Feeding Time

Feeding time at the barn, you can call it torture or an escape for every day life. This weeks was more on the torture side. We have been doing the Saturday night feedings at the barn for as long as I can remember. It has been in exchange for different reductions off horsey rates depending what we needed at the time. My kids did working student when they were younger and had more free time. But Saturday Night has become a ritural of sorts now.

When we first said we would take on this chore, it was not bad at all. There were 12 horses. Only 6 of them had to caught and brought into the barn for feeding. We gave them water, treats(we like to spoil them) , and give them hay. It was great to get away from the house to the peace and quiet of the farm.

Well, they out grew the little farm quickly, and bought 70 acers with a house, small barn, and all purpose building on it. They built a 16 stall barn with a tack room and tacking up area almost as large as the stall area. They built out the multi purpose building into a feed room on the bottom and office,restroom/laundry, and lounge on top. Two large arenas for jumping and one for dressage. The small barn was turned into an 8 stall barn with garge/workshop. Right now there are 8 pastures that are being used. There is still more land that can be expanded if needed. This year they added a large pond to help with drainage. Wouldn't you know, we are having the worst drought in 50 years.

As you can tell the little farm is now a large working farm. Momma, as we like to call her, had a little filli this spring. We call her Sophie. Libbi and momma are expecting again. It is nice to have the little one around. Her last one was a butt. We called him Twister, because he to this day runs around in circles at feeding time. Now we are upto 50 horses. Feeding time is not as simple as it used to be.

This week it was 102 degrees out and there was a whipping wind to make feeding a pleasurable job. First starts the round up. We have to get 24 horses into their stalls form all the different pastures. My daughters do a great job at that. In the mean time, my husband and I load up the eletric cart with hay and all the feed buckets and drive them upto the main barn. Hubby will help the girls round up a few of the horses that are left. Now I have the job of dumping the grain into all the feeders. By now I am sweating Bullets. My shirt is soaked. My hair is dripping, and I am whishing it is winter. Every one is back to the main barn. Hubby and the oldest take the buggy to go and feed the horses in the pastures while my youngest and I finish in the barn.

She gets the easy job. Filling water buckets. You can pour the cold water over your head and cool down. I get to hay all the horses. What a fun job when you are sopping wet with sweat. The little pieces of hay get stuck in places you forgot you had. They get stuck in the connorsof your eyes and when you try to wipe them out with your hand, you end up puting more in because your hand is covered too. Now I look like a scarecrow. I figure, I am going out into the wind in a minute to walk one of the horses out to his pasture, it will blow off.

So Hammy and I head off. We are walking along having a nice conversation and a dustanado comes along. It is like a tornado, but all dust. Now I am not only cover with hay, I am also covered with dirt. It is kind of like being tared and feathered. Hammy and I make it to his pasture and he heads for his water trough. I love Hammy. You can have a conversation with him. He shakes his head like he understands every word you are saying. I asked him if I could jump into his water and he shook his head no. I asked him if he was going to stick his head in the water and he said no. He just took a big drink and walked away.

Now my favorite part of the whole process, filling the feeding buckets. Off to the feed room I go, all coverd with sand and hay. I open the covers on all 5 types of grain we use only to find 4 of the buckets are empty. Yea!! I get to throw around 50 pound bags of grain. Filling the buckets at night means you also have to add the morning supplements to the feed. Thank God most of the horses do not have them. Tonight there was a new one to add. It was a pump liquid. Not good considering my present sandy hay covered condition. Yes, I pumped this disgusting red liquid all over me. I had no idea it was going to shoot out as far as it did. The second and third pump was much better.

Actually some of the supplements smell quite good. One of the reminds me of "cookocooko fo cocoa cocoa puffs", one smells like pepermint, one reminds me of pizza,and one looks like a bunch of mini roaches. The rest are just pellets or powders that do not have much of a smell. It never amazes me what people will feed their horses. After filling 50 buckets with feed and supplement, I was hoping that I would sweat away some of the dust and hay, but no luck, I was still covered.

The family returned from feeding and turning out who needed to be turned out. They were also nice and dusty and sweaty. We were all wishing for winter tonight. The up side of the 102 degrees, dust, and wind was that we got to spend time as a family with the most magnificent animals and enjoy the peace and quiet of the farm.