Wow! what a lot of catching up to do! Our trip to Gatlinburg was uneventful, except for missing the baby sisters wedding! we could not find the wedding chapel, after driving past it several times, and the businesses and the local gas station couldn't help us. Anyway, we managed to be 'FOUND' by the rest of the family just in the nick of time to go and have lunch with everyone else which was enjoyed by all, I think. Our trip home was uneventful. But when we arrived home we had an unpleasant surprise. We had asked a neighbor if she would could come and shut our chickens in just before dark. (She has chickens of her own.) She said, Sure, no problem! Said she would write it on her calender! When we arrived home at 11:45 PM, she had not been there at all, but it was too late! A nasty 'coon or two had already been there and done his dirty work. Our rooster was beaten up and bloody and sitting out in the dark of the chicken yard, two of our 8 week old young chickens had been killed and partially eaten. E was pretty upset. We always close up the chicken house and lock the chickens in their house every night to prevent this from happening. This was the first time this has happened to our chickens. The following nights E set the live trap out in the chicken yard and we caught three coons on three nights. I take them with me on my way to work and let them go, into the woods about 7 miles from home. So anyway...what is done is done.
This last week, we have been baling hay. Last year we got nearly 200 bales, but we only got about 95 this year. It is so dry the grass was thin and just didn't make much hay. The neighbors round bale their hay and last year they had 4 or 5 big bales off of one particular field that adjoins ours and this year they only got 1 bale off of it! E said at this rate it isn't worth all the sweat and aggrivation! The hay was so slick (because it is fescue grass) that the bales didn't hold together very well and several would come apart when you attempted to pick them up. But...that is done now too. We won't get another cutting unless we get some pretty fair amount of rain.
I have been riding Katie in the early morning now. There aren't any bugs annoying us as we ride. She runs from me when she sees me coming in the morning if I am carrying a halter! She goes and stands in a corner in the run-in shed and waits for me to come and get her! After a couple of weeks I think she will be better about it. I am changing her routine by riding so early and she would rather I'd leave her alone. Horses are such creatures of habit.
