Blue Skies - After the Storm

A big thank you to everyone who has expressed their concerns, friendship and prayers during our Big Blizzard. We made it through the storm just fine and all the animals were A-okay this morning, even our 29 year old POA mare. I'm putting up a photo of her that I took last month. Doesn't she look awesome for her age? She has a tendency to cold colic but she made it through this storm with flying colors. I started her on a new diet this past summer since she can no longer chew hay (her teeth are so worn down due to her age). Twice daily she gets shredded beet pulp and alfalfa pellets soaked in hot water (this also helps warm her up on cold days) to which I add senior pellets and a little bit of sweet feed to enhance palatability. And we always try to blanket her on really cold days and nights. Wind chills were well below zero yesterday and last night so I know she really appreciated that blanket! In fact, when she saw me bringing it out of the tack shed yesterday morning she ran to have me put it on...now that's one smart little horse!



I hear our nasty storm is now headed for the Texas panhandle and Oklahoma. Batten down the hatches and hang tight folks, this was a big one and unless it has weakened since it roared through Colorado, you're in for a ride!

I finally got our taxes entered on-line last night - I have been using TurboTax for several years now and it sure makes it a lot easier to have everything automatically imported from the previous year so all I have to do is enter the previous year's information. E-filed them and can breathe a huge sigh of relief that those are done. I am also going to set up a spreadsheet with all the appropriate categories so I can enter the 2009 year to date information into the spreadsheet and then keep it updated and maintained monthly so come next January all I have to do is print out the summary spreadsheet and enter the figures into TurboTax. I have been wanting to do this for years but I have never had the time nor the energy to do it, especially after slogging through the previous year's receipts, expenses, etc.! However, now that the ranch is my full time job, I finally have the time and the energy to do it this year. Oh, this will be sooo sweet!

Hope everyone has a good weekend. Stay safe, warm and dry. Til next time!