I’d been looking forward to this Friday for some time. I figured that Pete and I would get a lot of stuff done around here. I also envisioned myself getting the horses and the dogs out. Of course, the sun would be shining brightly.

It was blustery, windy, and increasingly cold today. Winter is back and not being very subtle about it. Winter is like a loud relative who follows you around, letting you know that s/he is here and isn’t going to leave anytime soon.

Tinni, Siggy, Hrimmi, and Signy eating hay in a box

I thought some about what Pete and I had to do today as I was cleaning the horse pen. After, I ran inside and grabbed the back of an envelope and wrote these things down. I likened us to being two horses putting the same cart. I am sure when Pete saw the list that he thought he was pulling the cart. I didn’t mean for it to be this way.

I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen while Pete went online and watched the auction bidding going on at Jim’s place. He had his eye on an inverter and charger. He got both. Pete is planning on replacing our older inverter with Jim’s newer inverter. Then he will sell our older inverter. I didn’t say what I was thinking but it seemed to me this is going to be a lot of work.

Get Hay was at the bottom of the list, but I moved it up in realizing that the bales we thought were good, were moldy. Our getting Covid resulted in a lost week – we fell behind on everything, including dealing with our hay situation.

Pete called our hay dealer who said he didn’t have any square bales, just hay wrapped in plastic. Pete is planning on getting the old truck running and taking this truck and getting plastic wrapped bales. He’s been working on and off on this truck for a few years. I don’t think he’s going to get it running. In the meantime, we need hay.

Pete made cheese while I took all the remaining hay and bales out of the shed and placed them on the lawn. When done, I had three categories: good hay, which consisted of two bales, mediocre hay, which consisted of a dozen bales, and bad hay which consisted of approximately 20 bales. I also had several white plastic bags full of hay that I am going to use as chicken bedding.

I cried as I did this task because it’s hard, laborious, dirty work. Also, we really don’t know yet where we are going to get our winter hay. And if the weather’s as crappy next year as it was this year, we’ll really be up shit creek.

I will feed the better stuff but will remain anxious. Tinni got heaves and this led to his death.

Late this afternoon I went and had a CT scan of my sinuses. I’ll know on Monday what the radiographs reveal. Going to work hard this weekend so that I don’t think about this.

Next: 83. 10/15/22: Who are You?