Monday, May 14, 2018

We Missed a Season

So apparently Missouri just isn't doing spring this year? We jumped basically straight from winter into summer, with only a week of nice temps. Which means I'm going directly from complaining about the cold/rain to complaining about the heat/humidity. #sorrynotsorry
We had a visitor to the chicken coop this weekend!
But at any rate, I had a shockingly productive weekend! Saturday morning DH and I ran some errands in the morning, including buying some plants for landscaping purposes. The weather was reasonably comfortable up until about 2 pm, so we knocked out some planting and general farm beautification, including planting some bushes in front of the tack shed, mowing, and weedeating.
We finished up before it got sweltering, so I grabbed Cinna for a short ride. I ended up not setting up the Pixio because the sky looked vaguely threatening, but it didn't end up raining on us (which I have mixed feelings about because we REALLY need the rain!). Cinna was a superstar for our ride. I noticed in some of the previous Pixio video that my reins were consistently too long, so I focused on keeping them short and keeping my hands forward and following.
Grumpy sweaty baby horse
We had some really good moments! Mostly walking, but we did trot and canter a few circles as well. At the walk we did a lot of changes of bend, and practiced stopping off just my seat (which she is a rock star at, so always nice for her to practice something she's good at, haha). It was growing hotter and more humid by the moment, so I ended the ride after 20 minutes of solid good work so I could hose her off.
Got this winning shot after her bath, haha
And of course she promptly found a dirt patch and rolled. THANKS CINNA.
Another part of the reason I kept the ride fairly short is that once I pulled Cinna out of the pasture, Jack started running the fencelines 🙄 Ughhhh. Some of you long-time readers may remember his scary bout of anhidrosis a few summers back. Careful management and supplements have kept it pretty under control since then, but I also worry about him the first hot snap of the year, and obsessively check him for sweat.
Not the best angle, but he was SOAKED. 
On the plus side, he is definitely sweating. On the negative side, he ran himself into such a lather I had to pull him out to hose him off too -- he sweated through his fly mask... Gross! But he clowned around throughout his bath and obviously was having a great time. I need to work on a post about some of his management changes, but that's for another day! Saturday afternoon there was a local fun show I considered hauling Ruby over to, but I ended up staying home hiding in the A/C. No regrets on that front though, haha.
Sunday was another busy day. We started out by kicking the momma and baby goats back outside. They'd been living in a stall all week because momma goat was ambivalent about keeping an eye on her babies and feeding them, so forced interaction helped remind her of her duties, and let them bond a little. After she went back outside, I stripped and rebedded stalls, scrubbed all the stall water buckets, scrubbed and refilled all the outdoor troughs, and cleaned/hung up all the stall fans. We hadn't been stalling the horses last week (since the goat meant we were down a stall), but with the heat wave I knew that had to change. Once everything was set back up, the horses got to come back inside and hang out in front of their fans, which they love 🙂 switching to night turnout is my favorite!
The girls
Jack's handsome old mug
Ruby wondering where the cookies are
Cinna can only have an open door when I'm in the barn supervising, because she and Ruby tend to have... "disagreements". Mares
We accomplished so much Sunday morning that I was pretty wiped out, which ended up working out as we had to spend a few hours doing mother's day things with both my and DH's mom. My mom came over for dinner and we had a really good time watching All the Queen's Horses. It's a super interesting documentary about a woman who embezzled 50+ million dollars from a small town in Illinois and funded a lavish livestyle showing Quarter Horses. Definitely recommend watching it, it was fascinating!
Mom also got to snuggle with her grand-"kids"
Did you have a nice mother's day weekend? Tell me something good! I switch to summer hours this week so I have good intentions (don't I always?) of getting in more consistent riding and blogging groove!

22 comments:

  1. You always have such productive weekends. I spent mother's day photographing a horse show, so this week will be all about catch up, photo editing and sneaking out to the barn because a friend loaned me a saddle to try and a bag of bits!

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    1. We had productive periods but there was also some lazy couch time -- it's all about balance, lol. Oooh, yay, new saddle and bits, that sounds like fun! 😀

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  2. oh man, we had a couple days in the high 80s and low 90s and seriously nobody here was ready for it. at all. luckily it's cooled back down a little bit again!

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  3. We seem to have skipped spring also! I have pictures from Apr 24th that show snow still on the ground. Today it was 80 degrees, which is more like July weather for us. My poor horses haven't fully shed out yet!

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    1. That's crazy! We had snow 3 out of 4 Sundays in April, and then jumped basically immediately to 90 and humid, gross.

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  4. Yeah no spring here either. WTAF

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    1. Haha now wait, you had spring for that ONE DAY in April ;) I remember it!

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  5. We're actually having spring and I'm loving it. It sounds like a very productive day! I think that if I ever embezzled money it would be to support my horse habit.....

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  6. it was 70 yesterday here but the humidity was up to a million? WTF...seriously...and of course we have had a lot of rain so it resembles a rain forest here right now along with the moistness of the environment. UGH..

    And DOUBLE UGH ON the snake in the coop. This is why i have never had chickens etc at home. We have so many foxes and snakes around here and we live in TOWN!...

    That documentary i remember when that all happend Rita someone right? I will have to look for it.

    LOVE THE BABY GOATS OMG SO CUTE...

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    1. Yeah, Rita Crundwell. It was super interesting! I have AQHA friends so I remember when it happened.

      And yes, the baby goats are SO CUTE, I get nothing done now cause all I want to do is snuggle them, haha.

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  7. Sounds like a really productive weekend! I'm jealous of your hot weather. It's still cold here. And seems to be raining every day. Kinda depressing. Though since riding is off the table, I'm less bothered by the rain!
    Ewwww to the snake in the coup, but I'm glad it was a friendly black snake and not something worse!

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    1. We were getting scary dry, but thankfully a storm popped up yesterday afternoon and gave us a good soaking!

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  8. It was 92 here yesterday, wtf Indiana?! I guess spring is just not a thing anymore.

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    1. I guess I'm glad we're all suffering this jump from winter to summer together? But it's still pretty ridiculous!

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  9. SNEK! Great photos of that guy - such a cool find, tho sorry to the chickens for probably eating an egg or 3 lol

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    1. I love me some sneks! I don't care if he steals a few eggs, we get SO MANY and I don't even eat eggs 😂

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  10. It's deathly hot here now and I just installed my fan a few weeks ago. This one better make it through the season unless my mare busts its motor like she has the past few. Sigh...

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    1. Yeah we were hanging fans and one of them was definitely dead and couldn't be revived, haha. Thankfully I had a spare!

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  11. Blegh heat and humidity! I like the shape of that pad and your baby goats are super cute. I thought we were getting summer but we've slipped back into a cool and cloudy May grey

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