Saturday Work

It was nice to sleep in this morning, Rhoda and Sarah left for a snowboarding trip at 4:30am and they were to let Emma out first. We didn't roll out of bed until 7:00am.
The sun is out and the thermometer is reading 26 degrees. The 100 pounds of sweet feed for the foals was still in the car so that had to be unloaded before feeding.
Darcy went to the farm with me after taking care of breakfast for everyone here.
At the farm, Raven's feeder was off the fence and into his paddock which was easy to put back on, the only hard part is climbing though his fence. I could go through the gate but then I would have to walk. Mike had Clara in with Sangria, Ylse and Samantha and those 3 don't really like Clara. She was moved into the breeding shed area, not because she is ready to deliver but so she doesn't have to compete at all for hay.
We moved a round bale in the first paddock, put the bale feeder around it and was trying to only put 4 horses in but Jewell followed the 4 and didn't want to come out. This is the first winter to use that paddock, we finally got a new automatic heated waterer there. Took the bent gate off and hung a new heavy duty one up. Mike brought out the excavator and the skid steer to help with the next job. The far shelter in the middle paddock was cleaned out, a new bale put in and a brand new shiny red (the heavy duty kind) gate was hung. Now we just need to open the gate to put in a bale, no need to drive the skid steer into the paddock. We needed both machines, the hay and manure build up was getting so high it was getting hard to put in the new bales. The temperature had risen to 38 and the ground was getting slick so had to quit once the shelter was done, we still have a pile to move out of the paddock but will have to wait for better weather. We really should fix the first shelter the same way, perhaps if the weather holds, we can work on that next Saturday. By the time all of this was accomplished I was muddy, frozen and miserable. Darcy never got out of the car, she thought it was just too cold, she even honked the horn once to hurry me up. I couldn't wait to get in the car, turn the heater on and drive home. But... the drive was awful, my boots were pretty filthy and the heat made the manure on my boots really start to stink. The car smelled so bad I had to open the window which took away my heat. Good thing the drive is only 12 miles.