Author: LanternFarmMN

Mental Health – 2023

getting my mental house in order

First things first – I am not a mental health expert, a medical professional, or any other anything that qualifies me to give advice regarding mental health. Everything I say here is in reference to myself. If something I say resonates with you and you want to try it too, that is great and I would love to talk about it in the comments, but this is not me advising anyone to do anything.

Second things second – Mental health issues, like everything lately, seems to make people take a hardline stance on one side or another of some imaginary line. In this case usually over the need to take medication. I often hear/see things like “You don’t need those pills, just [fill in whatever thing you think will magically make someone better].” or “You wouldn’t tell a diabetic to stop taking insulin, why tell people with mental health issues they don’t need medication?” However if someone has diabetes, or high blood pressure, or some other physical ailment, they usually incorporate BOTH lifestyle changes AND medicine, often in the hopes of minimizing the amount of medication they need. Yet I don’t hear that middle-ground camp much when it comes to mental health issues, but that is where I fall.

I was diagnosed with depression my freshman year of college and put on medication. I took one medication or another for several years but also made changes in my life and eventually felt well enough to try living without medication and have been able to be okay (mostly) as long as I maintain those lifestyle changes. There have been a few times since then when my depression/anxiety started drifting away from managed, but each time I was able to get my mental health back under control when I got those lifestyle things back under control as well.

I however find myself once again at a point where my depression/anxiety are no longer well managed and are negatively impacting my quality of life. I’ve been struggling to get myself to do anything other than read books, click through imgur, or play endless games of spider solitaire. Though those things are perfectly fine on their own, doing nothing but them for hours on end, day after day, isn’t exactly the life I would like to be living. It is also clear that I have let many of the lifestyle choices that help me manage my mental health slide right off my plate and into the snow (along with a hoof pick and the padlock we started putting on the horse gate at night) but unlike the hoof pick and padlock I can’t wait around until spring and hope I find them again, I am going to need to be a little more proactive.

Here are the big things I will be reincorporating back into my life this January with the intention of being more diligent about keeping them around. Generally speaking, trying to establish good habits or changes in your life is easier if you do them one-at-a-time, but all of these things were established behaviors not that long ago and I have already started reincorporating them one-per-week starting the week before Christmas.

Now on to the list:

  • Meditate/Mindfulness Practice
    • Nate and I try to meditate together for five minutes every morning and we’ve managed to stay pretty good about that. In addition to that I am also trying to incorporate a mindfulness practice throughout my day. Of everything on this list, this is the one that never really went all the way away, but also the one I don’t think I’m that good at and need the most work with. Hopefully more practice will make this habit better and more effective.
  • Exercise Daily
    • I had been really good about doing 15-30 minutes of strength and cardio exercises every morning for years, but once we brought the horses home my morning routine went right out the window and I have been struggling to get it back. The various injuries to my back, neck, wrists, and hands have not helped the situation either. The week before Christmas I decided to actively reclaim a morning routine which also includes some form of exercise and have stuck with it on the days I’ve been home. This had been a pretty established habit prior to the horses coming home so I’m hopeful it will stick.
  • Light Therapy
    • I have had some version of a light box for a few years and try to sit under it every morning once we’ve passed the autumn equinox and until the spring equinox, but since my morning routine was obliterated when the horses came home I didn’t start it up again like I should have. Now that I am reestablishing a morning routine with my exercises I decided to squeeze fifteen minutes of sitting under my light in to it as well. I started sitting under the light again last week and so far I’ve managed to do it most mornings. It’s also another opportunity to practice mindfulness/meditation, which is good. Though watching Juniper and Leeloo stare at the house wondering what is taking breakfast so long is still making me feel guilty.

 

  • Cut Out Sugar
    • Sugar is evil (as discussed in this post) and it has got to go. I do however feel it is worth saying again that sugar is not the same as carbohydrates. When I say I need to cut sugar out of my life I am not saying I’m cutting out carbohydrates, which are a necessary part of a healthy diet, I’m cutting out sugars. Read your labels – see how much added sugar is in your food, if it isn’t something you’ve paid attention to before you’ll probably be shocked. Sugar does lots of terrible things to our bodies but in the case of my mental health it makes my depression, anxiety, energy levels, and overall mood so much worse. I know this and have successfully gotten sugar out of my life several different times but it always creeps back in because it is sooooooo tasty and soooooo addictive. SO addictive! I will once again be buckling down and cutting sugar back out of my diet. Here are two more links discussing the relationship between sugar and mood disorders: What to Know About Sugar and Depression and Sugar intake from sweet food and beverages, common mental disorder and depression.
  • Getting a Handle on the To-Do List Issues
    • Like many (most?) people I tend to suffer from having too much to do and not enough bandwidth to do it. I have tried any number of practices to gain a sense of control over what feels like an overwhelming life and they each worked to varying degrees, but nothing became a real habit. My current plan is to use the Pomodoro Technique more intentionally (work on a task for 25 min, then take a 5-min break; after 3-4 sets of 25 min work + 5-min breaks take a longer 20-30 min break; rinse and repeat). I have used this method in the past with success so I’m hoping it will work again. One thing I will be experimenting with is if it works better for me to work on a different thing for each 25-min work block, therefore chipping away at several different things each day, or if I should focus on specific things each day. This week I’ll be trying the different item for each 25-min work block, next week we’ll try to focus on just one or two things for the whole day and we’ll see what works better.
  • Get My Physical House in Order
    • This one is somewhat loaded because there are a lot of gender role and societal role issues involved with “keeping house;” who is responsible, who bares the blame when standards aren’t met, who determines those standards, etc. But the reality is, when my house is clean I feel better and there is research to indicate that it isn’t just societal pressure. I have experienced an actual physical reaction when I wake up the next morning and walk into my recently cleaned kitchen – I feel physically lighter and I can feel my mood lift. The problem is I hate cleaning my house! Nate and I had developed a method that was working pretty okay. We both agreed to do 30 minutes of “adulting” each workday and two hours each weekend day and we were doing a decent job of keeping the house and our lives in order. But this summer that all disappeared when every moment of “adulting” time got taken up doing stuff to get ready to bring the horses home and now that they are home we do horse chores every day and those use up more than our allotted 30-min a day plus 2 hours each weekend day which has resulted in us barely keeping up with the things that will not be ignored, like laundry and dishes. But the state of our house is not one I am okay with and I have got to figure out how to get it back to okay.

None of these ideas are new or my own and are all things I have done in the past, so it is a matter of reincorporating them back into my life and not necessarily creating new habits.  The suggestions themselves come from many sources but there were two books that were the biggest influences in helping me develop my own holistic approach to dealing with my mental health.

The Depression Cure by Stephen S Ilardi. This was the first time I had heard anything about managing depression with something other than drugs and/or therapy and it was really eye opening for me.

The Chemistry of Joy by Henry Emmons. This book was recommended to me by my therapist, and it was amazing and I highly recommend it for anyone, even if you don’t have diagnosed depression or anxiety. There is a lot of information in this book, and I feel like it would be worth re-reading. Maybe a to-do for February.

For now I’ll be shaking off the bad habits that have snuck back into my life and taking time to find beauty even when its negative everything degrees outside.

 

 

 At least there are no bugs!

Videos from 2022

I have been working on a side gig (in addition to the Fleet Farm job) with a friend for some extra money (that barn will not pay for itself!). The other people who were supposed to be working on the project with us have all fallen through so we have been pretty slammed getting everything done which has left no time for a post. So instead enjoy some video highlights from 2022 (plus a bonus video from Jan 1 2023). 

Was not expecting that reaction to the hay boxes. They are old news now though.

You cannot beat breakfast in bed! 

Juniper is a very food motivated horse and she makes this sound not only for breakfast but for “fresh” hay too. Though she is not always eager to leave the shelters to come get her food.

Leeloo loves to help with chores. Here she’s helping me put the hay out. So helpful she is.

Leeloo is a very busy horse so we put together this toy to keep her busy. She didn’t seem to play with it much after this first introdcution but a few weeks later we found it utterly destroyed. Hence moving on to the new toy.

Here Leeloo is demonstrating why getting the haybox lids made is a priority. Stop wasting the hay!

Another napping video – I love the big stretch and sigh.

Sometimes Juniper decides she’s done with breakfast a little early and goes looking for grass under the snow – not sure what she finds but she keeps on looking.

Leeloo also gets excited for breakfast. Now that the snow is deeper she tends to canter up – higher speeds make it easier to plow through snow apparently.

Everything is a toy for Leeloo, even her water. We were bringing them water during the ridiculous cold and blowing snow days since some of the drifts were taller than Juniper. 

Here is Leeloo enjoying her new toy – she loves this thing!

And bonus video from Jan 1 – 2023

Leeloo playing with something that is not a toy because Leeloo likes to play with everything. At one of our previous barns someone asked if they could let Leeloo and their horse run around in the arena unattended and I said no – this is why! 

There are more videos on our YouTube Channel. I’m going to try to upload a new video every Wednesday – we’ll see if that actually happens. I’m still using YouTube to post videos because as far as I know (and I don’t know much) they are one of the few platforms that actually make it pretty easy for content creators to get some share of the ad revenue and as I said above, that barn isn’t paying for itself, so I need every penny I can get!

 

2023 – Here We Come

a variety pack of goals and plans for the year

As I was writing this in my head it was quickly turning into a monstrously long and somewhat overwhelming post – so instead of detailing all of the goals and plans we have for the year I’m going to briefly outline them here and then write a few additional posts with more details about some of the bigger and/or more involved goals and plans.

Here are the things we will be focusing on for 2023:

  • Get that barn! As I said in one of the very first posts, I am an indoor cat with an outdoor hobby. This recent extreme cold snap has also convinced Nate that getting the barn built should indeed be priority number one. Luckily the cost of building materials is finally starting to come down so I am hopeful that 2023 will be the year of our barn!
  • Find that third horse. Leeloo and Juniper still make it clear every day that they would really, really, like a third horse. It is not that they spend all day fighting, they just clearly do not like each other and would rather be with pretty much anyone else. I also want a horse I can reliably ride; Leeloo’s lameness is better but it’s hard to know how much better without a decent place to work her. And then there are the future foals. I want to have at least one more foal, hopefully more than one, and I need a mare worth breeding for that to happen.
  • Get the hay field and pastures planted. I still very much want to be able to make our own hay. There is more to it then planting the appropriate grass, but that is step one and I’m hoping we can get that done this year. I also really would like to stop spraying toxins and poisons onto the land we live on and into the water we drink, which means we need to stop leasing it out for traditional agricultural use.
  • Continue the many projects around our current Plan B horse operation:
    • Finish and install the hay box lids for the existing hay boxes
    • Build another six hay boxes and lids
    • Clear out the second stall in the “barn” shelter and find something to block the wind
    • Get some cameras and lights set up around the horse areas
    • Is that it?! There must be more…
  • Get a handle on my mental health. I have been dealing with depression, anxiety, (and maybe ADHD?) since college and I have mostly been able to manage it with lifestyle choices, but this past year has been extra challenging for me and I need to get it back under control.
  • Get a handle on my physical health. My biggest fear in starting this adventure was that my body would not handle the extra physical strain and I was right to be concerned. My back, neck, shoulders, and wrists have not been doing well and I need to find some solution so this adventure can continue.
  • Figure out the purpose and goals of this website. Why did I create this site? Why am I writing these blog posts? What exactly am I hoping to achieve with these efforts?

I have been thinking about many of these things for a while. For some I already have clear steps in mind, others still need a lot more thought. I however am going to be keeping a new mantra in mind for this year. It came to me while cleaning out the shelters after that ridiculous cold snap and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the mess. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just better. 

No matter what happens I am hopeful that 2023 will be a good year – not perfect, but better!

Where Did The Year Go

2022 – Year-End Recap

I was starting to write a “goals for next year” post and was feeling a bit disheartened by all the things I had wanted to get done this year but haven’t gotten to yet and decided that it would be good for my mental health to take some time to reflect on the many things we did accomplish this year.

Just the decision to bring Leeloo home without having the full barn setup that I had been dreaming of was a big deal. There were many conversations with many people, and a lot of thinking about goals for myself and for Leeloo, before we even got to the starting gate. That process was the main focus of these posts:

Then there was putting the fence up and electrifying it, which took the whole summer. I understand now why people are willing to pay an extra $30,000+ to have a fence installed. The entire fence process is detailed in these posts: (Fence Part 1, Fence Part 2, Fence Part 3, Fence Part 4, Fence Part 5, Fence Part 6, Fence Part 7, Fence Part 8) and I need to remind myself how much work that was or I start feeling like we should have gotten more done over the summer.

Getting the first two shelters, anchoring them, starting to build the third shelter, then deciding that building it just wasn’t going to happen, was also more work and stress than I imagined. It is obvious now that we never could have built them ourselves, we just don’t have those skills yet, but that wasn’t always easy for me to accept. I am very happy now that we opted to buy them already constructed and that for the third one we went with the company that anchors them for you. The drama around the shelters was discussed in these posts: Give Me Shelter – Part 1 and Part 2, Second Interlude, So Much to Do, Mish Mash, Know When to Fold Them,  Hayshed – Delivered.

Finding and installing the round pen wasn’t part of the original plan but I am so glad we have it! We haven’t gotten to use it for its intended purpose very often but, it was so very helpful when we brought the girls home and has been very handy many times since then; including helping to separate Leeloo and Juniper each morning during feeding time. Though we are currently having some issues with Juniper turning into a picky eater; if it isn’t one thing it’s another. We discuss the round pen in Gate Expectations and the Fifth Interlude.

HAY! I had been a little worried about getting decent hay for a price we could afford. One of my long-term goals is to have our own hay field and I still feel that way, finding quality hay has been a challenge particularly since we also need it delivered. Luckily we were able to find a variety of hay for this year, including several different people who would deliver, though the quality has been all over the place. The girls like the most expensive hay best (of course) but now that we finally have some hay nets and some haybox lids they at least can’t toss it all over the ground and waste it (I’m looking at you Leeloo).  Hay post – Fourth Interlude.

Then there was finding Juniper – I didn’t talk much about that process on the website but it took a while for us to find the right pony, even when her only job is to keep Leeloo company, well and be cute of course. Finding that next mare, who will be the cornerstone of whatever comes next for us, is going to take much, much longer (Looking For a Baby Maker) – but now we’re starting to get into future goals and that is for the next post.

The ultimate goal of all of this work was to bring Leeloo and Juniper (once we found her) home, which we did! I sometimes forget what an accomplishment that is – it is the culmination of decades of dreaming. Here are the posts about bringing them home and the fun that has been: Coming Home, First Two Weeks, Sugar is Evil, Copy Paste, She’s Lucky She’s Cute, First Real Snow, Work Harder Not Smarter, Winter Woe-nderland.

One of the things I feel the biggest sense of accomplishment about (now that it is over) was something that we hadn’t planned for at all; dealing with Juniper’s eye infection. That was a huge, huge deal, both in terms of time and money, and I am so very, very, happy we were able to heal it (First Two Weeks, The Joys of Medicating Ponies, Mish Mash, Copy Paste, Juniper Eye Update). There was a very real chance she could have lost that eye and we saved it!

Though we weren’t able to build any shelters, we did get several building projects done including the six hay boxes (First Two Weeks, Projects Galore, Hay Contained) and the three compost bays (How to Make Compost Bays). The lids for the hay boxes are so close to being all done and hopefully we’ll get a chance to finish installing them during this “warm” period.

We’re once again getting into future goals but taking time to look back over this year has done what I had hoped, reset my perspective on what we all accomplished in the last few months and made me feel better. We got a ton done, pushed ourselves way, WAY, out of our comfort zones, and, more often than not, accomplished what we set out to do (even if it almost always took longer and cost more than expected).

One other huge accomplishment that I haven’t written about was getting this website up and running. I have never done anything even remotely like this and every aspect of this website has been a learning experience and has been the cause of a lot of swearing and a lot of crying, mostly in the beginning – the website hasn’t made me cry in weeks. I am very happy with how it has turned out and am really proud of myself.

Looking forward to another year of adventures. And of course Leeloo will be there to help:

 

Merry Christmas

We had hoped to get a holiday card out this year but that didn’t happen (unsurprisingly). So instead enjoy the card from a few years ago. The photo was taken at Leeloo’s previous boarding barn by our friend.

Hopefully we’ll have enough spare time next year to get a card done.

We did however get some videos of Leeloo and Juniper enjoying their Christmas presents. 

Here is Leeloo playing with hers:

 

The treat ball toy was a recommendation from a friend. It took a little practice to figure out what treats she could actually get to come out but we came up with a combination that seems to be working. A mix of oats (to fill in the space around the opening where everything was getting stuck), timothy grass pellets, alfalfa pellets, and cut up apples and/or carrots. This thing keeps Leeloo very occupied for at least a little while every day, which is great.

Here is Juniper enjoying her Christmas present:

 

Juniper’s present is Leeloo being occupied for at least a little while every day.

Winter Woe-nderland

at least there are no bugs

The weather this week has not been fun. Look at this drift – that is a five-foot-tall fence!

Luckily most of our upgrades have been working well:

  • New boots – awesome!
  • Sled – very happy.
  • Carhart overalls (which are not new but were brought out for the weather) – wonderful, as always.
  • Make-shift hay nets – working marginally well, though they managed to put a hole in one of my seams already and the twine I use to shut them is a pain to loosen and tighten every time. Waiting with eager anticipation for the real ones to get here.
  • Poop fork handle upgrades – mixed. The extra length has been nice, but the second handle was a total flop, literally; it will not stay fixed in place. This is most likely because it is primarily designed to be used with a snow shovel and you usually scoop snow directly away from you, but when your picking up poop and putting it in a cart you tend to tip it to the side (or at least I have to or I misjudge and most of the poop just winds up on the other side of the cart) and the second handle is not able to, well, handle that twisting motion. While trying to figure out if I could make that second handle work for me I realized the biggest issue is the angles between the basket portion of the poop fork and the actual handle. To get the basket to lay flat on the ground (which one needs to do to pick up the poop) it forces the handle into a really high and awkward angle that it terrible on my wrists and shoulders. Anyone else notice this or am I just special? When I have some time and the roads aren’t extra stupid, I’m going to drive to some other places that carry horse supplies and see if other brands have the same issue.

The one thing we still really need to find a decent solution for is goggles. The pair we got claim to be antifog but that is an outright lie! Within 20 minutes I can’t see anything and wind up taking them off, which defeats the purpose. Still searching for a decent solution for that.

We were still feeding them primarily out of the hay boxes when it was relatively “warm” and not particularly windy.

But now that it is truly terrible out there, we are feeding them everything out of the shelters and bringing down additional warm water to them so they don’t have to make the trek to the water tank. Apparently, our tap water tastes funny (this is according to Juniper who refused to touch it the first two times) but I added some molasses and now she’ll drink it.

Leeloo of course thinks everything, even the water, is a toy.

 

They are both still blanket-less but I have been checking them both obsessively for any sign of being too cold. At one point Juniper was shivering a little bit, but I was just about to put out more hay and figured finishing that up quickly would help warm her up and then I could deal with getting towels to dry her off with and her blanket. By the time I finished putting out the hay however she wasn’t shivering any more so I finished up the rest of my chores, checking her every few minutes, and she never shivered again. I was already feeding a flake of the really good hay on the ground in each shelter bay as well as a flake of the good stuff and some of the only so-so hay (in Leeloo and Juniper’s opinion, since they now only grudgingly eat the other hay and only after every morsel of the good hay is gone) in each net. But after Juniper’s short shiver episode I decided to double the amount of the good hay I was feeding them lose on the ground. It has meant a little bit of wasted good hay (when it was only the one flake per bay they ate every piece that was on the ground!), but in this weather it is worth it.

I know some people have very strong feelings about blanketing versus not. I’m trying to let the girls tell me what they want. Though this cold snap makes me want to try this experiment on them! Here is a shorter summary of what they did.

Bunny Problems

why did it have to be bunnies?

As some of you may know, the first pet Nate and I had as a couple was our rabbit Zoey, pictured below.

Zoey’s favorite pastime was hanging out under the coffee table passing judgement on all, as seen in the second photo. She had a permanent hutch and play area that was tucked behind a couch and then when we were home, we would let her out to run around the house. She categorically refused to take even one hop onto the wood floors which meant she kept herself contained to the carpeted living room. If she knew Nate and I were home but hadn’t let her out of her permanent area yet she would rattle her cage (she would grab one of the horizontal pieces with her mouth and shake that thing for all she was worth) until we would open it up – at which point she would continue to hangout right in the threshold of her permanent area making it clear that she was there by her choice, not ours. She was a bunny after my own heart.

I tell you this because we currently have a rabbit living in our hay shed. Which wouldn’t bother me except that it likes to hop up, and on, and over, all the bales and seems to be using all of them as one giant litter box. There is bunny poop, and I can only assume pee, on almost every bale that has an exposed top and I want it to stop.

Though I’m not one of those people who cannot handle the though of killing an animal I don’t like doing it. I felt really bad every time one of our water traps took out a thirteen-lined ground squirrel and I hated them. I’m not sure I can make myself kill a bunny. There’s also the issue of not knowing how to go about doing it. As outlined in this post I am unwilling to use poison and if we use a live trap what am I going to do once we catch it?

I know cats can be a deterrent (or end) to things like the ground squirrels and rabbits, but my concern with outdoor cats is they also kill a lot of birds, and birds eat the bugs which I hate even more than the rodents. If we had the time for a dog, I would be tempted to get one and train it to hunt nuisance animals but that isn’t a project I have the energy for right now.

Any other suggestions for discouraging the bunny from using all of the hay as a giant litter box?

Work Harder, Not Smarter

wait, that’s not right

The inch of rain on one day followed by wet heavy snow for two days has not been fun to deal with, but we have made several upgrades over the past week or so and they have made chores slightly less awful.

First upgrade – sled for hay.

We found this sled at Fleet Farm and in addition to the 20% employee discount (the only reason I have that job) it was also on sale! It’s been working really well though it did play a role in our first ever loose horse incident.

Because we live in the north and they make us get rid of daylight savings time it gets dark at 4:00 PM, which means we are doing evening chores in the dark and we don’t have any lights anywhere near the girls. We did get two LED headlamps (also from Fleet Farm) that have made chores do-able but they aren’t the same as having lights. I had checked to make sure Juniper and Leeloo weren’t around before opening the gate and I didn’t see anybody. I’m pulling the sled through and realizing I need to pull it just a bit farther in to get the gate to swing shut when I catch motion out of the corner of my eye and turn to look. My headlamp reflects off of these two large glowing eyes coming at me and I let out an undignified shriek which of course startled Leeloo, the owner of said large glowing eyes, and she jumped forward. I realize that if she keeps going forward her only option would be to go right out the gate since the gate itself, the sled, and my own body were blocking any other route she’d have. I tried to lunge forward into her path but the sled was also partially in my way so the slight delay meant I literally chased her out the gate. GREAT. Thankfully Leeloo’s first reaction to anything, including things she is somewhat afraid of, is “Can I eat this?” So after a few strides of a snorting, tail-flagging, prancing trot she realized there was a lot of uneaten (and unmowed because we had better things to do this fall) grass just below the snow and she stopped and started eating her head off. The challenge was then getting her to actually stop eating long enough that I could get her halter on to lead her back. She has been very much AT THE GATE every day since then, so Nate is very worried another escape attempt is imminent, and it probably is.  But now that she knows there’s grass I also know she won’t go very far so I’m not as worried about her running on the road or trying to bolt back to her old home. Still a heart stopping few moments, though the sled is still worth it.

 

Second upgrade – actual winter boots!

I’ve been using Nate’s boots for a while, which sort of, kind of, fit, but not well. Boots that actually fit make lumbering through the snow easier. I went with Muck boots because (you guessed it!) they were on sale at Fleet Farm plus 20% employee discount. Working retail during the holiday season isn’t fun but I am loving that discount!

 

Third upgrade – poop fork handle.

As mentioned in this post we got a piece of copper pipe and a dowel to use to extend the handle of the poop fork to make it easier on both my back and wrists. It has not been as resounding of a success as I had hoped. I apparently had a definite poop picking up technique and I’m having to figure out a new one with the longer handle. We also added this extra second handle to shift where I have to grip it with my other hand. I’m hopeful that once I get over the learning curve and have a new technique figured out it will be better for my back and my wrists (which still feel like electric currents are going through them pretty much all the time – probably should be doing something about that).

 

Fourth upgrade – hay net for shelter hay.

Rain when the temperatures are in the 30s sucks so hard! Despite the paddock paradise rule of keeping all needs spread out in different areas we are not making the girls stand in the rain while its in the 30s so we’re feeding them hay in the shelters. The problem is they are picky about said hay and have been wasting quite a bit of it. I had a miss-cut hay-net piece from an early hay-box lid attempt that I wove shut along two sides to turn into a hay net and that has been working pretty well and helping the hay stay clean and dry in at least one of the shelter bays, which has been lovely. We purchased a few more hay nets from Hay Chix during their 12-days of Christmas Sale so looking forward to even less wasted hay once they get here.

Still sometimes questioning why the heck I wanted to do all this work – but then I get to watch moments like Juniper looking for grass under the snow and I remember why.

 

 

Hay – Contained

Hopefully

We have our first new lid!

We got four pieces of pipe (yes one of them is shorter, that is a stand-in for the actual piece of pipe which I had already started weaving through the hay net) and four of these new SIMPush push to install conduit fittings. They need a special piece to detach them, seen in the bag, but otherwise you need no tools to put them together. We also got two loop clamps to use as hinges. 

The always helpful employees at LeVahn Brothers were kind enough to cut the pipe down to size for us. We had to make the one dimension a little longer than planned so the corners would fit into the haybox since they jut out on the ends and aren’t perfectly square.

The pipe was way more expensive than the wood was, since the wood lid was made of those cut-off pieces, but it doesn’t matter how cheap something is if it doesn’t work. These lids went together so much faster. So. Much. Faster. Weaving the hay-net onto the rough-cut lumber was a tedious and splinter causing headache that took forever and literally hurt sometimes. The hay-net just slipped onto the metal without any effort. Cutting down the wood corners to get them to fit together snuggly took forever and even then they weren’t very strong. These metal corners literally just snap in place with no tools and no effort. Putting together this lid was so easy!

As for attachment, the little metal loop clamps with rubber inside just snap around the pipe and then you screw them into the side of the haybox. We didn’t screw them in all the way tight allowing the pipe to still turn easily, thus they act as hinges.

On the side that moves we looped a single bucket strap around the pipe and then it’s latch part hooks into a tie ring plate (supposed to be used to tie horses to) that we screwed onto the bottom of the box.

There are a few refinements we’ll be making. I now know how much to compensate for the hay net width and the corner pieces so my measurements for the other lids should be more accurate.  We will also be adding a second bucket strap on the side that opens, and the bucket strap was the perfect length so we can get a different loop (i.e. cheaper) to attach them to on the bottom of the haybox. Overall, very happy; though I’m going to give Leeloo a few days to try and destroy it before we make more – I do eventually learn.

Here are some videos of the lid in use:

 

AND! The lid was still in place the next morning and almost all the hay inside the box was eaten!

Course Work Completed

And Done Early!

Once again most of my writing energy has been tapped out writing papers and presentations for the classes I am taking so this will be a short blog post. Though I did get both the paper and the presentation done and turned in with two full days to spare; perhaps there is hope for me yet!

As for the farm, we do have several horse/farm projects that are in progress:

Hay net lids for the hay boxes. Someone (Leeloo) managed to break our first attempt at a hay-net lid within an hour.

It looked so nice; the joints at the corner just weren’t strong enough though.

If I have to watch Leeloo put her head in the box and push out all the hay onto the ground one more time, I am going to lose it.

Juniper also does it, but she doesn’t look directly at me from across the field, push out all the hay, then look right back at me like “What are you going to do about it?!” the way Leeloo does. I did stop by LeVahn Brothers (still the best hardware store on the planet) and we think we have a solution for the frame and for attaching it, but they had to order in two more corner pieces for me. I will be picking them up soon so we can hopefully get a prototype made this weekend.

Longer handles for yard tools. My physical therapist has been on me to figure out how to make the handle of the poop fork longer and/or get a second handle on it so that I can stop making my back/shoulders/neck/wrists worse every day I do chores, which is almost every day. LeVahn Brothers again came through with a great solution, however pipe only comes in so many sizes and the handle of the fork itself was either going to be a bit too wide or way too small and we thought it would be easier to sand the handle down a bit and get a really tight fit than try to pad it out and have a fatter pipe. I thought that sanding it down just a tiny bit would be quick; it has not been. We will also hopefully be working on that this weekend. My body would really like me to prioritize this project.

Enrichment ideas for Leeloo. Leeloo has been bored and in need of some more enrichment, particularly since she has started wood chewing again in their shelters (are there any sprays/paints that actually stop a horse from chewing on wood?). We know it is Leeloo and not Juniper because most of the marks are way too high for Juniper to reach.

We did put up a new “toy” and Leeloo once again demonstrated that she is far braver than your average horse. Most horses hear a strange sound and spook, Leeloo hears a strange sound and gets intrigued. I will be looking for some additional options over the weekend – ideas?

Looking forward to a hopefully very productive weekend.