, birds, you name it. The economy - for some people - truly sucks. And they don't have the skills or resources to apply to another career to take up the slack for what they are missing.

Or, their donations dry up, again, because of the economy, or they don't have their 501c3 and they aren't a 'legitimate' rescue in the eyes of the IRS. Or they start skimping on things and the volunteers and people who support them bring their money elsewhere to someone else who does do the things that are necessary and required for their horses.

Maybe some of them do have illusions of grandeur and think that they are as rich as Bill Gates.

I would absolutely LOVE to have 10 horses. And a groom. And a barn manager. And a big new truck with a big new aluminum stock trailer with a dressing room in it. And a rich Daddy Warbucks who can pay for it all so I don't have to work, clean the house, take care of the kids, run the business and pay all the bills so I can just play with the horses all day long, every day.

I do what I can. With what I have. I work for my horses. Literally. My horse needs something? I do a few extra hours of work every week to pay for it. My husband, luckily, has a steady job. Not always working for the same person, but always seems to have enough work to keep the house and home afloat. Only one teenager left in the house. The oldest two are grown up, graduated and going about the business of their lives.

It would be very easy to take on three or four horses in desperate need and get in way over my head... not only financially, but emotionally and physically. I try very hard to keep my head and my heart in time with each other so as not to do that.

Ok, you don't remind me that we have Amos and Andy here. That is a very small scale compared to a horse. And Andy and Amos have had all their vetting done - with the exception of their dentals and neutering - before they came to me. And that will be done as soon as they have enough weight gained to make it safe for them. And that is only a matter of a few pounds, as opposed to a few hundred pounds with Tommy.

Taking on an emaciated pug is much cheaper and easier than taking on an emaciated Quarter Horse. I've done both in the last year. I have the vet records to prove it. The grain bill. The farrier bill. The hay bill. The worming bill. Amos and Andy are a cake walk. I can feed Amos and Andy for 4 days what it cost me (on average) to care for Tommy for one day.

But what makes these other rescues wait so long when they are in over their heads? And the animals start to suffer because of it? Do we make it so shameful to say "I need some help" that they wait until they have animals so neglected that they die??? Do they ask for help, and, because we are all in over our heads (or just treading water) that we tell them just to hang on because extending our hand to them or taking on another of their horses will pull us under, also?

I don't think we will ever have an answer to this question. I don't think (very sadly and unfortunately) that this will ever end. As long as we have animals, we will have rescues. As long as we have rescues, we will continue to find animals who are not being cared for properly and need to be saved. From a rescuer, from a regular joe, from a hoarder.

Not just horses. Not just dogs, cats or birds. It happens, continuously, with the human race. We can't even take care of our own children. Our neighborhood children. It's a very sad, sad world we live in these days.

Is it the fact that we don't necessarily have MORE problems happening or just more PEOPLE are willing to say that what they are seeing is wrong and needs to be fixed? I think the mentality of 'what happens at your house stays at your house' has changed (for the better) in the past 10 to 20 years.

Thank God for my snoring pugs under my feet, the ones that got another chance at life and love and happiness.

Now, off to bed so I can work, again, tomorrow!

Equine Shuffle...

The boys seem to be adjusting to the huge loss. They were able to put their noses on him while he was in the other pasture, after he passed. It was kinda nice to see them in a semi-circle around him before we covered him with the tarp. They stood there a few minutes and then seemed to nod their heads and go about the business of being horses.

Sultan needed a little encouragement to go to his new stall and Abner and Smokey just fell right back into the old routine of their stalls.

The Precious cat graced me with another rat today. She is so very proud of herself. She was just loving and purring to me while she was showing me her prize. Yep. It went out in the compost/manure pile. Yuck.

The barn seems much smaller without the big, large presence of Tommy.

It's therapeutic, though, to have to go back out there and do chores and hang out with the other horses. Yes, life is loss, sometimes. Then you have to hug the friends you still have and move on. Not forgetting, just making room in your heart for their forever presence.

Glad that tomorrow is the last day of the week. I don't have to set the alarm tomorrow morning.

I hope no one calls early. As Gus (my very large black lab) comes and lays his very warm, heavy head on my feet. They know I still need therapy. It is so nice to know I am loved.