No crisis

Why do I spend so much time with manure, freeze, sweat and put up with all the mess and hard work of horses?

Well, Java of course, she is worth every bit.  But the other reason is walking out the door to feed, and this is my view.  They are in there, ready for breakfast and to start the day... and I get to do all that here at home.  I like that.

While they are eating their breakfast, I set up the paddocks with hay, water, etc. 

The dogs come with me.  Bandy is always near by, keeping watch.  Mackie is always wandering around.

This area is bigger than the photo makes it look, but this finally will be another paddock soon.

Then I wrangle the dogs back into the house and head back to the barn... gazing at all the grass growing, and what a nice spring it has been. 

And, toss the horses out.  They are still acclimating to grass, so they spend most of their time in their sacrafice paddocks... eating hay and looking at the grass...  They get it later in the day.

And, good news.  I am going to skip the midlife crisis. 
And, our septic problems worked out.  We built an outhouse... just kidding!  A couple of experts checked everything out and we worked out a plan.  All is well.

The builder neighbor finally moved in... I'll update you soon.  No, he does not have horses, that's OK.

Life is normal here:

I would post more often, but I'm busy. Taxes, dogs, feed deliveries, riding, grooming, septic tank failure, concrete deliveries of the wrong size, property tax reassessment, tree people that work for the state to get approval to cut down trees along the road, you know all the stuff!  As soon as I got over filing our taxes, the septic system is having some form of mid-life crisis... which seems like something that I want to have.  Those are fun, right?

Blue skies and sun this week.  Mackie loves sun baths:

The barn is still here:

The horses are spending a lot of time outside, the love the warmer temperatures lately:

Java's favorite paddock has been re-seeded and is resting.  Germination is prolific, and that is good:

Bandy got a hair cut. 

The top paddock is still resting, growing, looking good so far:

Bandy and Mackie, both have their toys safely in reach, ready for dinner:

tax time

I'm alive, all the animals are alive... but it's tax time, as I know you know... I LOVE tax time.  I am almost done and will post pretty pics of green grass and happy horses later... after I'm done with all this paper!!!  Do you love tax time as much as I do?

we did not float away

We got 8.44 inches of rain in a day.  Awesome.

The rain finally let up for a few mintues, and I took these photos.

The barn, it's still here. 

The horses at the time of this photo are in the barn happy as can be that they did not have to endure the monsoon.

Mackie's realistic squirrel toy looks drowned:

Mackie: I did not know there was a stream here:

Bandy:  Uh, I'm a little soggy:

Then I go down to the koi  pond and walk along the stream that feeds the pond and quickly confirmed something.  I had a suspicion for a while that something was not right... YES, I have a hole in my welly boots.  It's been a great 3 years wellie boots, I thought we would be together forever, but... apparently not.

SO, I wore my much boot shoes the next day.  The mud sucked the shoe off, and my foot with sock went right into the mud, deep.  Then I had to put my mud socked foot BACK INTO the shoe.  I wonder how long until I wear those again.  The sun is out today, so I'm back in my wellies.  :)