The last 2 days have been April, no doubt. 2 Days of rain.  Which normally wouldn’t bother me, but I am planning on getting away for a few days, and I had to do the whole spring clean up and repair and refence in the last 3 days.  Day 1 was beautiful.  Day 2 and day 3,,, Rain…. Rain and more rain. I have been putting out round bales(hay) so my horses won’t notice Im gone, with their faces buried in hay, that took 6 hours, and fencing. Which frankly, I have mostly lived with out, mostly always meaning to get it done… Well, now half of it is done.  I was amazed and exhausted.  Now I need a vacation to help me re-coup .  I don’t get away much, Its hard with this many horses to get someone to take care of them for a reasonable amount of money.  For me they are practically a part time job, So, its hard to ask someone else to spend that amount of time.

Any way…the hay is out, and off I go.

SO. Yesterday was interesting. It was cold. Not just a little spring nip cold, but full on winter jacket, and gloves cold. Just beyond mid-April and I’ve 3 horses in blankets and my scarf on.  It was hard to take actually,  3 days prior it had been almost 80 degrees, even though that was a little warm for April, 36 degrees feels a little unfair.  Today its raining, which is lovely,  sometimes called the poor mans fertilizer, the spring rains are welcome, but like everything the right balance is needed, rain, sun, warmth, rain, sun , warmth… and the grass grows.  Too much rain, and the nutrients diluted, not enough rain and the stalks are too thin, too much rain and the hay can’t be havested.. every year is a gamble, and a wish and a prayer..and the whim of the weather. I am lucky that the farmer I consistantly buy my hay from watches his fields carefully,  and I pay a reasonable amount for reasonable hay.  But in the spring, there is always a thought toward the summer and the future hay crop.  On the horse front, one of my morgans, Jack, a beautiful gelding I have owned since he was two, had a growth removed from the very end of his tail 2 weeks ago, the pathology report came back as a melanoma, which in bay horses is fairly serious.  I have never had a horse with a terminal issue, long term.

Melanomas in bay horses are much more serious than in grays, which I didn’t know. In grays, the melanoma is mostly on the outside, but in bays, the melanomas get into the lymphatic system as a slow growing cancer.  I have to learn more. But am worried about my precious boy.  He and I embarked upon a show quest in dressage 2 years ago, he is so old type we didn’t do well in the “show” ring, but lower level dressage suits us fine.  I have great plans for the two of us, and am considering which this current information means for him.  He is a wicked cribber, and he has some sort of damaged muscle in his right hind, which results in a shorter stride on that side, and difficulty picking up his left lead. I have been doing massage, moving the skin over the muscle treatments, which I can’t spell, a muscle roller, and hind stretches like yoga  to release the tightened ligaments.  and, a  supplement,  all over which I think are improving the quality of his movement, and easing and pain he may have.  Well, another day, and its time to hay.

It is a most beautiful Easter morning,  almost feels like an early summer day, I love Easter, because it comes at a time of re-birth for New England,  after having been under the cover of snow and cold, and starkness, the birds have returned, the bright colors or yellow, purple and red have started to dot our landscape, they are the colors of fall, but in reverse, and the green that is glossing the ground is the most lovely color,  everything feels fresh and new.  Another season to plant, garden, walk, ride, watch, listen, and just enjoy.  How grateful I am for this day.  I wasn’t planning on going to Church this morning, I have been a faithful attendant of church for years, one of those people who rolls my eyes at the oncers, the folks who go to church only for weddings, Christmas eve, and Easter.  The Pastor at my church has changed, and I just don’t get him, so my attendance has fallen off.  But, this being Easter, I felt I needed to take a few minutes and recognize my God, especially in these turbulent times we seem to be living thru. After giving the horses their morning hay this morning, I took a few minutes to say thanks, and listen .  I sat in my yard by the pond, and I listened to the birds, and the breeze, and my heart, and the universe.  As I sate, a small orange butterfly landed about 6 feet away from me, and rested,  A beautiful bright red Cardinal landed on a branch of the tree across from me, and two mallard ducks sailed over head, and splashed into the pond,  everyday occurrences, yes, but very special to all happen at the moment I sat to listen.   Now, off to grain and hay,  and enjoy this beautiful day that the lord hath made.

Spring continued today, to unpack her gifts.   In the pond, chickadees gathered cat-o-nine tail fluff to line their nests with, Crocuses popped up under the birch tree , little heads were popping up from under the pond reeds, and ripples in the water spread when they disappeared under the surface.  My single duck was allowed to sit on the edge of the pond with the wild ducks who come to visit each day.  The last few days, they have been attacking her, and chasing her away,  for her part, she is so happy to see other ducks, she continued to cling to their company out of lonely desperation, I am considering getting her a male duck, just to keep her company.  In small patches in the big pasture, there is a glimmery gloss of green peaking up from the ground,  my boarder, an older quarter horse mare, with the disposition of a tolerant cat,  Silver- bell got to go out in a big paddock after having been in her small paddock and the ring all winter, she had had to be locked up because she would go thru all the electric fences to eat the acorns that fell from a tree in front of the barn, I am pretty sure, horses, are not in anyway, related to deer, or squirrels, and therefore should not be eating acorns, but Silver-bell loved them, escaping nearly everyday just to eat acorns.  Occasionally, I would look out my windows and see Ester, my not miniature pig, and Silver-Bell companionably eating side by side. Since  Ester decided that winter was over, and has ventured back outside, she immediately returned to nosing around under the tree for any treats she may have missed in the fall,  but Silver Bell has forgotten, she enjoyed her big field time.  And with that note, I am Off to hay.

It seems as if Winter has out stayed her welcome.  She has gathered her swirling whites, and moved on, I am sure with the promise of return.  But, Spring has arrived, with her freshness,and light, and sounds, and colors, she is like a favorite aunt, or sister all happiness and sunshine.  I do like winter, I like the rest it allows me, a decent cover of snow, hides all the blemishes of my yard, the rocks, weeds, bare pastures in need of sod and seed, the white of snow is like freshly painted white walls, everything outside looks clean and neat, for a short while anyway.  But spring brings a renewed enthusiasm for the outside, and it seems as soon as the snow cover is gone, I want to get my hands in the dirt.   I will plant my peas today, and maybe a first crop of lettuce, do more raking in front of the barn, and beginning brushing the winter coats from my horses, they also are loving these first days of spring, yesterday I looked out my windows to see all of them laying down stretched out, as it a wind had blown them all over, blankets were brushed and folded readied to go back in the big box in my hayloft.  I have seen some returning friends, particularly a female mallard duck, who is the worst mother ever, with her courting males, this is the third year for this particular duck, how do I know its the same duck, well, the way she looks at me, the places she sits around the pond, how she is not afraid of me. Her first summer here, she paraded 13 babies around my yard, trekking them over branches, logs, thru brush, these poor little babies with their tiny legs, following frantically  peeping and peeping.  She steadily lost a baby a day, until the evening she brought them across the front lawn, where my golden retriever felt the need to retrieve them.  She flew off leaving her remaining babies peeping and running in circles, last year she showed up again in spring, with a male, and then disappeared, one morning in early june, I went outside to find her in the pond with 12 babies,  I groaned, imagining a repeat of the pain of last summers loss, she kept the babies in the pond for 4 days, I kept the dogs in the house. Then, she and her children were gone. I was both relieved and saddened, and the summer passed.  Then there was the afternoon, I was standing in the riding ring, with some of my lesson kids, when out of the trees on the side, her she comes with 8 ducklings, nearly ready to fly following along behind her.. she stopped, quacked in my direction, and continued on to the pond.  Yesterday, here she was again, with two males,  I thought that ducks mated for life, and if so, she also has bad luck with husbands, but I will have to look into that. Well, I hear whinnying and banging, my outside family calls,  and I am off to hay.

Prior to my starting my blog, it had been raining for days, and prior to the rain, we had had an April 1st snow storm, of about 9 inches, so needless to say I have mud everywhere, and it is so boot sucking deep, yesterday when it finally stopped raining I went outside to do my morning chores, between the mud, and storm debris and my fences down everywhere, along with just an amazing amount of work I have to do to put my barn back together, I was over whelmed.  I seldom ride, even though I love to ride, once I sit in a saddle, I am in my element, my breathing evens out, immediate problems vanish, my mood if dark, lightens and my world feels right. Between the number of horses, people and dogs I care for everyday ,  my riding gets set aside for the daily chores of the horses and my family.  But this spring, I have made a determination that I need to finally get my facility, pulled together and looking more professional, On an extremely limited budget, and being only one person, I have a lot of work ahead of me.  Today, I got one paddock scraped, there is an art to scraping manure up off of stonedust.  The tractor bucket must be on the ground enough, but not to much or not only do you take up the manure, you also take up the stonedust, and then you are just dumping money in the compost pile.  After the rain and snow we just had, the winter long build up of manure is heavy and wet, its hard to push around, but I managed to get most of one paddock cleaned out, and the run in shed cleaned out and re-bedded.  Two more to get done. Spring cleaning started.

So, one of my favorite meme’s on facebook is the face of a horse facing the photographer with the caption”Hay Girl” “That is your name, right??”who knew when I went to college to get an animal science degree, that I would actually spend Sooooo much time thinking about Hay. I also thought it would be all about horses, and riding, and science and how much I knew. Yet, here I am at 50 something, still learning, and 27% of my day spent thinking about hay, how much to feed, how much it will cost, if its moldy, or poor quality, or this time of the year.. do I have enough to make it thru until July, when my new crop will arrive at my barn. What I wish I knew when I was getting that animal science degree, was so much less about horses, and so much more about the day to day happenstance that comes with owning horses in your own back yard, and running a small side business of lessons, and boarding..   So, since I think I have so much to say, here is where I will say it.

So, my very first post, hmm. Well, yesterday was one of those filthy weather days, the rain was coming down in buckets, in big huge drops, mixed with icy cold snow, and we were just on the cusp of the season known as mud.,  while I was outside in the torrential down pour of icy cold snow rain, because with the thawing of the ice and snow all my paddock fences had fallen over and my horses who were insulted by the very thought that I should keep them locked in these paddocks and were doing their very best to contribute to the knocking down and as the rain ran down my boots, mostly because that happens when you are pulling them out of the mud, while holding your stockinged foot up out of the mud, I thought, I wish someone would appreciate this., And then I thought “no one ever mentioned this in horse management…  And so, then I thought, I want to write this down because sometimes taking care of my horses and my farm is more about nailing up a new board, fixing a fence, leaving everyone in their stalls and making to an appointment on time with mud up my back and hay in my hair.