The struggle and the mold.

Day 3 July 18

We have a babysitting swap going on with the neighbors who also have 5 kids similar ages. Last night was our turn. the kids had a blast and we enjoyed talking to the parents afterwards. Howver it meant for late bedtimes which made the struggle this morning at 5:30 quite fierce. I pushed the snooze button twice and considered waking Josh to go the three flights of stairs down to eva to wake her up- but I'm not that mean. After several rounds of :I pull the covers off she pulls them back on and grunts I started with the repetitive nudging. When her words began coming out more understandable (im too tired! I don't want to) I began the reasoning. "Horses still need to eat" and lots of "they're counting on us" type of things. I would leave and get pants on come back and find her covered and sleep again. Finally I used the big guns :"I'm leaving in 5 minutes and if I'm the only one going im keeping the $25 I earn today for myself!" We left the house in 10 minutes and remembered our pocket knife!!
       We met someone new today- the owners husband. Not much contact just trying to get me to move my car so he could get the tractor and me trying to explain that's not my car. No I don't know who's it is. No I havnt seen anyone here yet it was just here when I got here. No I don't want to sit here and talk more with you cause we got here 20 minutes later than usual.
       We tried a new system today that seemed to go a lot faster. I filled two wheel barrels and went and watered while eva emptied the barrels into their troughs. Her comment: "horses still aren't very patient!" I agree. I decided to feed the salivating inpatient one first today. Which made a dark brown stallion really mad and he kicked the ground and the fence and strained his neck to get food as I passed. I still made him wait his turn.
       The black and white horse was down again today. She did not look good. She was pawing the ground with the sides of her front hooves and her breathing was sometimes quick and other times slow and shallow looking. The golden horse next to it (Eva's favorite) would bite her legs to make her sit up. Her trough was still full her water was growing cobwebs. The owner said they've run so many tests but still don't know what's going on. A new vet comes on Tuesday. The owner of the horse was being notified to administer more medication in case she was in pain. So sad.
       Shortly after reporting the horse down I noticed something different in a flake of hay I put in my barrel.  When I opened it up the inside was covered in mold and the straw was black not green or yellow. I threw it out and kept my eyes open for more. This is evidently our month to deal with mold. Our own home has been having issues with mold in the vinyl flooring due to a recent flood in our laundry room. We are now dealing with renovation and remodeling which is kinda fun I guess. But how funny that I would have to deal with mold here this same week as well!:) lessons learned : mold happens just throw it out, clean it up and take care of it.
     Sleepy eyed eva was a bit grumpy. A few times I heard a "why did you make it so full? It's too heavy!" Or a "this is hard im tired". I'm very glad the riding lessons start this week. We have worked enough for her to afford the equestrian riding helmet! She still did all the work required of her and im happy to report that even though we were 20 minutes late and had every single horse in the stalls today we only finished 10 minutes later than we had last week! With the last 4 horses needing to be watered I told her I would finish up and suggested she go just spend time with the horses. Get to know them find which one she would pick to ride if she could. She loved it. She knew just where to stroke their smooth neck. A horse appreciated her touch while he ate.
    Lessons learned today- go to bed on time to avoid the struggle! Look for mold and take care of it! I think im starting to get a headache now and if it weren't for the baseball t-ball games and tickets to a play I bought for a girls day out I would of course be sleeping! But headache and all it still is worth it!