Saturday...Rio gets a family of his own

Up bright and early...horses fed,stalls cleaned, feet picked...feed buckets gathered for cleaning.

Then my angels show up...at our farm angel is spelled V O L U N T E E R...you have to love them. They show up and ask what they can do. So they cleaned up hay remnants, swept barn aisles, scrubbed buckets, filled waters, fixed the water spigot, groomed horses, helped with medicine dispensing, painted loafing sheds and ended with riding Sully (who was stellar by the way!) By 1 p.m. they were finished and then I waited for the farrier.

The filly got her racing shoes off...a small trim. She was very, very good and the farrier loved her. She also got a good grooming from Briann which she found pleasant. She is still so coltish in many ways. She loves to sniff your hair and she will do so for more than five minutes if you let her!

Everyone else got trims, except for Sully whose feet grow slowly...he was good while we checked his angles and gave him a once over.

Then it was time to make some more beet pulp, throw hay, give some treats and the later afternoon grain. I got done a little early and will go back to the barn around 8pm to lock the cats in and give Hamilton some more grain/mush.

We still have much to do to get ready for winter...the paddocks need graveling and geo fabric...some more painting to do, some drains to put in, some hoses to hook up, some plywood nailed in place. Gravel is expensive...we may get some oyster shell and use both. It makes a nice-draining surface which is fairly hard...just a matter of getting it here and moved around. You cannot do it by hand...way too much work. We are also putting a 10' x 10' cement pad outside the barn so that the horses have a place to stand for the farrier or vet or grooming or bathing or cold hosing...seems we are always doing one or the other or several. We will need railroad ties to set in place for the paddocks in order to keep gravel/oyster shell in place.

If it does not rain tomorrow, I will set up the forms for the cement pad and finish painting the loafing shed. We got some free paint from the side of the road...two five gallon containers...it is tan-colored...but really looks pretty good and because it was FREE...we love the color. We probably need to paint the front of the barn as well.

We got our donation boxes in the mail! We are ready to put some out and see how they work for us. We have a trial place for the first one.

I hope you all have a pleasant weekend!

Thanks to the Stiffeys for all the work they do on our behalf...what would we do without you?

Oh and the big mention of the week...CONGRATULATIONS TO BRIANN STIFFEY on adopting Rio! He is lucky to have such a girl as you and I know you will take good care of him. Briann...we love you!

Briann has been riding Rio for the last couple of weeks to make sure it was a good fit and last week she took a lesson from a dressage trainer...off the lunge line :)...Rio was good. He hauls great too. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!