Mustang Saga

Today was another leather cleaning day. I got my breastcollar all scrubbed and shiny, ready to go back on my horse. The English bridle is still in process. I'm trying to decide whether to oil it or not. I also got a saddle started but didn't finish it.

Not really a whole lot to report around here. The horses are happy. I've started feeding them some alfalfa so they are loving mealtime even more than usual. Last year I thought Tonka got a little goofy on alfalfa, but this year I realized he's just a different horse in the cold winter weather. It probably doesn't help that I'm not spending near as much time with him. The alfalfa I have is by no means high quality dairy type hay, it's well suited to horses with plenty of stem and not a lot of leaf. Not near as pretty as a lot of hay I've seen, but not near as likely to get them revved up either.

Liam has been riding Soxy almost every day. We didn't go today because we had other obligations. Tomorrow may be a fun day for a snow ride. But it's also getting pretty cold so it might be kind of unpleasant. We'll see.

The troughs are icing up and I have no way to plug in heaters since we took the electricity down prior to tearing down the barn. If we get a bad enough cold snap I'll have to figure out a way to do it unless I want to be hauling out hot water all the time. That would not be fun.

Winter... It's a lot of work. And sometimes boredom in the long black evenings. But I'm getting some stuff done that I've put off for a while. Soon I might tackle cleaning out the attic.

Last minute question - anyone have any good advice for ear trouble caused by blocked eustacian tubes? My ear is killing me today. I'm on medication that isn't helping, and I tried a cup against my ear with a hot rag in it to draw the eardrum outward, which supposedly maybe helps open up and drain the eustacian tubes. I'll keep doing that periodically. Any other suggestions?