Sorry about those hard choices Miss Kitty. Takes all the fun out of it.

We are kind of just doing winter stuff. Little bit of snow, kind of cool at mid 20Fs. Supposed to warm up by weekend.

I spent last week cleaning out the barn, house, tack collection. DD and I went to a Tack Sale to SELL! Amazing how fast stuff accumulates, then you never use it or need it again. Lots of things she has outgrown. We washed and packed everything into plastic tubs to haul, worked out pretty well. The sale was a little slow, just steady. Sold stuff, but not what I expected to sell. Made some money, warm place to sit on a cold day! There was a second tack sale about an hour away, same report. Lighter in buying this year. I guess we will be hitting a couple more sales, see if we can get rid of some more of it.

Sunday we had the 4-H kids over to see hoof trimming on the horse, along with learning foot and leg parts. They are studying for Hippology Contest. That is a horse knowledge competition for all the County clubs. Have to know LOTS of stuff. Our horses were very cooperative, stood like troopers. They have bigger feet, easier to see things. Checked husband's old shoe collection, what kind goes on what hoof, used for what horse activity. Husband used lots of the "new thinking" labels, so kids would understand if asked. We also did some mouth and teeth inspections, since we have widely varied ages. Mouth changes with age, so they were able to see the teeth and angle visuals on a real horse. Find the reference points mentioned in the books. Also see how age and teeth don't always match exactly. Was pretty interesting for all. One horse tricked the leader, his teeth made him appear younger than his registration paper age!
Picked the good and bad points on a couple horses, checking the kids "eye" for a horse. Every horse has notable things, good and poor, so they practiced on ours. We don't worry if ours aren't picture perfect, they aren't look-at-only horses. They have to work for a living, makes them need a different body style. Pointed out features that make them better as Sporthorse rather than a cow horse. Why body angles make them move bigger, use their knee, not flat movers.

Kids appeared to have a good time, just got cold standing in the barn for a couple hours. The rest of the week is slower. I will be riding the sale horse everyday to get him tuned up a bit. He is going for a tryout ride on Thursday. We have a better-than-me rider who will ride him so I can video it. She will actually be riding both our sale horses, make them look terrific. She is just a super rider. Long distance lookers want to see horses going before coming to look.
DD and I will have to get up early to haul horse over to the indoor arena where she will be riding them. Hoping everything goes smoothly.
My birdfeeders are getting a fair amount of visitors. Lots of little woodpeckers eating up the peanut butter suet. Sunflower seeds going down steadily in this cold weather. Wind is very chilly, wet feeling.
Dogs have smoothed out all my snowy paths with their warm feet. The paths have a shiny ice layer!
Hope it stays cold, nice not fighting the mud.

We are having some very cold weather here in east central Mississippi. Down to 23 degrees this morning about 6:30. Don't know how cold it was last night. We had gotten spoiled to the warmer weather. We even had some snow flurries Saturday night. Now does that sound like the sunny south? LOL

The eggs I had in the incubator hatched out. Only 14 of the 40 eggs hatched and six of those died. The other eight are looking good so far. I am keeping them warm and well fed and watered and inside the house for right now. I have the incubator loaded and going again already. One of the neighbors wanted me to incubate her some eggs. I don't know how well they will do since she gave them a bath before bringing them to me. I don't think that she washed all of them but she did wash some of them. Guess we will see.

I have a hawk trying to get to my chickens that are in the pens outside. Thankfully, I have wire on top of the pens so the hawk can't get to the chickens but it is scaring them to death. Got the bright idea to take some discs that I have gotten in the mail for internet service and hang them near the pen where the chickens are. Thought the reflecting lights would scare the hawk. The hawk came swooping in and landed on one of the poles I had tied the disc on. So much for that idea.

Any suggestions as to how to get rid of this pest? Since it is against the law to shoot a hawk I don't know what to do.

We hope we have some of the rabbits bred. We are having the worst luck with our rabbits this winter. I have six does that I know bred but we will see what happens. If they don't kindle this time, I will know the bucks are sterile and will need to get rid of some of the bucks and get new ones. It is getting expensive to feed thirty rabbits and not have anything to show for it.

That is about all that is going on here. Just waiting for spring to arrive so I can start gardening both the veggies and the flowers.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Jan

We have hawks though they've never come after my free range chickens. I'd try the disks on string going across the pen so they flash upward.

We've had snow over the weekend. Big fat flakes! I like to watch it fall from the nice warm house. But going out to clean stalls in that kind of cold makes my fingers sting and swell. We thawed yesterday and the last of it melted, back in the high 40's.

Need to get sawdust for the horses. We've found an Amish sawmill that gives it away, and it's heavy on the cedar and poplar, smells like HEAVEN!

Finished the loft, we threw 25 bales of hay up there. I'm terrified of heights, and not the least bit fond of ladders, but I'm getting hay when I need it. We should be good until the end of the month.

I'd been getting a small load (10 bales) every week. I would rather have 25 bales a shot. We buy hay from the feed store in a pinch (ouch). The long term plan is to get a hundred and fifty bales in the fall, store it in the loft. Our loft is only 8 by 10 right now. Not near enough room, so more construction is in the works, just not right now!

The feed store has been GREAT to have in the neighborhood! Five miles from home, not all the way in town, has everything we need for the critters. Only bad thing is my three cats won't eat their cat food. Picky kitties!

I'm still debating about the ducks. I may just cut the duck flock down to 4 or 6. Two or three pairs should be able to keep the bugs down.

The horse are doing okay. Everyone has learned which stall is theirs, and the order they come inside doesn't change. My husband is taking care of them when I work weekends. The old mare won't come to him, she's never liked men very much. He has to got all the way down to the other end of the barn before she will come inside.

Feet are holding up, no sign of thrush, "scratches" or rain rot. No more abcesses. The old mare is getting friendlier, fewer spooks and more nickers. The young mare is gradually adopting better manners. The black gelding is holding his weight, we are giving him extra hay, going easy on the grain, adding a supplement. There's a nice blue sheen to his coat when he's not covered in mud!

take care!

brrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

Today was the big thaw, tomorrow supposed to be in the 50's. Been feeding extra and letting the poultry stay in the pen all day.

We let the horses stay in Saturday, because of the cold wind, temps in the teens, wind chill must have been below zero. No shelter outside the barn, not a tree on the place. Need to fix that!

Sunday morning feeding time the mares were rearing and spooking in the stalls, fighting over the top of the paritions, generally cranky. Worried my husband when he fed them, (he lets me sleep in on the weekends because I work late).

Old mare stocked up, her hind legs swelled at the pasturns. She was cribbing a lot too. The young mare was snaking her head at me, her mom and the old gelding, when I went to check on them.

We chased everybody out, expecting them to put on a show for us, but nothing doing. They found a place in the sun and went to sleep. Must have been excited because it was feeding time, then full bellies and warm sun equaled nap time.

Have one hen who's lost alot of feathers. Think I might put her in a cage by herself for a few days, see if the feathers come back. She's awfully beat up on her sides too. Raw flesh and so forth. I've never seen another chicken peck at her, but she's the roo's favorite. He may be wearing her out.

Every one else must be busy trying to dig out, right?

Later!
Kitty

No new snow here, sunny and 40Fs. Our horses are laying around, napping as well. Starting to shed with the longer day hours.

We toss our horses outside, windy, cold or not. All have very thick, fluffy coats to keep warm. They may not stay out as long as on a warmer day, but they need to be moving around outside. As you said, mare stocked up on her legs, crabby, exhibiting bad habits like chewing. Exercise gets her circulation moving. We also don't have trees where horses can get under or in them, but usually there is a little windbreak area. One group stands in front of the woodlot or barn, wind goes up when it hits the trees. Other horses stand in the lea of neighbors house and HUGE bushes. Breaks the wind well. No wind protection if it is straight out of the west though. None of them can stand close to barns, but do get windbreak from them.
Ours also get pretty crabby if left inside. We have done that a little more this year with the icy rain. We will feed inside then, still usually toss them outside for a while on those nasty days. Everyone is happier to go move around. I just dislike the coolers needed to dry them off, having to go back out and change them till dry.

Be careful with the sawdust. Free is great, just need to be VERY CAREFUL with what kind of wood is in it. NOTHING with ANY Black Walnut. Totally toxic to horses. Only takes about a teaspoon full to start foundering one. Easy to get if horse is eating off the floor. Just standing in the Black Walnut sawdust will get their legs swollen and sore. A friend of our got some "free sawdust" for bedding from a woodworker, had to have the vet out. Mare's legs looked like fenceposts, no joints visible, really ugly. Seemed to recover sound, but only on sawdust for a night. That free stuff was partially the Black Walnut, from one of his projects.

Another wood to beware of is Butternut, Juglans Cinerea. Same Juglans family as Black Walnut, Juglans Nigra. Butternut is also bad for horses, just much less common tree than Black Walnut. Checking the Latin names will usually clue you in, since they start the same Juglans, then are different variety of Juglans names.

Color of sawdust can be a clue. Walnut is slightly darker. But color is not always a good indicator, since sawdust will get dark if wet. Our mostly pine sawdust will get quite dark under the hole in the tarp where water leaks in. Still absorbs quite well.

A few words to the Amishmen, seperate the different sawdusts, should help prevent problems. We also use sawdust, makes great bedding. Our deliveryman said he has the sawmill pretty well trained about wood types.

Our weather is something else. We have had rain several days this week. I am having to dig in under the bottom planks on the chicken pens to let the standing water run out. It is turning cold again tonight and supposed to be around 27 degrees on Monday morning.

I have eggs in the incubator again. This time for a neighbor. They should start hatching March 1st if all goes well. I am hand turning them each day.

The 7 chicks that survived (from the first batch I incubated) are growing and doing well. Beginning to eat up where they are going. LOL. I can't keep their bellies full.

The rabbits are supposed to start kindling the 2nd of March. I have 6 does that are hopefully bred. I hope to get good litters from each one of them. It is about time since I haven't had any babies in about three months.

My hubby has been having some problems with his heart. We are going to see a specialist in Jackson on Monday. I hope and pray that what our doctor here suspects isn't the correct diagnosis. From the way he explained the pictures of hubby's heart taken during a stress test, blood is sort of pooling at the bottom of his heart. I don't know what the treatment for this sort of problem is. He didn't even try to tell us what we could expect except to say hubby would need a heart catherization done.

He was in the hospital overnight and sent home on complete rest. No exercise. He is really getting antsy. He isn't used to sitting around all the time. Plus some of the medicine that was prescribed for the angina like pain gives him a terrible headache.

I would like to ask you all to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I hope that all of you will have a great week next week.

Jan

the weather has been going from none extreme here in s.c.Iowa ,we havent had much snow at all this winter and the ground sure is dry .
i wonder if there is any frost in the ground ??
but the plus side is that i have been wearing leather shoes most all winter( even though if i did break down and buy anew pair of winter boots last fall ).
am about half done kidding and have only lost 1 ( knock on wood).
but one thing that has got me raher concerned about the weather is that it is so dry that a grass fire started up over the weekend and it burned up 250-300 of our big round bales :-( , but we still should have enough hay to get through till spring .
Zeke