Normal People, have a tractor, that can drive in the snow, I do not have such a luxury, we sold our tractor when mom got hurt. SO taking the greener route we have to drag our hay out over the snow. To add to the difficulty I am moving Alfalfa, which weighs roughly 80lbs a bale.
Enter Bart the wonderhorse; Bart is my good ol man, who for all 21 years of his life has done whatever my mother or I needed him to do, he is very good at setting his boundaries, and very good to listening to ours, and other than that he is the most useful animal I have ever met. So as I walk out to catch him from the field for use in my mothers latest idea I am curious if he'll still love me at the end of the day.
Here's the Goal: Get roughly 7 bales of hay down to the boys shed, which is about 350 yards from the barn door, in 4 feet of snow. The plan is to fashion a sled out of a tarp my boyfriend picked up, and drag this behind poor Bart, loaded with hay, down to the shed using a long line, and the western saddle.
May I also mention that both Bart and I are severely out of shape at this point in the winter.
Step One: Fashion a Hay-Dragging-Device
materials; Tarp, Twine; lounge line; 3 bales of hay
I got about half way done this when my boyfriend mentioned I might want to close up the sides as well so the hay didn't slip out to the right or left. In the end this pretty much turned into a giant Santa Clause Present Sack. I then took the loops of twine attached to the corners of the tarp and brought them all together with the lounge line to create a tow line.
Now Bart looked at this as if it were an alien at first but it was quickly resolved when he realized what I had done was wrap up a big hay burrito for him.
Now I'm pretty sure the only reason my boyfriend and I managed to actually get bart to drag this heavy, noisy, and uncomfortable object out to his shed was because it was at this point that he realized the purpose of this entire process was to benefit him.
...And you said horses weren't smart!?
Step Two: Take a deep breath, give Bart a kiss and wrap the rope around the horn of the western saddle hoping he doesn't jump on top of me. He takes it quite well; there was a definite learning curve in the carving of a path down the alleyway to the shed, as well as in my steering as to not get the hay sack stuck in the fence line. Bart and I were both tripping over ourselves and each other in the snow but we got the first load down the hill and to the shed.
Step Three: Throw my wonderful amazing horse a flake of hay to eat while I unload the hay into the shed feeder, and return back to the top of the hill for load two.
The really exciting part of the entire process was when the tow rope (Lunge line) snapped on trip two and smacked poor Bart in the ass. This sends him bucking and running away, and me stumbling after to console him. We made up, got a new rope and moved on with the haul.
Looking back on these pictures I realize why I have few friends outside of the horse/school world. Because this is how I spend my Friday mornings.
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