Middle Grove

I had to get up at 5:00am and start laundry. Usually I do it all on Friday but I spent Friday driving to Middlebury, IN to pick up a trailer. I was at TSC by 8:00am and bought more shots for the horses and 10 more bags of bedding. Mark was home from his Bible study by the time I got home so we loaded up and took off for the farm. Lily was glad to see me, I moved her into the other side stall and fed her there so I could start cleaning hers out. I opened the window and she could see Sangria and Big Sally. She was so excited to see them. Both she and Ciera started calling through the window. I turned Sangria and Big Sally out so we could start cleaning their paddock, they came right up to Lily's window as if to ask her to come out with them. It just about breaks my heart to keep them locked up but the surgeons gave us strict orders to not let them out of the stall for a month. Sangria is in season and I'm NOT going to breed her this year. I think we will give her another year off. She is so much fun to ride and if she has a foal by her side I can't take her on our trail rides. Mark started loading with the skid steer and put the new trailer in place then finished Lily's stall. When I came out Mark had the trailer loaded, I mean LOADED. We drove it out to where we thought was a great place to dump it, jumped out of the truck, opened the back and pushed the buttons. The trailer got as high as it was going to get but the manure didn't move. Mark tried to move the truck forward but it was stuck. We had loaded it with more than 8000 pounds! I went for the pitch fork and Mark went for the skid steer. Between both we got about half of it emptied but we still couldn't get the truck out. Finally Mark put the skid steer under the trailer, lifted it a bit until I could pull it out. After working an hour on the first load, we finally figured out how to dump correctly and the next 5 loads went quickly. I was putting the trailer in place and saw Ribbon push against the gate and break the clip. As I was driving forward, Ribbon walked out, Jenis walked out, Aries, and Velvet following. I finally was able to jump out of the truck and stop the rest of the horses from escaping. Mark took over both the truck, trailer and skid steer while I caught horses. I brought the shots out with me so Jenis, Samantha, Sanna, Izadora, Ylse got their pneumabort shots and Class Act and Caspian got their 5 way. By the time I was done with the shots, Mark had stopped with the manure. The trailer's battery needs to be charged up for the next time so he started working on cutting the trees up that he felled the last time he was out. I unhooked the dump trailer and hooked up the stock trailer and loaded Salena, Palmer and Rusty up and started driving to Monmouth to deliver them to their new home. Palmer is so cute, I've posted the picture I took of him at 6 days old. He is really friendly and the new owners will love him. Monmouth was farther than I expected and I almost ran out of gas on the way home. I made it to Casey's with fumes because when I filled it up I put more than 25 gallons in a 25 gallon tank. I got back to the farm and Rhoda helped me load Izadora, Pacheron, Clara and Sophie to take to Middle Grove. Karin had 7 horses out all with kids on them for a trail ride and Rhoda pulled out Ylse so she could join them. Ylse got stuck in the creek. We decided Mike is going to have to work on the creek crossing, it is just too muddy. I pulled in the field at Middle Grove, hooked up the electric gate, then opened the back door to the trailer. Clara stepped off the trailer fine, Sophie wouldn't get off so I opened up the next section and Pacheron jumped out, He was thrilled to be back, Izadora wasn't as patient as she could have been because by the time I unhooked her she almost ran poor Sophie over. Sophie still wouldn't get out of the trailer. I started pushing her out and she was pushing me back in so I yelled at her, just then she jumps out, scares Clara and as it was Clara's first time to be at Middle Grove she ran forward, hit the electric gate and instead of stopping panicked and ran right through it. Just as I was trying to catch Clara, Mike and Diane showed up to help. Clara realized she was on the wrong side of the fence but couldn't figure out how to get back in. I finally got a bucket of grain and she came running back. Finally all 4 were in and we went back for another 4. This was around 5:00pm and Rachel was holding a graduation party at the lake for David Jacob and Jessica so we went over for dinner. Rachel did a great job with the food. She bought pizza all one topping then sauteed lots of onions, mushrooms, and peppers for who ever wanted to add them. It was delicious. After a great dessert of cake, I left for home and Mike and Diane started loading the next 4 horses. The first 2 were easy, Samantha and Sanna, then they loaded up Jewell. Then they called they couldn't figure out which colt was Class Act and which was Caspian. They actually started loading Caspian before I convinced Diane that they had the WRONG colt. Caspian has a star and Class Act does not. They switched the colts and headed for Middle Grove. By the time they pulled up to the gate, the other 4 came running to see who was in the trailer. Mike had to keep them away so Diane could drive in. It is so neat to see how excited the horses are when we pull in. They all come galloping up and surround the trailer. Mike and Diane are staying out there this weekend to keep an eye on things and make sure the horses will settle down. What a long day.