General Discussion & Chat: Coffee...and for AUGUST 1, 2006., 0 by MaryE

MaryE wrote:
Hello again.

Molly, it's nice to hear from you again. Sorry to hear that you have had the bad bug. That's a hard way to loose 5 pounds! I hope your gardens haven't suffered from lack of watering, or is it raining? You mentioned painting the roof white, that helps a lot, but another thing you can do (cheaply) is vent your attic space and install an exhaust fan. I know a trailer has maybe 6 inches of attic space, but you might be able to figure out how to use one in it.We have one for our house, and one year when the thermostat went out we sure could tell the difference. It is oriented to take advantage of the prevailing wind, so the wind actually helps it work. Another fix would be more expensive, building a roof over the trailer. This is done a lot in cold climates where they get a lot of heavy snow, but it also works for shading the whole roof all day.

Sarv, tell your husband this hay wagon is called a Stack Cruiser, made by New Holland, and it is quite old. It picks up the bales in the field by a chute, puts them on a conveyor, turns them around and the only thing the operator has to do manually is turn a couple of bales in every load to tie the whole thing together. It loads from the front, the bales are accumulated in rows and when the platform is full it is raised up and adds the new hay in front of the stack on the truck. The stack keeps moving backward until it is full. The plywood sides are guides to make the stack straight. You may be able to see one of the tie bales on the load in the second picture. I'll post another picture of the whole thing, it's a strange looking beast. We used to bale our own hay, pick it up one bale at a time, stack it on a wagon, unload it at the barn, wrestle the bales to make a stack, oooof, hard work. We finally found a conveyor we could use at least in the barn to make the stack, that helped a lot.

When I was a kid I helped pick up loose hay which we piled on a truck and then made a haystack in the barn. Stomping hay to get more in a small space is hard work even for energetic kids. My sister worked for some people that hayed with a team of horses and a wagon, they had a derek to pick up big gobs of hay off the wagon the get it into a big stack. The team was unhitched from the wagon, hitched to the pole on the derek, then when the wagon was empty they were unhitched from that and taken back to be hitched to the wagon again.

I just read on the email that the next endurance ride is cancelled due to the fire near Sisters, Oregon. It is over 9000 acres, and our ride camp area (rodeo grounds) is being used by the forest service for fire camp. There is also a possibility that the fire may spread to burn over the area where the trails are although at last report the wind was not taking it in that direction. A few years ago this same ride was being held in an area about 25 miles away and a fire wiped out a lot of the trail. They wouldn't let anybody in because the tree roots were still burning underground and made tunnels that people and horses could fall into. So, now I have more time off this summer to recondition my horses and take care of the garden.

Dmc, if the horses are sponged down with water to keep them cool they will be ok in the heat. Yes, they will get hot while working, but they can be cooled before and after and if they stay hydrated they should be ok. We deal with very hot conditions with horses that are working in it all day, and as long as the horses drink plenty of water and get some doses of electrolites to replace lost salt, potassium, magnesium and calcium, and are sponged to cool them quite often, they do ok. Endurance rides are done all over the US and Canada, in all kinds of weather, so we have learned how to deal with a real variety of conditions. Often these things are harder for the people than for the horses.

Hubby will be late getting home tonight, he said he would eat in town, so I should use this free time to accomplish something. I rode Patch earlier, now need to ride Breezy while the sprinkler does another section of the flower beds. And after that I still have plenty of weeds.