Happy Samhain Or As Most Know It Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone! Hope you get all the treats you want and no one tricks you!

Wordless Wednesday..........

It is Chilly Today & I Really Need To Get Straw!

This morning is quite brisk and I really need to get straw to spread out! It has rained for days and the paddock & training pen are knee deep in mud! But , of course my truck is in the shop once more as something keeps draining the brand new battery.


IttyBitty has devised a way to deter the others from eating their grain, he just stands in it. Weird as this usually doesn't work. Maybe the others decided his feet were such a "turn off" that they gave up and went straight for the hay.

You can tell the state of this muddy place by the look of the girls' legs! And that is fog in the picture, weird how that turned out.

The usual , "finally you're coming out to feed us" expressions!

I Have To Laugh.............

At myself...............My horses would rather be doing this than...............


This...............A self photo shoot with Mom..................heheheheheh!

Oh, now it wasn't that bad...............LOL!

Well, It's Back To WInter Barn Wear...........

And here I am modeling the latest...............At 6:30am, still dark out!


These girls cracked me up at noon. The energy company has been working at the end of the pasture, so the girls weren't really inclined to stay out there with all the trucks and loud noises, so they got a noon time snack.


Which clearly by the state of their "gob" fulls...............

It was truly appreciated...........This one is especially hilarious! Oh, it's the little things that I find funny!

Stephen and I have been roofing/ decking and this is as far as we got! We need to do six more rolls. That will happen in the spring! I hate roofing tar!

Sunday Afternoon............The Tidbits

First, Here's our little grandson, Joseph, modeling his American wear, that Grandpa Stephen & Nanny Callie bought for him from the Bass Pro Shop, amongst a whole bunch of other clothing & a couple of toys we just couldn't resist! Isn't the cutest!


The girls, were acting a bit concerned out in the pasture and were on high alert when I went down the stairs to call them in for dinner..............


Still concerned, but contemplating coming in.......................

Well, nothing much stop Kola from eating, hence, we'll start the Thyro-L for awhile once again. It's on order.........

She only stopped to come out and investigate because I snuck up on her to take a photo not in my usually place. And because Misty is clearly over concerned about what is lurking in the high cornfield at the end of the pasture, in spite of my best efforts to get her to eat, Kola ended up with a double whack of feed and literally a "hay day"! Not what she needs.

As something has Misty concerned and she refused to go in and eat. It took all of me to convince her to leave the pasture of which she was annoyed with me.

Clearly something is out there, even though I can't see it or hear it. Misty even had a loose poop over it once in. I guess I'll have to keep my ears open for coyotes tonight. Hopefully she'll settle down and eat some hay as we all know Kola doesn't need the extra.

On other news, I have pretty much winterized the horses. Did a thorough super bleach of the big trough and added the working heater. Good thing too as if was 25* this morning when I left from work. Their winter blankets are ready, however, I'll not put those on until it really gets frigid. Most likely, Misty will be wearing hers earlier because it doesn't take much for her to shiver, but since Miss Kola still has a little fat of the land to live off, we'll let her burn a bit of that off before she dons her blanket. They've both had their fall check-ups with their flu-rhino shots this week and I did the full monty wormer, including that for tapeworms. I've also replaced one of my tarps on the north side of the arena for northerly wind block/ goat eating horse tails, as often they prefer to stand there rather than in their shelter. I will wait a month or so before I start spreading straw in the their shelter and their standing/ nap areas. For the most part we're ready, well , at least the horses and goats are. Stephen & I still have a little bit of winterizing of the house to do before it really sets in, including a little bit of roofing/ deck over the garage. Oh Joys!

Kola's Morning "Feed Me" Antics...........

While Miss Misty just stands quietly waiting for breakfast to be served, knowing full well it will there as it is every morning, Kola must do the breakfast dance. In the mud...........Dork! Well, at least we no longer have the butt muscles issue, LOL!

Nice When Customer Service Works

As many of our regular readers will know last year we invested in 2 pellet burners from
Cumberland Stove Works ,

First I would like to point out how our investment worked out

Cost of Purchase and install of two pellet burners about
Pellet Burners cost with install $7,000
Pellets for the season 4 ton $1,000

Give or take

Savings on energy bill for last year plus the house was much much warmer in every room about $5,000 ( this is an old converted barn with poor insulation and quite a few sq feet )

Which means we will not only recover our investment in two years we have a much much warmer house ( As an aside I believe this year you can claim a decent tax savings as well was not in place when we bought ours last year )

On to the title of the post
Customer Service

We went to turn them both on this week and one kept on giving us Loss Of Vacuum error

Tried all the bits the manual said and still no better , So rang Cumberland ,

Few Great things about the call

1. Was answered by English speaking person
2. No body available right then but said they would ring back and they did 10 minutes
3. They did not spend hours working out did we have extended warranty etc. etc. just set about solving our problem

4. The techy talked me through each stage of checking out the problem and finally identified that the exhaust motor was not running properly ( Issue was damp and condensation had caused blades to stick ) bit of WD 40 and away we went , Pellet burner running like a dream.

Currently have both burners running on low so no furnace on at all yet , the two burners use about 3/4 of a bag a day ( $3.00 per day )

Just thought I would like to say glad good customer service does exist for some companies

Steve