Watching for Spring

 Right after the walk this morning I left in the Prius for Middle Grove. I figured out I can make 5 trips in the Prius to ONE trip with the truck and trailer. If Irish was bagged up I would need to drive back to get the truck and trailer but since she isn't due until April 6th there was a good chance she would not be bagged up.  I drove the back way and parked at the far gate where Mike puts the hay in. The horses were not in sight. There were plenty of bales out, the hay looked and smelled good and Mike had plenty of salt blocks out in this area, just no horses. Below is a close up of a bale. It is good green fine stemmed hay.

The fields didn't look green but there was new growth under the old and that was young, tender and green. 

The creeks and lakes were all open so plenty of water sources.

I started hiking. The temperature was 24 degrees and the wind was blowing and I was wishing I had worn a warmer coat until I got on the other side of the hill out of the wind.  That is where I found the horses.  Missy was the first to see me.

I didn't head up to see them, just kept hiking until I found Irish. She was off by herself which worried me a little but Mika wasn't too far from her.

She looked back when I called to her and is obviously still pregnant.

The picture below shows better how very pregnant she is.

I hiked over and checked her udder and she is not bagged up at all. That meant she could be left another week out there. The is also a lot of new tender green grass coming up under the old. She found a great place for that tasty snack. The rest of the horses were all checked. All except Rosalie are heavy in foal. Below is Lily who was bred to Valiant and due May 4th which is her 20th birthday. I'm sure she won't have this 17th foal on her birthday as she always delivers early. Lily had her first foal when she was 4 years old and has never missed a year, producing a high quality amazing foal each year. 

Below is Rosaleigh, she was bred to Evan and is due June 7th.

Below is Madiera who was bred to Valiant and is also due June 7th.

Below is Jewel who is bred to Evan and is due July 6th.

Below is Oksana who is bred to Evan and due June 25th.

Below is Indy who was bred to Evan and due Aug 16th.

Below is Jury who was bred to Valiant and is due Aug 21st.

Below is Tatiana who was bred to Valiant and is due May 16th.

Below is Soul who was bred to Evan and is due April 16th.

Sheena and Sally are not out at Middle Grove. Sheena was bred to Valiant and is due June 18th and IF Sally got pregnant when she was covered on Christmas Eve she would be due December 5th. The other horses out there not in foal are Sangria, Mika, Rosalie, Cookie and Missy. Below is Mika.

Below is Rosalie.

Below is Cookie.

Below is Missy.

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from Middle Grove click HERE.

I took a video while out there of the horses happily grazing. The wind is quite loud in the video.

As I was hiking back to the car snow flakes started coming down and by the time I got home it was snowing. I had to take the truck and trailer back for two more trips to Middle Grove as it was important to bring Cookie and Sally off the fields.

Yesterday Mark got the aquaponic tanks out of the basement and into the yard. 

When Mark got home from work he brought Mackenson over and we started removing all the rock from the aquaponic tanks in the basement. Mark would hand me the buckets of rock, I would walk up the stairs and hand them to Mackenson who would haul them outside and dump them.

We did that one bucket at a time and got both tanks emptied in an hour.  

Below is a short video of Mark emptying the tanks.

The rock was dumped into the tanks we hauled outside. Those will be set up this spring and hopefully by summer we will have a new way to grow vegetables.  This evening I went to mom's and Joined Diane, Karin and Joan for games.  It was good to just sit. My back and legs are tired from all the work done today. We finished games around 8:00 pm it was still snowing and the cars were covered.  This snow won't last too long as we are expecting a warm up next week.  It is 22 degrees right now and tomorrow the temperatures are supposed to be steady low 20s then comes the bitter cold on Saturday with below zero wind chills.  Then comes a WARM 55 degree Sunday. Just 2 more days of cold and maybe Spring will hang around this time.