INJURY!!  It never fails...pay off the vet and someone gets hurt. While feeding one of the yearlings in a stall he attempted to leave by pushing the gate and getting his head stuck in the gate. In fighting to free himself he fell backwards onto a wooden divide and found a 1/4 inch nail sticking out of the wood panel. 14 inch cut in his butt cheek and 30 stitches later the vet left to go watch the vikings lose to the Saints. What a bummer. An emergency vet call on a Sunday and our team loses in overtime.
How long does it take to put 8 horse blankets on when it gets cold during the night? 45 long minutes. Each blanket gets a little harder to put on as your fingers get mroe frozen and refuse to bend. By the last blanket I was shaking and ready to give up. All is well and warm though for this next cold spell we are going into.
God I hate the Minnesota winter!!

Ice Storm hit Watkins
It was more of a rain storm, but it froze into the sliperest, nastiest ice possible. It was so slippery that I couldn't get to the barn by walking upright. I got half way across the yard and fell down. I was then throwen a rope and pulled to the barn. How embarressing was that/ To get back to the house I took a scoop of free choice salt and mineral thats' used for the horses and SALTED my way to the house. Don't laugh it worked!! The ice postponed the photographer for a day. It never fails, bring 6 extra horses in to the barn for the night and something will change your plans. and you got alot of extra poop to clean up!

What a beautiful morning to go to the barn. When does 27 degrees above zero feel warm? When it happens in mid Janusy in Minnesota. I was sweating doing the barn work this morning. I actually had to strip a layer of long underwear off . The rescue horse Dick with his frozen penis is so close to being totally recovered. I am so optomistic at his full recovery. At this point though he still can't have a day outside because he can'y fully retact his penis into his body and protect it from the cold. Tomorrow will be a busy day. We have 6 horses to get cleaned up and ready for thier sale pictures. It would be so much easier if they didn't have 4 inches of winter fur to brush out. Oh well, if we can sell them from a winter picture think about what they will look like all shedded out in the spring... GORGEOUS to say the very least. I don't look forward to the 6 hours of brushing ahead of us tomorrow. but I know it should give us some good results.

Had to ad a few truths in the horse world
1) How do you induce labor in a mare?
Go take a nap.
How do you cure equine constipation?
load the horse into a clean horse trailer.
How do you get a horse to wash his own feet?
Clean the water trough and fill with clean water.
How do youget a mare to come into heat?
Take her to a horse show.
How do you get a mare pregnant with only one encounter with the stallion?
Let the wrong stallion get loose.
How do you get the perfect foal with the markings and colors you've always dreamed of
Sell the mare before she foals
How do get a show horse to perform thier very best? Practice at night or when no one is around.
How do you induce a cold snap?
Body clip your horse.
How do you make it rain?
Mow your hay field.
Hope you enjoyed these as much as I did!!

Made a big decision, finally got all 4 barn kitties fixed. In the past it was live and let live with the cats. Found homes for the kittens but there was always an expense in keeping the kittens healthy enough to get them old enough to GIVE away. It just makes better sense to nNOT have kittens. So we won't. I'm sure there will be kitty additions to our barn, but they too will get fixed. We need the mousers, just not the kittens. Got to put in a feed order again today. Feed used to not be such an expense or worry. Since 2008 it has gone from $142.00 a ton to $398.00 a ton.  We are very careful not to spill the grainy gold these days. If they weren't using grain to make fuel for trucks and cars the price would be alot better. I was told by my feed supplier not to expect prices to go down at all either. At least hay prices have leveled out some. I read this morning that some barn in PA> was robbed of 225 bales of hay...an approximate value of $1000.00 Hay robberies who would of thought. I wonder if the robber wore a mask!!

COLIC SCARE!!! We had one of the boarder horses come in acting really funny last night. A very large ex race horse that didn't wnt to eat!! That's always a sign of trouble. He came in fine just didn't dive into his feed like a big horses should. We watched him for awhile and he was lying down and getting up and pawing the floor.  We then took his grain away and gave him a shot of banamine. We called the vet but ended up not needing them  It was a long night going out to the barn every hour or so to see what was going on. First check he was laying down, second check he was up but no poop in the stall, third check he was up and eating hay, forth check...yup still dark outside.... finally a pile of poop. Never thought I'd be doing a happy dance for finding poop, but that is just what happened.  It was good. Horse people are definetly different from others. We like the smell of worn leather, horse hide and manure, it's as good as any scented candle and just as relaxing.

What a beautiful and calming morning it was today. Lots of time to exercise and do some daily reflection on things are going.  Spring is so close, tomorrow we are suppose to hit a high of 35 degrees, a heat wave.  We are having the 3 Icy mares preg checked in hopes that Triggvy was a good date to someone.  One horse in the barn is real ouchy from a new farrier trying to get her heels growing out

We had a great weekend. It warmed up enough to bring the die hard riders to the coverall indoor arena for a horse fix. It was great to see everyone and the horses! It dosen't take long for them to get out of shape. It takes even less time to get them pissy about getting warmed up and a little bit sweaty again. I LOVE it. I just need to get my taxes done now so I can focus on riding and riding and riding. The horse Expo will be here in no time. I want my Icys to be ready for the get up and go part. We are having pregnancy checks on the 3 mares to see if our little Triggvy stallion was able to play like the big boys last fall. It would be AWESOME if he had at least one foal on the way. It was 13 above this morning at 4am for doing the barn chores. A heat wave as far as winter goes. 2 broken manure forks and a $45.00 broken corner feed dish tend to take down the meager January profits, but it is part of the stable business, losses are to be had. I hope people are starting to think about clinics now and want to come to ours. We will have a fun day with some guaranteed good food..., Yum Yum.  Dick the rescue horse is doing better and his side kick Sassy is now being turned out into the mare herd for some sunshine and exercise. Dicks' penis is still won't retrack full so cannot be exposed to the cold weather yet. I give him a 50-50 chance of him totally recovering from his frostbite and being able to be outside when the weather is below freezing.

There is just nothing good about a Minnesota winter. Only the anticipation of spring keeps you going sometimes. The temperatures are supose to be 20 below zero tonight with 30-35 below wind chills. I can't even stand the thought of it being that cold.  Is there ever really getting ahead in your daily barn chores? I think not. While getting the feed into stalls this morning at 4 am I caught one of the barn cats useing a feed pan with grain in it as a LITTER BOX!!How gross is that? Now I have to be careful to not put out feed pans ahead of time in the stalls. Another set back...but manageable. I was able to get a couple of ads placed in local magazines for our horse clinic we are having in March.We are starting to get sign ups for that already, I'm excited. I don't care what the weather is outside that day, I just thank God for our coverall arena, it's the best thing any horse facility can have. So many uses, exercise, training, riding on bad weather days, anything to just be able to get your horse out and moving in the winter.