Thursday, November 17, 2005, 20:13
Hauling Hay
My legs feel really tired today. I wonder if it has anything to do with hauling almost 40 bales of hay -- two at a time-- with the wheelbarrow through the snow, across the yard from the barn, down the lane, and then stacking them as high as I could get them?
I suppose it does.
And why, you are wondering, did I haul hay with the wheelbarrow and then stack it up?
To build a windbreak for Isabelle, of course.
It took me most of the afternoon on Tuesday to build the windbreak. The wind was howling out of the north/northwest, driving snow ahead of it. A thoroughly miserable day. But I needed to do something for Isabelle. That's why I hauled hay down the lane. .
For whatever reason, Isabelle has decided she wants to stand along the fence in her pasture when it is windy. So, I started tearing down the hay stack on the south side of the barn trying to find bales that weren't quite so good to stack up outside for Isabelle's windbreak. (Didn't we just put the hay in the barn? Yes we did. Only a few weeks ago.)
The spot Isabelle has chosen as a place to stand is right in the teeth of the wind when it blows from that direction. I don't know why she wants to stand there. The only thing I can figure out is that it is the lowest spot in her pasture. Maybe some ancient horse-instinct tells her to stand in the low spot.
I wouldn't have to go through all of this if my old gelding, Kajun, was more sensible. But, he has never been sensible about anything before, so it is sheer lunacy for me to think he might be sensible about letting Isabelle share the barn with him this winter. And speaking of the barn, Kajun didn't go outside from the time it started snowing at 5 p.m. Monday until Wednesday morning when the sun was shining in his pasture.
While I was building the windbreak, Isabelle stood there watching my every move. As the windbreak
got higher, she turned parallel to the fence -- and to her windbreak. When I was finally finished, I crawled through the fence, just to see what it was actually like from her position. Although the windbreak does not block all of the wind, of course, it does manage to block about two-thirds of it.
I would like to haul another five bales down there to make the windbreak a little longer, but Randy is going to have to help me get the hay down from the north side of the barn. It's stacked to the rafters there.
I still don't think it's fair. It was 60 degrees on Saturday. Thursday morning we had a windchill of 2 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Wednesday, November 16, 2005, 18:26
Blizzard!
This morning the weather forecaster said it was pretty much done snowing. We had gotten an inch or two since about 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
At noon -- it was still snowing. And blowing, with a 20 to 30 mph wind out of the north/northwest.
I spent part of the morning carrying two bales of hay up to the house and covering my garden mum and my rose bush. Wasn't it only four days ago that I was mowing the lawn in a tank top on a 60-degree day? And now it is definitely winter.
The visibility is so poor that you can't hardly see the hills east of our place. I took Charlie for a short walk up to the neighbor's before putting him back in his nice, snug, warm kennel in the basement, and it was practically white-out conditions.
I also spent some time this morning climbing around on the hay in the barn to find two suitable bales to put in the back of my truck. If I don't have weight in the back of my little truck, I'm probably not going anywhere. Not even out of the driveway! I selected two bales that had quite a bit of June grass in them. The horses don't care to eat June grass hay. They *will* eat it if there's nothing else to eat and they are very hungry, but it takes a while to get to that point.
I suppose the next thing will be shoveling snow. I only cleared off the porch this morning. With such a strong wind, it doesn't make any sense to get the snowblower out or to put in a lot of effort with the snow shovel because it will drift back, anyway. Plenty of time later after the wind dies down.
Couldn't we have eased into this gradually? I mean, really. Saturday I was mowing the lawn -- and four days late we've got a blizzard.
On the bright side, now that there's snow on the ground, we can have Indian Summer. My mother always said it could not properly be called Indian Summer until there was snow on the ground.
LeAnn R. Ralph
