I walked up to the barn early this morning..... my new side kick, Devon wasn't going to be here for a few weeks because she'd been in an accident last week. All the morning chores were left for me to accomplish. I was greeted by 3 tons of Percherons saying " g'morning to you !" and then Kiisa, one of the 2 barn kitties as she waited for me to bring her breakfast out. I opened up the tack room door leading into the barn, and fed her. As I did, there was a loud group of whinnies from those horses in their stalls. ( oh joy- they'd been pooping ALL night long too) I recognized Alli, Scarlet, Sunny, and one really deep chortle from Adele. Jazz, the new girl on the block was looking out of her stall to see when I was bringing FOOD. After everyone had quieted down, she decided to ask 'how long till breakfast' in her little girl whinny.
Got everyone breakfast, and walked out to let the drafters in for the day - And their breakfast. Abby was well behaved - a nice surprise- and BoJangles took his time walking into the barn. Evie cantered in as usual, while Lynn waited for me. We walked to the barn together... Those three horses know exactly what stalls they live in, and I trust them to choose the correct ones.
The sunshine felt SO good this morning ! All the "little horses" were turned out for the day with some hay to eat and I got to work. Taking a Big chance that March wouldn't toss us any more harsh freezing weather or snow, I removed all the wonderful heated water buckets out of all the stalls, and replaced them with 11 freshly scrubbed, and disinfected water buckets that are used during the warm months. Filled those with fresh water and felt good that my horses all would have nice clean water. After getting the 7 dirty stalls cleaned, and checked out each to be sure there was no ammonia smells in them, I raked them all smooth with the clean bedding. Raked out the aisle and went to mix dinner feed in the tack room. I'd been letting the carpeting on the floor go pretty much all winter. Its' so frustrating to have it covered in dirt/ mud again,after spending time sweeping it all out. I dumped their dinner feed in the feed tubs, and decided to try to get that floor neatened up some more. Junk , plastic bags, winter gloves, and blanket bags were all over the place..... leg straps from blankets, and lots of dirt / dust. UGH....
So I got busy.... swept the crud into small piles, and then got the barn vac out to slurp those up. I then swept Under saddle racks, tack trunks, and got the bathroom neat n' tidy too. Vacuumed all of that up and then went over the floor again with the shop vac. I was making progress. Then I got out my 'webster' and got the cobbies down and off the walls, and took a glance at ALL of the 'stuff' stuffed in corners. < sigh> Winter had been hard on our tack room. Took a lot of items off and out of corners, and found proper places for them, and found I had a couple more items for a Pony Club tack swap a friend n' I were going to . By now I was running on empty , big time. Tired, I sat down in the wonderfully comfy chair that is in the tack room, and enjoyed the fact that I had certainly made at least a dent in the mess.
Yep, I had run out of energy for the day..... so I called it quits for cleaning. Walked up to the hens coop to check for eggs, and there were 4 fresh eggs waiting ! Emmi must have just layed an egg, because she was in one of the nesting boxes... Turned off all the lights, shut the tack room door, and headed down to the house for some lunch. What a good day- it felt good to not be freezing cold, and having to be bundled up like an eskimo.....
Tomorrow ? The big table in the tack room is going to be cleaned !
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