Monday was a bitter cold day, I got up and did chores and got most of the waters done before my hoses froze up, good thing the pastures are all opened up so I don’t have to worry so much about EVERY trough being full. When I was done the chores we had a new pony come in named Princess. The poor little thing has horrible hooves, she is apparently 30 years old, we’ll need to get Robyn out here as soon as we can to get her started on recovery. After I got here situated I moved Beauty in with Phoenix and Joey and left to go see Sylvia at the Balmoral Store to pick up two new horse blankets, one for Amber and one for Charity. I dropped Amber’s blanket off with Tracey so she could take it out to Amber tomorrow morning. I went to get the mail and our order from Vista Print was here, YAY! New thank you cards, address labels and pamphlets just in time as we are almost out. Then it was time to clean out the puppy pen, man those little boogers are messy. After that I went into the house to continue to set up the volunteer portal on Salesforce.
Tuesday morning Karen was here when I got up, she did most of the chores. I fed the pigs, the cats and puppies and then took the puppies in for baths. Six puppies in a bathtub is a lot, especially when all six want out. They played around the house for a couple hours while drying off and I did my best to get as many pictures of them as I could while all six were here. I got them all packed up in a kennel in the truck, could only fit the kennel in the front seat, then picked up Jake. He had to sit in the back. The puppies were so played out they were falling asleep on the way to the vet and super chill the whole time we were there. Dr. Neil and Felicity were there to take care of us. A couple of the puppies appeared wormy and Abbie has an underbite, and Ally has a grade III heart murmur. We are hopeful she will grow out of it, if not, it’s just something to keep our eyes on. Abbie and Annie’s new owners came to the vet to pick them up, so we had to say goodbye to those two. It was a little sad, but I know they have a great home. On the way home I stopped at the post office to pick up the mail. Sherri asked me to bring the puppies in so they roamed the post office for a bit, and peed everywhere. When we got home I cleaned out the puppy pen, I didn’t want to put the nice clean puppies in a messy pen. I managed to get enough non-frozen hoses together to get the waters done, I actually think it’s the splitter that is freezing up, not the hoses so I connected it directly. I’m totally wiped out, what a day!
Wednesday was a bit quieter than Tuesday was, it was also a fair bit warmer. I got all the chores done without having any hoses freezing up on me and without blowing any breakers WOAH!!!! I know! The first thing I do every morning is let Betsy and Felix out in the front to eat their mash while I do the rest of the chores. I was out at the corral doing waters when I saw Felix leaving the yard. I had already put Betsy back, ack I came back to the yard as he was walking nicely down the road. I called him and he stopped and looked at me. All I was thinking is please come back here, I will never catch you in all this winter gear. He looked at me for a bit and then turned around and came back, trotted around me and went and stood by the gate to go into his pen. This is the horse that was basically half dead when arriving here, I guess I am going to have to tie him up when feeding him now. He is getting his spunk back already. After chores, our hay guy came by to talk about grain and brought us some samples. It looks great but he is going to crack it for us going forward as this is a little finer than I like. We also had the new owners of one of our puppies come pick her up. We are now down to three with one more leaving on the weekend. I brought the three remaining puppies into the house for some play time and they had a ball. We had an executive meeting tonight as well to talk about grants and funding for the ranch, there doesn’t really seem to be anything significant out there right now, I sure hope some good grants get announced. We could really use a nice big barn for these critters.
Thursday I got up and did chores as usual, when I was doing waters the hay guy came out with a load of bales. He set them out for all the critters and was done about the same time I was done the waters. I went looking for Angel because I couldn’t see her in the corral, where she usually is. I found her in the shelter in the small pasture, she had somehow managed to get her back leg through the belly band on her blanket and rubbed her back leg right through the hide. I caught her and cleaned her up and gave her some mash. I found a better fitting blanket for her and treated her wound with some iodine and oinment. I put her in the petting zoo with Felix so I can keep an eye on her wound. I went to pick up Jake and bring him back here so we could get blankets on a few more horses, we also moved Brie and Betsy to the pony pasture. Felix and Betsy are less than thrilled about being apart but they will get used to it. I took Jake home and brought the puppies in so they could run around in the house a little bit, they are so darn cute it’s going to be sad when they go.
Friday I got up and did chores and then ran into the city as I had to babysit my grandbabies so my daughter could go to her prenatal appointment. Sophie came out for a sleepover, it was really cold out! I did get a call from Honey’s foster and the vet decided to put her down as he felt she was in constant pain, that was very sad news, especially with all the care she had been given. I really thought we were going to be able to give her some time. Her hooves were just too badly damaged. I met Alana at Tim Hortons and picked up the amazing donation she picked up from an amazing lady! There has got to be at least 10 blankets here of varrying sizes for the horses, so awesome!
Saturday Jake and Tracey were here to help with chores, we always get so much more done when they’re out. They finished chores and put straw in all the pens for the bunnies, pigs and all of the petting zoo. They also cleaned out the chicken coop which was getting pretty nasty. The people came to pick up Ally, she went to her forever home. We are so happy for the puppies, we only have two left, can’t wait to find them their forever homes too. I went to the city to take my granddaughter home.
Sunday Jake and Tracey were here to help with chores, two days in a row! I cleaned out the puppy pen, they are messy little boogers. I cleaned out Angel’s wound and treated it with iodine and ointment. Jake gave her a shot of Duplocillin and we gave her some bute to help with any pain and inflammation. Jake and Anne did some work with Ebony and she was pulling the little sleigh like a dream, she is such a good pony. Tracey worked on Princess’s main, that poor girl was so full of burrs and her hooves are so bad, Robyn will be here on Thursday to get started on her hooves.
