A Busy Morning

This morning Brett and I were up early to finish barn chores and ride before our monthly hay delivery arrived.  We were down to one bale of alfalfa and one bale of straw.  No bales of orchard left.  The horses and goats are primarily fed orchard grass hay.  Winston, lucky boy, gets a flake of alfalfa with his breakfast on the days he is worked.  The straw is used for bedding in the goat shed.  Brett pulled the alfalfa and straw out of the hay shed and then took out the pallets.

He sweeps out the shed, replaces the pallets and waits until the new hay is delivered and stacked before putting the old stuff back in.  That way we rotate through the hay, using the old up first.  Sweeping out the hay shed lessens the rodent population.

While I was mucking, I heard a chirping and thought it was a bird until the dogs came racing over, hell bent for leather.  Oh, I thought to myself, it's a ground squirrel.  And then I remembered a story the head wrangler at Alisal told us once:  He was out on a ride with some guests and one of the men was some big whoop-dee-do bigwig, used to being in charge, and used to being right.  As they rode along a squirrel started up chirping and the guy says That's a black-bellied crested something-or-other bird.  The wrangler said No sir.  I think its a squirrel.  The guy became very indignant, insisting he was a bird expert blah blah blah.  A few minutes later, they rode by a log with a squirrel perched on his hind legs, chirping for all he was worth.  The wrangler didn't say anything, of course, but he loves re-telling the story.  Listen, here's a squirrel chirping (you can't see him, he's way across the field on some rocks):

I wanted to take some pictures of Jackson to show you.  Yesterday the farrier was up and said that Jackson's weight looked great and his feet were looking good too.  He's sound walking straight but still bobs when he turns.  Sage said a bit of lameness when he turns but no pain meds and no obvious lameness is a good thing for Jackson.  He thinks Jackson may weather the winter okay.  I'm very happy.

Tuffy and Finessa were looking cute eating their breakfast.

Winston was in the barn, eating his flake of alfalfa.  I think he was afraid that I was going to steal it.  Don't worry Winston, I know alfalfa is like candy to you but I'm not a big fan of the stuff for myself.

Flash was watching me from his stall next door.  He's not a big fan of the camera inside the barn.  I think the flash (which sometimes goes off) bothers his blue eyes.