Sunday, December 05, 2010

Soggy Sunday

It;s a wet and gray Sunday, catching up on the endless paperwork that life seems to provide. Since it's December that means one thing to me with the Minis - deadlines!  Therefore, tomorrow is going to be joyously paper-filled, as I'm doing Stallion Reports, hopefully (please God let me done!) registration catch up, sending DNA/PQ tests out and membership renewals. The digital age apparently hasn't reduced the amount of dead trees I deal only a daily basis! Therefore today is prep and get my plan for all the stuff I need to do tomorrow!

I'm actually, (in my never-ending attempts to achieve organized) going to set up and USE this time, a remind on my Google Calendar for due dates on Memberships, foaling, permanent paperwork due dates, etc.  I love Google as it sync's with my iPhone and really need the reminders to keep me on track.  So, adding all the horse stuff makes sense. That and I've started to keep my main paperwork on the cloud (backup on the PC), but I can now access it from any PC which can be handy.



The Minis files are updated, other than recent foals and the rescues.  My redundancy filing - on the PC and hard copy to file.  But the files need new name toppers, old files removed and new foal and the rescues files in place.  I color code our files - mares blue (didn't have enough pink files/toppers at the time) and the stallions yellow.  I use to actually move the topper from left which indicated not permanent registered, to center in process permanent registration to right completed.  It was very easy to look and see who needed what and when.  Now I use a spreadsheet that's color coded.

Speaking of spreadsheets (like that segue? lol), I've used one for eleven years to record our horse related everything. I have tried a couple of horse related database programs, but haven't found one I really cared for.  Either they had to much unapplicable information or not enough flexibility to record what I wanted, So good ol' Excel spreadsheet has worked.  I have trimming and foaling records, breeding plans, a master list of all the horses, separate sheets for stallions/mares, foaling estimate spreadsheet and foaling due date ones and naming one (numbered so I know my limit), and a few others that I use to maintain our herd.

I use to have a stallion chart I maintained for a few years on the percentage of life foal to cover ratio (and I need to start that again), but have slacked off on that as fertility here has not been an issue. Yeah!

Stay dry everyone.  Off to play with papers!

Not horse related, but I think OMG!!

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