More of the Same and a Bit of Rambling

Another 80 degree @ 7 am morning. Strange orange-y sunlight, must be a fire somewhere. The mini's forelock is stuffed with stickers again, took him less than 24 hours to undo my efforts. Next year hopefully we will get ALL of our pastures sprayed in a timely fashion; we have 21 acres full of about every conceivable kind of thistle and stickerbush and this year we got about 2/3 of them poisoned off. I am really nervous about using poison so we just didn't spray in some of the horse areas, but that will be changing next year. I am OVER sticker bushes. Sheza loves to eat the stupid things and I doubt that is good for her in the long run. My husband likes to work outside barefoot (don't ask..) and doesn't appreciate the stickers, and I certainly get tired of combing them out of horse hair. It seems like in the last two weeks the horses have really been getting into them too, they have been around all summer but just recently all the equines on the place started sporting unicorn horns of stickers on a regular basis.
 Oh, Blaze's winter coat is growing in so quickly! That cold week in Mendocino must have really triggered it (though he was blanketed most of the time). He usually has an extreme woolly bear winter coat and has already lost his summer gloss and started getting hairy in the last couple of weeks. I feel bad for him since the last few days have been so HOT, but I know that the rain and cold will be here before we know it and he'll need it. Speaking of rain, I have the house closed down and swamp coolers blasting and am shopping for turnout blankets online while dreaming of rain. Blaze has a great thick waterproof blanket from Schneiders Tack that I bought him two winters ago. It looks kind of like a dress on him because he is so short but it fits him well and is still in great shape. I was using my old mare's blanket on Desire when she arrived in January but it doesn't fit all that well, isn't very thick, and seems to be losing its waterproof capabilities though I sprayed it down with waterproofing stuff a few times this year. Its got to be three or four years old at least at this point though and I don't remember where or when I bought it. Schneiders has great blankets at good prices so I think I'll measure Desire and get her something like Blaze's. Color???? Blaze's is red, from my days of all red matching endurance tack, as is the blanket I used on Desire. I think I am officially over my red phase, though I still have all the tack of course. Desire's tack is denim blue with wine colored overlay but I don't really think I'll be approaching either of those colors in turnout blankets, though I could just go with blue. I feel like Desire is a little too feminine and pretty for just a blue blanket, I am almost leaning towards purple or something girly like that. I am going to measure Sheza and order her a blanket too, just not until the bitter end when the rain is really truly coming since she is growing so quickly. I know they make foal blankets pretty adjustable (or I read that they do, anyway) but figure I might as well give it my best shot on fitting for the whole winter. Of course I doubt it will fit more than one winter, since she will be over a year old by next winter..wow that is a crazy thing to think about!
 I bought some new t-post wire-holding clippy thingies--careful, those are highly technical terms people--yesterday so I can run more hot wire in the soon-to-be weaning paddock. I already have new wire at the top of the fence but thought I should run another wire at mid height in case Sheza is having a spazz about weaning and feels the need to crash into a fence. One or two good zaps should take care of that. The last property owner left buckets of electrical fencing supplies which is nice but I've used most of it up running new wire on the west side of the property already. As soon as it cools to a decent temperature I'll be running new wire all along the big pastures and paddock on the east side and hopefully rigging up the full electrical fence system again ( we disconnected it to have good reliable shocking power on the west side when Desire arrived and we were having over-the-fence flirtations). The horses are all getting a little lax on their fence manners since they've been on the east side of the property with no hot wire all summer. Nothing I hate more than a horse leaning on/destroying fencing. I'll never forget that giant brute of a Foxtrotter I owned briefly who was tall enough to and had no issue with absolutely wreaking havoc on my fencing to get to the apple trees and grass on the other side of the fence. I was used to Blaze who can barely get his head over the fence at all in some places and here comes the 16 hand 1100 lb Foxtrotter who acted like the fencing was just a minor inconvenience to be removed at will! I was hopping mad and screwing with the hot wire almost every day. That was what started the hot wire revolution where I ran new wire, replaced the box twice, and waited outside with a stick to beat the horse of the fence (not really but I was about at the point). Fortunately the fence-destroying giant found a nice home up near Redding and the issue hasn't really come up again, aside from the mini horse who scratches his fat butt on the fencing viciously which made me run a wire at mini butt height wherever he is staying.
  Anyhow I anticipate another depressingly hot day..it still says it will be 88 degrees tomorrow, so fingers crossed everyone!