Only about 50-55 hours left until our horses come home at last! Yeaaaaaaa!!! As a matter of fact, I'm thinking that if Mark gets the stall dividers up before then, we might bring Ladybug home sooner than Sunday afternoon. When Mark went over to Al's to feed the horses last night, he couldn't get Bug to come in. Normally she's the second in line at the gate - right after Duke - no matter what. So I went over to see if I could get her to come in. She didn't come to the gate as she usually does, but when I walked out to her in the pasture she was fine when I threw the lead rope around her neck, but then when I went to slip her halter on, she absolutely freaked out. Obviously her ear is hurting big time. So I just led her in without her halter and left her in her stall last night with her feed. Mark said when he went to feed this morning she had only eaten about half of it though - also highly unusual. So I called the vet this morning and she'll be coming by this afternoon. I imagine it's another ear infection. I hope that's ALL it is.
Since her paddock is good to go, I'm hoping maybe she can come home early. There are a LOT of horses out there in that the pasture at Al's at the moment and it looked to me like she was being harassed since she's in pain. I guess if it continues to be cloudy and rain in the afternoons, we can leave her inside over there, but Al's barn is metal and it gets incredibly hot during the day when the sun is out. I'll have to talk to Mark about it later, but I'd sure like to bring Bug on home and introduce her to her new accommodations SOON. Not only is her new paddock mostly shaded, but the barn actually stays cool during the day! It has a reflective foil liner on top of the plywood on the roof, under the metal roof so heat is reflected back and moves out along the raised portions of the steel roof. Then the whole inside of the barn has been spray painted with paint that contains ceramic beads that insulate and help keep heat out.
Hy-Tech insulating additive for paint is the result of insulating ceramic technology developed by NASA for dissipating heat from space vehicles upon atmospheric re-entry. The research resulted in a new breed of tiny microspheres or ceramic beads with unique energy saving properties. Each tiny microsphere is a sealed vacuum cell that blocks radiant heat (loss or gain) and also dissipates heat rapidly preventing transfer through the coating with as much as 95% of solar infrared rays and 85% of ultra violet-rays being radiated back into the atmosphere. Only about 1% of the heat that remains within the coating will be conducted through the surface. Mixing this unique blend of ceramic microspheres into paint forms a high performance, extremely durable, seamless membrane over the entire surface, creating an efficient thermal barrier.
We weren't all that sure it would make a difference, but it was no big deal to mix the stuff into the paint so we went ahead and tried it. Apparently it does work, because when you walk inside, even with all the sides wide open, it feels noticeably cooler in there than outside. Mark is putting regular insulation inside the exterior walls before putting up the interior plywood, too, so by the time we're done the barn should stay warm(er) in winter and cool(er) in summer even WITH the doors open.
Spent last night perusing the FarmTek web site for more barn stuff. Found some really cool light fixtures that take those giant 125 watt or 200 watt compact FLUORESCENT bulbs that just screw in like a regular bulb (the 200 watt one is 13 THOUSAND lumens! -- which would be brighter than a 500 watt regular bulb. One of those over each stall should make the vet very happy and it will be way easier to just screw in a new bulb when necessary than to replace one of those awful 48" long fluorescent bulbs that I can NEVER manage to put in right myself.
Today Mark is putting up the last of the gates, then he will be roughing in the electrical conduit and plumbing lines inside the barn so he can put up the stall dividers. (The water lines have to run through the dividers so their waterers can be hung on there.) Poor guy. Everything he needs to do seems to need two other things done first. I'm sure he's going to be really relieved to be back at work this time!
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