Dave tried to sleep all day today. He's been sick all week and still had to work, so this is his only chance. He did pretty well - was in bed till 3:30pm before he got called by work and had to get up and get on his computer. Hope it helps - he's been miserable.
My energy is still low. Lower than I can afford it to be. Just doing the normal feeding had me dizzy, shaking and gasping. Then, of course, there were problems. The fences in the back 20, which have been so weak and in need of replacing, have been knocked half way down. But there is no way I can fix fences today. Can barely walk through the snow around the feeding areas without seeing stars. So I fed up top (the other end of the back 20) hoping to keep them away from the weak spots until I could fix them. (They only pick at the fences because the babies are across the fence from them. I have not been able to fix the Middle 20 fence yet, so the babies can come right up to the main herd's fence and say hello.)
Took me an hour. The snow was drifted 2 feet deep in the road in some places so I had to charge the road all the way up the hill. Got stuck a few times, but with the chains on, I was able to get unstuck. Got the hay out then had to convince the horses to cross the creek (which they can't see right now because of the drifting snow) and come up the hill. The babies ran the other way, which made the adult herd refuse to leave where they were. Took almost an hour of walking the hill, calling, driving down to them and leading them up, to get everyone up. I am dripping with sweat and exhausted. Shaking.
Need to go out and check water. We got hard winds all night and more snow, so the creek is largely buried. I know they need me to find a safe path to water for them, but I couldn't today. If I stayed out much longer I would have risked passing out. Too dangerous in this weather to allow that. The water will have to wait until tomorrow, as will the fences.
What am I going to do if my energy doesn't pick up? I can't leave the fences down. Someone will get tangled in them and get hurt. And I have to be able to do water every day.
Worry about it tomorow, I guess. Can't do anything about it today. If I have to I can spend the rest of the winter just getting the feeding and horse care done, then dropping into bed and sleeping until feeding time the next day. Surely I can come up with the energy to do what is needed if its all I do.
I'm just glad that winter isn't breeding season. There's no way I could juggle my work with my energy if I had someone else's horses here. I could not put off this kind of work if I had other people's horses here, not even for a day.
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