Hay!

The weekend wrap-up:

Saturday morning was spent trying to confirm hay availability, north of the border. Even though people 'use' craigslist.com to post an ad doesn't necessarily mean they check their e-mails or even their answering machines. About mid-morning the wind picked up, substantially. Neither of us wanted to haul hay in 40 mile an hour wind.

We hadn't heard back from anybody anyway. It was so windy and cold that I literally stayed mostly in bed all day. My two girls, April and Irene, also sacked out with me while I read a book.

Tom was out in the barn later in the afternoon striping stalls. I was still in bed with April when she launched herself off the bed, barking ferociously. I thought maybe Tom had locked himself out of the house. The lock can be weird like that sometimes. But she didn't stop, so I got up to see a woman in a plaid overshirt standing on the stoop.

I let her in, the wind so stiff I had trouble opening the storm door far enough. It was really whipping through our alley between the garage/shed and the house. She said that she drives by regularly and noticed the barn, knew it hadn't been there before and was interested in where it came from. I invited her in while I put on my barn boots, two coats and we went outside to see it. I asked her if she belonged to TROT or the League and she said she didn't.

Her husband, Gary, was out in the car in the driveway by the mail box. I told her to have him come around back and park in the lot. When he got out of the car he had on dusty, filthy pants (just like me!) and I assumed they were horse people.

The minis met us at the gate, naturally, as I ushered them into the dry paddock and into the barn. Tom was out there, having cleaned the stalls to the stone dust and dumped the manure spreader, again. The barn looked fantastic and smelled good, too, like horses and wood.

I introduced Tom to the strangers, stating that they wanted to see the barn, admiring it from the road for the past months. Gary said he was a car guy, they didn't have horses, but wanted a barn like this for his projects. They'd looked at metal barns and didn't like them. I hear that!

We gave them the grand tour, Gary climbed into the hayloft, which had three bales of hay up there because we need hay! I gave them a card from Penn Dutch, the vendor that made the barn and told of its virtues.

They soon left and I stayed in the barn. I was dressed and out of the bed, so might as well get some work done. It was still windy so inside barn work was a good thing. I filled water buckets and put hay in the stalls, Tom finished his project and we went back in the house.

We weren't in there maybe less than 15 minutes when I heard traffic slowing down out front. I asked Tom, who was standing by the window, what was going on and he said, "a silver Dodge truck, oh, it's Richard Mills!" Wow! It's rare to get visitors, but this place was busy today! Tom grabbed his coat and went outside. I put on my two coats, again, and joined him in the parking lot.

Richard Mills has the boarding facility that our boys stayed in for years. They truly thrived there, with all of their different issues. Skip settled in and relaxed, came into his own, while not changing him in the least. And KC grew up there, learning not to freak out, mostly. No matter where we went with them, or for how long, they always came back to Millhaven. And they liked coming back there with stories to tell their horse buddies!

Richard and Diana, his fiancee and barn manager, were in the truck, surveying our vast domain (ha!). We invited them to have a look-see. They met the minis, who were their usual charming, cute selves! and Skip let Diana pet his nose, but KC stayed hiding behind Skip's butt. Of course they both remember her, but KC is never on his best behavior when we have company. Call me weird; he thinks there might be changes so he doesn't want to cooperate.

This is also the first time in 18 years or more that most all of our 'stuff' is at our place. The tractor, flat bed trailer, the two horse trailers, hay elevator, and like that. It is all there on view. And Richard was surveying it all.

I've said before that we have been planning this move for at least three decades, if not now, when? So we have just about everything you would need for this farming life and it is here on display in our parking lot.

On Sunday, as usual, started my horse-keeping chores early - got them all turned out, the day dawned beautiful but cold. Tom finally got a call back about hay so we'd promised to be in Hanover by 10:30.

The farm was at the end of a dead-end suburban-type street. Split levels and ranchers, two-story colonials, then the gravel driveway to an antebellum farmstead. I just love the old brick, the sleeping porch on the second level, bank barn, very charming.

I wasn't thrilled with the hay. There's nothing 'wrong' with it, but it is not the grade that our boys have become used to. There are no weeds, no Muli-Flora Rose, no dust or mold, but is not the fine-stemmed tender orchard grass that they like. It is stemmy, like dry straw, and doesn't break up into flakes easily. O well, we need hay and this is $3.00 a bale, so we got eighty loaded onto the flat bed and twenty in the truck.

The ride home was uneventful, but we drove through downtown Westminster, yes, past George Street! with a full load of hay. What a spectacle we are! We made it home by 12:30, just in time for lunch!

After a quick bite, Tom pulled the hay elevator to the hayloft doors and started throwing bales into it. I was stacking in the loft and had 18 bales in a pyramid scheme when he said the impeller just broke. Darn! The weather was just getting 'nice' for February, I had on only one coat and was getting into a rhythm of moving bales across the floor.

A trip to Tractor Supply! I took this 'spare time' to resume my laundry duties while he was gone. He also picked up another bag of the boy's favorite kind of hay-stretcher.

He was back within an hour, removed the old motor, installed and wired the new one and we got back to bucking hay. Now it was 4:30, bright and sunny, but the sun was started its quick decent.

We emptied the trailer, then took a short break before moving on to the truck-load. I took this time to move the boys into the barn. The gate was open because of the hay elevator, so I had to be careful to bring them in one at a time. I brought Skip in first, uneventful, sort of. He was dismayed that there was no grain in his stall and tried to move back out of it. I did have him in a halter and rope, but the bottom half of the Dutch door was being stubborn, and I could only use one arm to do it because I still had my death-grip on Skip, who repeatedly tried to walk out the door. Eventually I got enough leverage on the door and got it closed.

Next was getting KC into his stall. He is usually easy to move around. He was pointed in the right direction when he abruptly spooked (is there any other kind?) and launched himself into his stall. His hoof banged into my ankle and I literally had to 'walk it off,' limping like an old woman. I assume he got an eyeful of the hay elevator's tarp and heard birds in the hayloft at the same time, which wigged him out. I don't have time to be crippled, honestly!

We got the rest of the hay up without further delay. A flurry of activity, which I had hoped to get done on Saturday instead, but it is done. We have hay until May, and they better eat it! I put an entire bale out in the pasture this morning - just picking through it should keep them busy.

The temps are supposed to climb to 60 today, but 50-mile-an-hour wind gusts will keep the 'real feel' down to 45 instead. I heard that it is going to be maybe 70 on Friday! I am encouraging Tom to take the day off and maybe arrange for Irene to be spayed? Is that a good plan?