Today my body revolted against all the bouncing it endured mowing the past couple of days. I got all but the section east of the pasture up to the water main mowed. I just barely had enough gas left to put the mower away. That’s five gallons of gas, which amounts to a lot of mowing, for which my body was, shall we say not to elated. Needless to say today was spent mostly on the couch with the heating pad. My body rewarded me with constant pain in my shoulder, and periodic deep, hard, and to say the least, rather painful muscle spasms. The good news is that my leg didn’t hurt for which I am eternally grateful. It’s ok though the grounds look good. I still have the area I want to make into a dressage arena where the ground is very soft as well as the area around the house, and the one section I didn’t get to. I’ll tackle that after I go to Ruidoso tomorrow to get one of my pain prescriptions. Wise move I think.
I have to move some of the horses, and separate Cupid, and Star. I’ve been concerned about not being able to put weight on them so I decided to measure them again. Cupid weighs about the same (666 lbs), but she is now 14.1 hands. Star has lost weight (628 lbs), and is 14 hands. Of the two, Star is the bossiest, and come to find out the finicky eater. She is also the one with the highest metabolism like her dam. Cupid’s legs are noticeably longer now, and I have every reason to believe that she will top out at 15 hands. They’re only three so they still have growing to do. I suppose their bodies got all excited about getting all those supplements I been putting in front of their noses, thus the growing spurt. It’s also summer, and since they don’t have to put on fat to ward off the cold, it’s natural for them to go through a growing spurt. Little Big Man is doing the same. He was getting to be a little roly-poly, but no longer. One can see ribs on his now lean figure. Why can’t I go through a growing spurt like that? I just keep getting wider, and shorter. So what if I’m 60 that shouldn’t be a factor as far as I’m concerned.
Before I do anything else I have to clean out the stall that used to hold our hay. I also have three more hay filled pallets to move (moan, and groan). At least I have the dolly. We acquired it on one of our moves, don’t ask me which one, but it’s a heavy-duty dolly. It has been in the utility room for at least the six years we have lived here until I started doing all the ranch work. I pulled it out of retirement when I had numerous 40, and 50 lb bags of feed to move from the truck to the back of the barn where we keep the supplements. I should break my back when I have a perfectly good dolly? I don’t think so. Anyway I brought it down to the barn where it has enjoyed being useful again. No one likes to feel useless after all. I was just helping it with its self esteem.
We have two stall areas with a breezeway down the middle in the front part of the barn. Rudy cut the pipes on the left side stall to store our hay. One of the stalls on the right side I have turned into a storage area with saddle racks, and tool implements. The other stall on the right we keep for overflow if we need an extra stall for a horse. One day when the rains turned the area in front of the stalls to muck, Rudy told me to pull into the breezeway to unload the hay. I discovered that not only was unloading the supplements from the truck much easier, but I had no problem backing into the breezeway. I have just enough of a stigmatism to make backing up using mirrors only difficult. It looks like I’m going straight up until I get out of the truck, when I see the error of my ways. Let’s say I’m less crocked when I back into the breezeway than I am when I back into the left side stall. In the breezeway I can open the passenger side door of the truck, and I can roll the bales off the side of the truck into the right side stall. I moved five of the pallets just to see if it would really work better for me putting the hay on the right side stall, and it was. I moved another pallet today when I bought grass hay, meaning to go back, and move the other three pallets later. That’s when my back said enough is enough. You know my body never used to complain the way it does these days. I want my old body back it worked much better.
I also have to clean out all the old hay that has packed in through the years. I can just see one of the horses going into convulsions after eating yucky old packed in hay, and they’d eat it too. I need to cover all the old piping that Rudy cut with the monster duck tape I bought last winter. It’s too heavy for regular use, but I think it will do the trick with the cut pipes. The pipes are surplus oil pipes made of Iron. They really need to be cut smooth with a torch, but Rudy has never had the time to do it, and I don’t know how to use a torch. I wish I did, there are a lot of repairs that need to be done to the pipe corrals. If I knew how to weld I could take care of them myself. Of course I’d have to get the generator going, but that’s a whole other issue.
The other stalls are a mess, and I really need to start working on getting them cleaned out. I think I’ll look around the property for something I can drag with the gator to help clean out the stalls. There has to be an easier way than using a pitch
fork, shovel, and apple picker. I just have to figure it out. Oh how I miss our tractor. We only had it for a few months before we had to sell it, but boy did I get spoiled in those few months. As soon as we get back on our feet, and can afford to buy one, I’m going to buy another tractor. No ranch should be without a tractor, at least not one with 15+ horses. There is this iron thing out by the arena that’s too heavy to move that just might work. Getting it out might be a bit difficult, but it just might do the trick. I don’t now how I’ll make it work, but if I can…. I guess tomorrow is going to be a busy day.
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