Posts Tagged ‘Hay shed’
Sore Arms
Friday morning there was a heavy dew and as the sun hit surfaces, things started to develop clouds of steam that made it look like they would soon erupt in flames.
The cornfield to our south and the shade sail were both looking noticeably smoky.
I started the day with a visit to our local pharmacy for vaccination shots after looking online and seeing open appointments immediately available. Why not? I’ve never had the RSV shot, so I added that to my annual flu and COVID vaccinations. I also accepted the pneumonia vaccine because we couldn’t find any record that I had received that shot in the last 5 years. Four shots at once! What was I thinking?
Well, I was thinking that I have only ever reacted one time with a mild fever after a vaccination shot, so I went in with all the positive intentions I could muster. My other life-hack with vaccination shots is to immediately work my arms and get some exercise to encourage maximum blood flow. To aid that flow, I also make a conscious effort to drink even more water than usual to really maximize my hydration. Lastly, I ramp up those positive intentions with visualizations of processing the developing immunities with minimal negative reactions.
The feeling of stiff muscles in my two arms is accepted as a reasonable outcome. That just helps remind me to use them even more.
It was a beautiful day yesterday, but since it started so wet, I found something other than mowing to do. Cyndie agreed to team up to spread some more composted manure onto the hay field. In a pleasing surprise, the horses were interested in coming out to supervise.
When I returned to the composting area to get another trailer-full, Cyndie sent me a message that I might want to come back through the paddocks, since the horses were crowding around the gate.
We were very happy to see that Asher had settled down to watch us from just outside the gate. It is so rewarding when he chooses to stay with us even though we are not giving him any attention. That rarely lasts, however. While I was mowing the north loop pathway, I noticed a car slow down on the road. Then I spotted Asher’s orange scarf and hollered at him to return. To his credit, he sprinted directly to me on the mower.
A quick phone call to Cyndie determined that she was in the barn, and I was able to have her call out to him. He ran right off toward her voice. A happy ending to an unsettling situation of him being off property and meandering in traffic.
The hybrid maple tree behind the hay shed (and next to the visibly ailing one) is halfway through its transition to maximum brilliance. Cyndie finished moving the last few hay bales out of the shed and into the barn in preparation for a delivery of a fresh batch of hay expected to arrive next Wednesday.
Too bad I was busy mowing because that would have been a good workout for my sore arms.
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Stinky Effort
While the flakes were falling yesterday, Cyndie and I spent some time in the hazardous environment of the moldy old bales in the hay shed, kicking up mold dust with each step of the clean-up effort. We had the help of Asher, who reveled in the chance to explore all the hidey-holes where small animals have sought shelter over the several years we’ve kept that base layer in place.
He is not usually allowed such unfettered access in there when it’s filled with bales of good hay. Of course, he knows full well that a cat was occupying the place recently, so I respect his keen interest.
We worked our way through about half of the old bales before calling it quits for the day.
We’ve used up all the nearby locations to stash the moldy old bales, with a lot of hay left to go. Cleaning up the hay shed isn’t that difficult. Figuring out where to dispose of the old hay is the hard part.
Quitting when we did gave me a chance to enjoy watching the UofM Gophers on TV as they beat Wisconsin in the falling snow for the last game of the football regular season at Minnesota’s home stadium.
Looks like I get my chance to do some plowing and shoveling this morning. We’ve got company coming for brunch, so I can’t lollygag around. I need to get a path cleared before they arrive.
Today’s events will give me an excuse to take a break from finishing the hay shed clean-up effort for a day. I will gladly inhale the clean air that yesterday’s flakes scrubbed as they fell, hoping to flush away the miserable stench of mold that still lingers in my nose.
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Snow Maybe
It’s close. We can see it on the weather radar. Our county is under a Winter Weather Advisory today as a snow system is slowly making its way across our region from west to east. It appears that the bulk of the impact will be to our south, which puts us in the “maybe” category regarding the amount of accumulated snow we will need to shovel or plow.
Just in case it piles up, I spent some time yesterday pulling the plow blade from the back of the garage and getting it mounted on the Grizzly.
It took ‘some time’ because the long arms of the mounting frame, combined with the weight and width of the blade, make it rather unwieldy to maneuver.
The real problem lies in the fact that I can almost move it sufficiently all on my own, so I am too often inclined to try. Yesterday’s effort bordered on ridiculous and held potential for several troublesome failures as I wrestled it around a variety of obstacles to get it to the front of the ATV. Ultimately, I accomplished it without incident.
Once there, I needed to envision a creative way to connect the hook and winch cable that lifts the blade, since the cobbled method from last winter proved to be ill-advised. I’m not confident that my latest iteration will be adequate, but it’s a start.
If history serves as a guide, I will be forced to revise the setup when it fails in the dark, when it is cold, and I am in the middle of a huge plowing effort. That’s always a great time to work on kludged solutions.
Since yesterday’s weather was a perfect calm before the storm type of day, I decided to move a fresh batch of bales from the hay shed to the barn. Upon opening the big door of the hay shed, the aroma of moldy hay was becoming too prominent to ignore.
Our several-year-old ploy of leaving old bales as a base layer on which we stack new hay needs a change. Cyndie swept down cobwebs while we contemplated the effort it will take to remove the nasty bales.
The first challenge will be that the twine will likely have degraded to a point of failure when we try to pick up the bales. The second challenge is where we will dispose of the moldy mass. I may or may not dabble in the project while beautiful flakes are floating down this afternoon.
Light was keeping an eye on the distant horizon between mouthfuls of her feed this morning. The insulating property of her winter growth is visible in the snow that doesn’t melt on her back.
She looks so gorgeous, it’s hard to fathom how skinny she was when rescued as a starving momma in a kill pen in Kansas years back. The tips of her mane look like she has them colored at some fancy salon.
These horses deserve to be fed the best hay we can find, and to keep it stored in a way that keeps it fresh until the last bottom bale is reached.
Cleaning the hay shed today will be a labor of love.
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Alternative Views
Saturday morning, Cyndie and I got our vaccination shots for COVID and the Flu. My practice is to be as active as possible after shots, working my arm muscles regularly to prevent the vaccine from stagnating in the location of the injection. It has always helped me to avoid excessive pain in my arms.
After lying down to sleep for a night, nothing in the body moves much at all. Yesterday morning, we both woke feeling noticeably achy and stiff. I took a long nap in the middle of the day. I decided to try some acetaminophen to augment my movement routine.
It became a balance of allowing my body to rest and moving around to aid in circulating my lymphatic system. I mostly wanted to rest. My intuitive sense tells me I would be better off staying active.
During one of the moments when I was being not-so-active recently, lounging on the ground by the hay shed with Asher and watching the horses, I looked straight up and thought it would make an interesting picture.
One shot led to another, and I also came up with this:
Just another alternative way of looking at things.
At least it doesn’t look like the hay shed is tipping over from this angle.
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Different Perspectives
Some horses get no respect.
That is Mia’s placemat. It’s hard not to interpret this scene as having been done intentionally. Especially because it tends to happen with some regularity. I’ll be embarrassed if I find out that it’s Mia who is doing it. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was her sending a message that she doesn’t like that spot.
We know she prefers being at the nook just beyond the overhang, but when it rains, we specifically don’t want her standing out in it. For the most part, she copes well enough there.
My gut tells me it’s other horses soiling her mat, but I have no idea whether any message is intended. As a general rule, their distribution of manure is pretty random. I have always thought that animals had a natural aversion to pooping where they eat. These horses long ago learned that I pick it all up, no matter where they dump it, so maybe they figure it’s not something they need to concern themselves with.
I took a couple of photos yesterday to share that we have a tree showing signs of color in its outer leaves, and Asher was supervising my mowing job. When I looked at them on my computer screen, I noticed something interesting about the way the hay shed looks.
From that view, it appears to be tipped backwards. Perspective is everything.
Same hay shed from a different angle. Straight up. And color showing up on the fringes of the maple tree!
Maybe perspective explains the horse apples landing on Mia’s placemat. It could be that the horses just don’t see it from their angle.
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Didn’t Meet
I didn’t get to meet our new support person from This Old Horse yesterday as I’d hoped. For unknown reasons, he was a no-show when the delivery of hay arrived. This leaves me uneasy. Our first two experience with the new person have been non-appearances. I hope this won’t be the case when we eventually have a pressing need.
It’s not so much about us being inconvenienced, but it’s that the horses are the ones we are trying to protect from suffering whenever there is an issue.
At least we no longer have any concerns over getting low on hay. It always feels so good to have the hay shed stocked. Plus, I’ve currently got twice the regular amount of bales staged in the barn after prepping for the new delivery, so I won’t need to toss bales again for quite a while.
While we were standing around the trailer talking after all the work was completed, Light nodded off to sleep and fell to her knees like Cyndie and I had seen her do before. It was affirming to have other people also witness it.
I wish I felt more empowered to do something to help Light lay down and get some deep sleep if sleep deprivation is indeed the problem. Our previous effort of adding something to her food doesn’t appear to have done anything beneficial for her.
Lately, all the horses have seemed to have less interest in finishing their grain. Per Johanne’s recommendation, I served up smaller portions at their afternoon feeding, and there were minimal leftovers after they had eaten their fill. It didn’t appear to concern them in the least, so I will continue with that adjustment for the time being.
Earlier in the day, I enjoyed a Facetime call from Cyndie and the kids in Florida, where they were able to boast about the warm weather. When I stepped out to do morning chores yesterday, the wind chill impact made it feel 70 degrees colder than it was a day and a half earlier. It’s getting pretty complicated at the coat tree in our front hall with all the different outerwear I’ve been selecting in order to adapt to the conditions at any given time of each day.
Their decisions are more along the lines of which bathing suit to wear and whether they have applied enough sun protection.
What a difference 1700 miles makes, eh?
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Moving Hay
When we moved to the country twelve and a half years ago, there was a lot that I didn’t have a clue how to do. After a career in manufacturing, you’d think I would have a better perspective on inventory management, but I struggled a little bit in figuring out how to manage turning over our firewood and bales of hay.
“First in; first out” (FIFO) is a classic method of using the oldest inventory first. That can be a trick to do when stacking your wood or hay in storage. The oldest ends up at the bottom of the pile.
For our firewood, I quickly changed from stacking it horizontally across the width of the shed to short rows, back to front. I just use the rows up from right to left and stack new wood behind them as space opens up.
That method doesn’t work for our hay. Since the bales arrive in large numbers all at once, we fill up the hay shed, and the last bales stacked become the first bales used. The routine I’ve settled on requires that we use up almost all of the last delivery before ordering more, which gets a little nerve-wracking since we don’t have complete control over when the next delivery can happen or how fast the horses will be burning through bales any given week.
When we do get close and the delivery is scheduled, I then hustle to move the last of the old bales out of the way in the shed and stage them in the barn. That is what I worked on yesterday, moving the last 21 bales from the hay shed to the barn.
The chance to meet our new handler, Jeremy from This Old Horse, ended up getting postponed yesterday afternoon. However, while I was hauling hay bales, I received a call from a contractor who wanted to come out this afternoon to talk about helping me put up a shade sail. I anticipate it will be a challenge to get a firm quote since there are so many unknowns at this point, but at a minimum, I hope to gauge a level of interest, knowledge, and ability for the project as I imagine it.
I’m expecting new hay to be delivered on Sunday, and if all goes as planned, I hope to meet Jeremy at the same time. It would be great to have another person to help toss bales into the shed for stacking.
It feels like a lot is happening here while Cyndie is in Florida. Of course, yesterday morning, before she left, Cyndie baked oatmeal raisin cookies for me to give the folks stopping by.
The more I give away, the fewer there will be for me to resist eating. Now, that’s inventory management.
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Hay There
We woke up to an icy coating yesterday that ranked in the top 4 slipperiest conditions we’ve dealt with since moving here. The saving grace was how quickly the temperature warmed to a level where everything softened and footing was a little less treacherous. I needed to transfer some hay from the hay shed to the barn but decided it could wait until it wasn’t so slippery.
Our hay stores are down to a little under half the total amount delivered last year.
I’m hoping we won’t need another delivery until after the snow melts because the plowed mountains around the turns won’t accommodate the poor turning radius of our hay guy’s lengthy truck and goose-neck trailer.
In the early afternoon, I moved three bales per trip from the shed to the barn under the watchful eyes of the horses. Mix seemed to be counting the bales as I rolled back and forth. Maybe they were just looking to see if I’d slip.
Twelve bales in the barn is a number that works to keep me from feeling like I’m constantly making this transfer. Any more and the stack would be over my head.
While filling hay nets a few days ago, I felt a wave of summer memories as I pulled flakes off a bale. I pondered about what the field was like where this grass had grown and how hot it was when they were raking and baling this hay.
I wonder if the horses can tell the difference between bales from different parts of the hay field as they chomp bite-fulls through the nets or from the hay boxes. They certainly know when a bite is good to eat or deserves to be dropped to the ground.
Hopefully, they are sensing the solar energy stored in the dried blades of grass. Maybe that contributes to how horses eating hay helps keep them warm when the weather is cold. They are eating that echo of warmth from back in the hot summer days when the hay was baled.
There must be something to it. I tend to get warmer when I’m breaking open bales and stuffing flakes into net bags, one after another.
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Hay Delivered
One of the best parts of our relationship with This Old Horse is that they provide all the support needed to care for the horses, and the greatest relief for us is that we don’t have to find and transport baled hay. Yesterday was magical in that a trailer full of small squares was delivered right to our hay-shed door.
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Since I was conveniently an hour away at the day-job when it arrived, the work of helping to unload and re-stack it in the shed landed on Cyndie. [monotone fake concern…] Too bad I wasn’t able to be there.
Despite the fact it was wintery-cold outside, all I wanted to do when I got home was go hang out with the horses. They were out on the back pasture, so Cyndie and I picked the chore of clearing out two years of overgrowth from within, and around the outside perimeter of the round pen. We were standing where the horses could clearly see us.
Our previous herd would quickly move their grazing to get very near wherever we happened to be, but these mares are much less connected to people at this point. They randomly appear to adjust their positioning with respect to us, though it usually involves maintaining a distance that reflects their understandable caution.
We look forward to showing them plenty of reasons to develop a special connection with us over time, starting with the fact we will be the primary ones serving up their rations of hay.
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Satisfying Progress
It’s not all that hard, but oh, so satisfying to finally buckle down and give home equipment the annual maintenance inspection it deserves. Yesterday, we did that for our variety of carts and wheelbarrows.
Just like so many manuals often instruct, periodically checking bolts for tightness, adding air to tires, and greasing moving parts proved to be a well-deserved exercise. I found one missing a nut and one had lost both nut and bolt. As is usual in the spring, all tires needed air, but one tire was practically flat.
With our wheelbarrows in renewed shape for heavy duty, we put them to work hauling things and old, moldy hay out of the hay shed.
It almost looks like new and is prepped and ready to receive any hay that may be warranted for feeding the horses before our pastures have sprouted eight new inches of spring growth.
Just like taking care of regular maintenance on equipment is well advised, periodically giving barn and hay shed a thorough going over is worth it whether or not you have the incentive like we are currently enjoying. The effort uncovered several wasps nests we were able remove, which will force them to start over from scratch.
The progress of cleaning up the hay shed was even more satisfying than the wheelbarrows. That’s an excellent motivator for the next target of our attention: the barn.
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