Rest In Peace, Hilde

We had a sad death at the farm today.

At full gallop, Hilde ran head first into the fence and broke her neck.  She did not die, but couldn't get up, could not breathe and had to be shot.  It was horrible to watch and makes me very sad. 

All of the donkeys have turned out to be good guardians and have done their jobs well.

Pony!

I've been searching for a gentle pony for the grandkids to ride when they come visit.  Finally found this little one.  She's very gentle and I'm hoping she'll be a good horse for little ones.  I'm going to work with her a while to get a feel for how she'll be.  She's cute as she can be and when I go out there she comes running to me and follows me around.  She's wet in this picture because It rained all night and she's been standing out in it even though she has a shelter.  I hope she didn't stand out there all night, although rain doesn't really seem to bother horses.  She's very interested in the goats and donkeys and the neighbor's horses so she's standing out there looking at them all.  She even found the hole that we cut in the fencing for the goats to get through and eat the grass in the alley between the pastures.  That's where she was this morning when I went out to make my feed rounds.

She's actually a miniature horse rather than a pony, but who wants to tell the grandkids, "I got you a miniature horse!"?Sounds so much more fun to say "pony".

Now I just need to talk Tom into building me a round pen to work her in.  He thinks she's cute, so maybe he won't be hard to persuade.

Heat...Sort Of

We finally got the furnace hooked up.  It took the guys about four hours to run the pipes up through the ceiling. hook them up to our existing ducting, and install the return air vent box.  Tom lit a fire in it right away even though the temperatures have been in the 60's and 70's this week. 

I guess this week is not a real test of the furnace's ability since it's been so warm outside, but it does heat the house adequately so far.  The reviews that Tom read said we should be able to keep the house warm enough by burning just three pieces of wood a day.  I don't know how that is possible because right now, we're burning at least that much every few hours.  Supposedly, we'll learn to regulate it just right so that it burns hot, but not fast.  I don't know.  Seems impossible to me.  And we're having to get up at night to add wood or we'll wake up to a cold house.  That is not fun.

One thing I was extremely disappointed about is that it is NOISY.  One of the reasons I thought this furnace was a good idea is that our regular heater, installed in an inside closet, is very loud.  I thought having the furnace outside with little fans would be very quiet.  Wrong.  It's horrible.  Another thing one of the reviewers said was that you don't even need to install the fans.  I think that's wrong, too.  If there were no fans blowing, the heat would barely come out of the vents.  The way to get optimum heating is to run the furnace and the inside heater fan, which I really, really don't want to do because that's a double-whammy loud.

My opinion of this thing so far is...not worth it except for the savings in propane costs.  Maybe I'm just a whiner and need to get over the noise aspect and be grateful that we have heat.