The sad story of the egg in the horse shed

So this morning I awoke with a misson.
Two actually.
Three actually.
I needed to get Poco's hooves trimmed, clean pasture and scrub the horse tank and refill it.
So I started with the first thing on the list. Easy right? Well, only if your horse wants to be caught.
I chased that sucker around for five minutes before I got him into a pen that we could work in.
I don't like having to chase my horse down and corner him to get a halter on him, and he always comes up to me and practically ties the knot on the halter anyways. But today he was feeling his frisky side and decided to have some fun with me. I'm glad no one was watching because falling down and having the horse laugh at you is nothing to be proud of.
So he ran into a small enough pen that I could do some exercises with him(I love to teach whenever I can) to get his focus on me and not on running.
Finally, with a great sigh, Poco gave in and stood still as I tied him to a post and started working on his feet.
He was a perfect angel for that; picking up his feet and holding them patiently while I tried to figure out what in the world I was doing. He only flinched when I knocked him in the hock with the rasp. Ouch. Sorry, Poco.
But in the end he ended up forgiving me and we did a little bonding on the lungeline.
I then had to figure out if it was above freezing and if so was the hose going to work for me. It ended up cooperating, but it was so stiff and unruly I sprayed water all over the ducks and chickens before I got it under control.
But I scrubbed the Black Beauty clean and filled it up(nope, I didn't overflow it this time. Hoorah for me!).

After that I got out my wheelbarrow and scoops and headed toward the horse shed. I really only need to muck every couple of days because they don't make much of a mess in the shed there.
I walked in and what do you know? I saw this.

Some chicken laid this in the barn. Amongst the poop and the dust. And it's cracked!
Thank you dear hen.
This is what I imagine happened;
Peck peck. Bock bock bock. "Wait, somethings-" Squack! "No, wait! I have to get back to the hen house!"
Another hen: "No time, you're having it-BOCK-here!"
A flurry of wings and more squacking and she had it right there. Then she went on pecking and left it to freeze. And crack...

And that is the sad story of the egg in the horse shed.

Glory Be. THE COLD

Today it is 18 degrees with a wind chill of 6 degrees. I didn't want to go outside at all. But guess who waited til the coldest day of the week to do all of the outside work? ME!
That's right folks! I waited til today to trim Poco's hooves. And to scrub water tanks and heaters. But unfortunately(well, maybe not!) the hose is frozen solid. So I won't be doing any refilling of tanks until at least Thursday when it warms back up. Unless I wanted to cart water from inside. No.
I have to throw out some eggs that didn't get picked up yesterday because I'm sure they're frozen solid too.
Yesterday was an amazing day. It was warm with a sunny clear sky. The absolute perfect day to ride. So I adorned Poco in all things western and it was an amazing ride. He was being an angel!! Can you imagine that!
I have another blog(among many) that I use strictly for my training methods, so if you want to read more in depth about the ride, go there.

This morning I awoke at 7:30AM. Imagine that! There's actually a 7:30 AM. And got ready. Mr. L the hay guy had told me yesterday that he would be around at 8:00 to drop some hay and I would give him another payment.
At 8:24 he called me and said, "Tractor won't start. I just hooked it up and it should be another half hour or so,"
Why sure. No problem.
So as not to miss him driving past the house(where the hay feeder is is blocked from view if you are anywhere but outside and I was NOT going to wait in 18 degree weather for who knows how long.
So I twiddled my thumbs until 9:30 rolled around. About then I took off my coat and started reading a magazine. Another half hour rolled around and I heard a vroom vroom outside my window and my phone began to whinny(my ringtone, duh!).
I raced back to my room where the phone was plugged in, hopping along as I was pulling my coat on. It was quite the scene to behold.
Turns out it was only Mr. L calling to let me know he was outside. So I went outside and showed him where to drop it.
He got it into the green hay feeder first try. The horses raced towards it happily knickering as they went.
Oh boy oh boy! Hay!
I can see their excitement because this bale is absolute beautiful quality. So I cut the strings and they tore away at it.
I am hoping Sage will gain some weight on this one, especially because it's of good quality and she really needs the weight for all of this weather(right now shes safe and snug in her industrial strength Weatherbeeta).

I also have big plans and surprises to come in the near future, so stay tuned(these could mean the start of something new at HA).

So I will be curling up under coat after coat to do any work today. I probably won't get much done...
Oh well.