Monday I spent the majority of the day outside with the animals, It sure is quiet around here now that all the kids have gone back to school. After chores, I went to the feed store and the vet to make payments on our accounts. Then spent the majority of the day watching the two new boys and learning what makes them tick. Domino is a lot more friendly and lets me walk up to him and pet him a little, he is quite timid despite that. Dynamo (formerly Diablo) is very shy and doesn’t really want me anywhere near him, we will continue to work with them, they always come around. Had two escape pigs and three escape sheep so we spent much time trying to figure out where they keep getting out, we fix one spot and they find another. Shelly came over in the evening to talk about planning for events, buildings, and grants, we are sure lucky to have her.
Tuesday after chores, Robyn came over to trim some hooves. It was just the two of us today so I was catching and holding, it went surprisingly well and we got four horses trimmed. Then we had someone come over to pick out five chickens to start their little chicken coop at their new place. I think we are down to a very manageable number now, still need to build a nice coop prior to winter though. Then some people showed up from the school, it sounds like we might be doing some work with the school having some kids come out and spend some time with the animals to help with anxiety and things like that. It hasn’t been approved yet but that’s super exciting. After that was a trip to town to pick up some feed. The late afternoon was quiet and I got some paperwork done.
Wednesday was quite a busy day with a few visitors. Tracey came by with a load of garden cleanout for the animals, she stayed and helped with chores as well. We fixed some areas in the fence that the pigs and sheep were getting out of, and then we also put the two small pigs, Daisy and Babe, in with Peanut, Maple, Gramps, and Wilbur as that pen seems to hold the pigs really well. Buckie’s former owner came to see him and do a little bit of volunteer work. I headed off to my hometown in Saskatchewan as there was a horse there that was being surrendered to us. I blew a tire on the way there but didn’t have a spare so I just kept on going, there are four tires on the trailer, so empty it’s not a horrible thing to do. I got to see my Dad, Mom, Brother, and Niece which was great.
Thursday Tracey and Tamara were at the ranch to do chores for me as I was still in Saskatchewan. Tamara did some cleaning on the garage/barn which is great. She is really good at organizing stuff. I visited with my family and then went to pick up Doc, some tack, and some round bale feeders that were being surrendered and donated to us. Doc loaded really well, then I headed to my brother’s place to pick up another horse CJ that was surrendered to him. CJ is a great horse but he has some bad knees, rather than his owners putting him down, we took him in as he can still be an amazing horse for kids. CJ also loaded great, and it was then time for me to leave there and head to the Souris area to pick up two ponies. Splash and Scarlett are actually Sterling’s Dad and Sister. When they surrendered Stardust and Chloe to us, they chose to keep those two. Stardust turned out to be pregnant and that baby is Sterling. Splash is good on a halter but it turns out Scarlett has not been handled very much, We managed to get them both to the trailer and loaded through the side door in front of the two big boys. After that, I met a gentleman along the highway with the three Welsh Harlequin ducks. They are so beautiful. That was my last stop before heading home. I arrived at about 8:45 pm with no mishaps, my husband had all the chores done so all I had to do is unload and get everyone settled for the night. The greeting between Scarlett and her Mom and brother was not quite the warm reunion I had hoped for, but they will figure it out.
Friday was spent around the farm in the morning, Jake came out to help with chores. We had some lovely people come to look at Hershey and it was love at first sight. That little four-year-old boy just wanted to do everything himself and haltered, led, and saddled up Hershey with only a little help. He was able to get his foot in the stirrup and climb right on. After his ride, he untacked him and everything. So adorable! Sounds like Hershey will be adopted soon. After that visit, we headed to the city to pick up our loop resource. Always an exciting day for the animals when they see all that produce, dairy, bakery, and all for them. I put together the fridge in the garage/barn and was able to get all the meat and dairy put away before it went bad so we could put it out for the animals more slowly.
Saturday was deworming and loop sorting day at the ranch. We had Karen, Leah, Louise, Jake, Lexi, and Grace all out to help. The three ladies took care of sorting and distributing the loop while the rest of us did chores and dewormed the ponies. Afterward Jake, Grace, Lexi, and Jenna went for a ride. We then had some visitors who surrendered seven goats to us, luckily friends of the ranch, Sean and Stacy were able to take several of them in.
Sunday we continued to deworm, Tracey, Jake, and Hailey were out to help with that and chores. I went to pick up several turkeys and ducks, we added several of them to our petting zoon and the others went to Sean and Stacey as well. We managed to get everyone dewormed over the past two days except for one herd and our Dorothy. We will get them in the corral over the next few days and get them done. We also had a few ladies come out and give our Belle a ride, she did pretty great although she seemed to be more hyper than she usually is. It’s possible she was in heat.
