Winters Full Moon
Today started like most Wintry days cold and brisk. Very little snow remains on the ground, so sometimes it just makes it feel more like an icebox. The kind grandma used to have where they put the big block of ice in there to keep the food cold. The landscape even remind you a little bit of food in the fridge little bit frosted because the temperature is not quite right.
A morning in the barn always seems rather inspiring. Horses snorting and pawing at the floor of their stalls in anticipation of their breakfast. Heads that reach over the stall door to greet you with those big brown eyes; you just can’t resist stopping to scratch a velvety nose. Khan, our barn cat prowls around behind you wondering what you’re up to, waiting for his pet and ears scratched. Funny how the simplest acts that please them. But don’t let that deceive you they are cunning and conniving most days.
After the cleaning of the stalls, giving the horses their breakfast which they eagerly anticipate especially if it includes carrots or apples; Khan is ready for his breakfast and then it’s time for my coffee!
As I make my way carefully, due to the ice, back to the house for a warm cup of coffee with a nice dollop of cream. The day seems so idyllic, peaceful and cozy; for mid February day. Don’t you find it interesting that when we start our days we have this idea of all that’s going to transpired during the day. We make our list, have a plan. Never anticipating that interruptions could occur. Perhaps that’s the great part about being naïve, and thinking we have some sort of control over our days. When in actuality often fate takes a warped twist to our plans!
So I have to coffee and a wonderful warm breakfast of scrambled eggs, greasy from our chickens and ham. Dawn and I make our fated plans. She was going to take the truck into town and visit her friend, run some errands for me picking up some horse needed items and then come home early afternoon.
My list included getting the horses out (after all the day was sunny and was warming up nicely), muck out the stalls again so they’d be nice and clean for when the horses came back in, get the trash up to the dumpster. That includes breaking down dog food boxes, trash from the house in the garage and of course from the barn. Hauling the manure out to the fields it all felt so invigorating I was getting a lot done! And if you know me that’s a high I love getting things accomplished! Meantime I had called the tractor company to come out and get our lawnmower to get it serviced for spring.
Now came the major undertaking of the day. Filling up the water tanks in the barn, which are 250 gallons! That’s not an easy feat on cold days because the hose will freeze so you have to stay on top of the water and the hose making sure everything is flowing smoothly.
Of course while in the midst of that chore the truck pulls into pick up our lawn tractor. So to load the tractor he puts down tracks, so we can drive the tractor up and on a trailer. One little problem the tractor will not start! So between the young man and I we push the tractor out of the barn up the tracks and into the back of the trailer! Off to get repaired so we are ready for spring!
The tanks are full, the hose is rolled up in life in the barn is good! Next chore on the list was the tackle, what we lovingly call poo patrol. Just imagine the frozen tundra, and the landscapers started with yes you guessed it poo. One thing about winter on the Prairie is it’s hard to keep ahead of cleanup! Most days it’s so cold in the wind is blowing so hard you can’t even be out there to clean up. So when you get an opportunity like today; you take advantage! Especially since they’re saying snow in the forecast for tomorrow.
So as I get everything lined up the wagon, buckets, shovels, and the claw. I realize the chicken coop could be open today to let the girls have fresh air. So I go over and open up their beautiful chicken coop door open up the screen door to check on their water… When all of a sudden I hear from in the house a dogfight between the girls! With the speed of superwoman I sprint in my work boots which is quite a feat… To the house breaking up the fight and separating some of the girls outside on the veranda and the others I left in the house.
Unfortunately for me I forgot to close the screen door on the chicken coop! So my beautiful girls and their colors of russet, blacks and whites, graders and all shades of colors in between are now happily in the yard! Wrangling chickens is not as easy as it sounds. I do have one trick up my sleeve however and that’s mealworms! That is their favorite treat so I begin shaking the bag inside the coop. Of course a smart chickens come but that’s only half of them! So now I am outside trying to wrangle the chickens back into the coop. Because I cannot let the poodles out if the chickens are loose not a good combination! There’s moments when I wish we had video cameras running I think I would make a lot of money on America’s Funniest Videos! This would’ve been one of those moments. Chicken scatter they don’t clustered together so when you’re trying to get them of course they’re in all directions! So I started out by capturing one I picking it up, I realize this is not gonna work it’s gonna take me a long time to get these girls back in there! So I get a big stick and use that as a very long arm to sort of heard of them towards the open door of the chicken coop. Again we have a few that are a little bit brighter and they have back into the chicken into the coop. Then we have the four chickens that probably would’ve flunked kindergarten! Mealworms don’t work, the long arm of the law doesn’t work, So I find myself going around and around the chicken coop trying to get these last four chickens into the house. I finally open the screen door to the outside pen and to decide maybe this is a good idea to get away for me. However there are still two that have decided they are not going to get captured freedom is way too much fun. So after mucking around in what is now mud because the weather is warming up! So all that ice and snow has become this wonderful, thick, slick mud. I finally decided I had to be smarter than the chickens and I stop chasing them. Open the coop door threw in some mealworms and backed off. Lo and behold it worked! All chickens accounted for.
Yes the afternoon is wearing on, I realize the task before me is much larger than I could handle in one day. So I decide to work the driveway, filling up two buckets and chopping away a lot of ice. When out of the corner of my eye, I see poodles running loose and a very mud field yard! Of course my first thought is I heard they get out there! Because the gate was closed. My next thought was I don’t have a brown poodle! When the realization is it’s a white poodle that is really that dirty!
i am usually the eternal optimist; at this moment, optimism wasn’t even in the vocabulary! The sun is starting to get low and I realize I haven’t fed the dogs, I now have poodles to bath and horses that need to come in!
I decide that I would do the broccoli at all, it was actually white poodle first. Seem like a good decision at the time and then bring horses in and then get to the what was the silver poodle now not sure what color she is.
As I get finished with once again is a white poodle, I realize feeding is going to be late tonight. Because I have to get the horses in before dark.
i head out to the pasture lead ropes in hand to get both of the girls in. Do you know how they say the best laid plans of mice and men; in this case it was the best laid plans of a woman and horses. As I open the gate to step into the pasture, it’s very muddy. My feet sink to my almost my ankle bone. Reba, is a quarter horse, she decided to take this opportunity to barge between me and the gate escaping into my backyard! Camille just stands are looking at me like I’m not sure what’s going on but this doesn’t look like a great opportunity for me to get out. Closing the gate quickly behind me I try to wrangle in Reba.
Visualize a very muddy yeah grassy backyard area. It’s a large horse that has decided she is not going to be harnessed! So as I am trying to approach her she takes off running behind or rose cypress trees thinking that that’s going to shield her from my catching her. After several laps around our yard between the trees slipping and sliding I now have a yard that is full of major horse skidmarks. Not to mention I look like I’ve been trying to slide into home plate! I’m covered in mud and my patience is wearing very thin. I at least had the wherewithal to close the gate from my yard to the driveway so she could not escape.
After about 20 minutes of this game… That I’m not finding very funny. I decided I had to be smarter than the horse! I will say she’s usually good about coming when I call her. But for some reason today whether it’s the full moon, or she’s just feeling frisky I don’t know but she’s not coming!
By now she has figured out a track that she runs around the backyard to the gate behind the trees in is just a big laugh that she keeps making. So I go and get another rope and I tie it between the fence and the trees. As a come between the trees, she lives up ahead looks at me as if to say OK we’re going to do this again! Little did she know I had other plans and I like to think that I’m a little smarter than she is! As she cornered around the trees she saw the rope and it startled her. Not quite sure what to do she turned and saw me coming her way swinging my rope, so she headed back towards the barrier I had made. Stopped because she couldn’t get beyond it I’m not quite sure what to do next. I slow down as I approached her, because at this point she was not too happy that she had been cornered. Slowly walk towards her grabbed her halter, and triumphantly clicked the lead rope to her halter! I felt victorious! OK a little angry as well but mostly victorious, I very sore from all the running sliding in the mud. It wasn’t exactly how I pictured the end of my day. Which was an over yet. I have to admit most of today was not what I pictured as the idyllic day on the Prairie.
After getting Reba back in her stall, I slowly and with a slight limp, made my way to go get Camille. I think meal after watching all the antics of decided it would not be in our best interest to act up at all. She stood there very patiently while I clicked her lead rope to her halter and we slowly made our way back to the barn without any incidents. I have to tell you it was quite a relief to have all the horses in and that part of my day over with
Now it’s time to tackle the silver poodle who I can’t even describe what she look liked; she was such a mess. It took three baths for both dogs to get them clean. It wasn’t just mud it was Sandy mud! Which in my experience is the worst kind, it in-beds itself and the hair, it doesn’t seem to matter how much shampoo you use theres still sand. It’s rather like when you get sand in your swimsuit, you think you’ve rinsed it out and guess what it’s still there!
Finally the dogs get fed! Much to their relief… I think they thought they had to go to bed without any dinner because other animals have been naughty! I walking to the house thinking OK now it’s me time.
Oh no! There are muddy footprints everywhere! Because I had ignored the girls in the house, three of which are pregnant. We had a few accidents! So I am cleaning the floors, feeding dogs, getting them water, I realize my body has decided to not move any more.
I can’t say I blame it, my body that is. After all it was a very full day; most of the items were not on my list! And I said look out in the evening sky I see a full moon! I think perhaps that sums up my day and I’m nut shell!
life on the Prairie is never a dull, the animals always seem to have their own sense of humor and I feel like most days I am the brunt of their joke!
You have to love your life! Even when it’s painful!
