Homecoming

Guess who's finally home?



The barn owner gave me permission to pick them up as early as needed in order to avoid the heat.  My plan was to put Gabbrielle in the trailer first, then Bombay, since Gabbrielle is the best loader and Bombay the worst.  Plus there is a little more room in the second slot to help with Bombay's claustrophobia.

Then I was going to come back for Lostine.  If I had

A Night in the Life

Fiasco #1:

Some clouds moved in around 6:30 last night and cooled things off, so I hooked up the horse trailer to the truck and drove it down to the new hay barn.  My husband and I moved all the hay bales out of the trailer into the barn while the wind got stronger and stronger.  Before we knew it, our hair and faces were coated in dirt and all our topsoil was blowing into our neighbor's horse

Go See MiKael

Just a quick note asking you to visit MiKael's Mania if you haven't already.  She needs 250 votes by midnight on June 30 in order to qualify for a generous grant that would help her Arabian horse breeding farm in hard times.

Day 10 of Construction

Our horse facility at our new house is just a few inches shy of being complete.  The contractor ran out of material to finish capping the point of the roof, but will be back to finish it when he picks up his tractor.



We were over $7,000 over budget and 4 days past the original time estimate to complete the project thanks to the county permit and inspection process.  The guys almost made it

Time to Post

No, I don't mean time to post to my blog.  I mean time to post my liability signs whether anyone else likes it or not. 



I was talking to my contractor today and he told me that a whole crew of horseback riders cut through my property riding along the perimeter of the fence he just erected while he was welding the gates to my barn.  I said, "And their horses didn't spook?"

He said, "Well, a

Random Hassles

After hunting for scorpions with a black light and finding none, my husband woke me up twice last night when he found one scorpion on the porch and another on the bathroom floor right in front of my medicine cabinet. He shined the black light on it, and it turned yellow-green under the black light.

My husband wanted me to get up and come look, but I told him if I got up I wouldn't be able to

Day 6 of Construction

The stall "walls" are constructed.  Having my husband in the picture gives a good perspective on how large the stalls and hay barn are.



The contractor is a whiz at welding.  This is not a kit, but totally custom.  I was expecting him to buy pre-manufactured gates and install them, but he's making them from scratch.



He showed me how I can open the gate outward into the aisle of the barn,

The Scorpion Hunt

I went outside with a black light flashlight just after it got dark and searched the property for the glow of scorpions, but found nothing.  I even searched the garage.  I thought perhaps it was too early for them to come out, so when Midge woke me at 2:00 AM to go pee, I tried again.  (We increased her insulin dosage just slightly, and now she's on a more normal bathroom break schedule.)

Again,

Day 5 of Construction

Before showing the day's progress on our horse setup, I wanted to mention that I believe all the problems at my old house are now resolved.  The painter who broke my ceiling fan, didn't finish painting, and lost a screw to my door handle said he would return last Thursday to fix everything, but didn't.  I had to start nagging him again.  He said, "Something came up and he'd get to it later,"

Day 4 of Construction

Part of the frame for the mare motel went up today.



They are bringing in a concrete truck in the morning to fill the holes and set the posts.



They also put the roof on the hay barn and attached most of the top rails for the fence.



I look at all this space and can't believe I'm going to have all that land to ride on...



Plus 22 miles of trails across the street.  It sure beats being

Day 3 of Construction

I was wondering how the guys were going to be able to get themselves up 16-feet to put the panels on the hay barn.  Pure genius and probably safer than a ladder.



Unfortunately, because of the permit process and the way in which the barn was engineered, it's costing me a few extra thousand dollars to pay for the rebar and an exhorbitant amount of concrete.  Oh well.  At least I know the barn

Back to the Drawing Board

When my husband got home from work and saw that the hay barn was going to block our view of the mountains, he put a halt to the project.  He had our son hold up a pole that was close to 16-feet long while we sat on the porch, and I discovered that the hay barn wasn't going to cut off our view of just the foothills like I originally thought, but our entire view of the mountains, which would

Breaking Ground

Yesterday morning I awoke to find a tractor in my backyard. I managed to sleep right through that delivery, but this morning once the grading process began, I definitely knew it. Two construction workers cleared all the bushes and most of the rocks from the area where I am putting the horse paddock, 4-stall mare motel, and hay barn.  Then they staked out where everything is going to go.

A Bit Dusty

This morning I picked up Bombay's bigger fly mask, made with love and great skill by Cut-N-Jump. I really appreciated her making another mask for him when his head turned out to be considerably bigger than that of most Arabian horses.

I got a chance to meet all of her horses, which included quite an array of breeds and genders.

Then this afternoon I stopped by the boarding stable to put

Unusual Encounters

I'm legal by the hair on my chinny chin chin.  I took my last car in for a smog check and it passed, probably since I drove it for 16 hours straight, sometimes at speeds of 75 mph.  This was my mother's car, and it didn't pass inspection once when she let it sit in the garage for several weeks.  The registration expires tomorrow. This car was old enough that I could afford the two-year

Sloppy Work

Lesson of the century learned: If you have to live out of state while having your old property fixed up, hire someone you know you can trust to manage the process on site. I flew to my old home to inspect all the work that had been done on it since I moved out, to pack of the last of my belongings, and to drive the last car back to my new home. When I arrived, this is what I saw...



The

Gratitude

My horses and I are grateful tonight. Wait, who's that red-headed lady in the background of this next picture?  Her ponytail could be the twin to Lostine's forelock.



That's Cut-N-Jump! She made these fantastic fly masks for my horses as a welcoming gift.  Lostine looks good in purple.  She got purple butterflies on her mask.



Gabbrielle put up a little bit of a fight over letting me put

Calm

Despite me not doing much with the horses beyond grooming them and occasionally exercising them at their boarding facility, I'm finding that their stay there is worth every penny.  Just having them in a different environment is a form of training.  They become stronger, smarter, more confident, and calmer with each new experience.

The other day I was mongering a hug from Bombay when someone

Untrustworthy

I'm learning that I have some untrustworthy business partners.   I hired a painting crew to paint both the exterior and the interior of my old home.  I pressured the owner of the painting company to paint the exterior as soon as the weather cleared up, before signing a contract for the interior, because I wanted to witness his business practices first hand and see if he did a good job.  I was

Oh, Bombay!

My gelding Bombay has a knack for destroying mesh fly masks and fly sheets.  Cut-N-Jump said she was making my kids some fly masks, and I had to warn her about their bad behavior around anything they can get their teeth into.  Lostine is good, of course, but Bombay and Gabbrielle make a game out of undressing each other.  You'd never know they are brother and sister... sort of... Bombay's

Scenes From: SMLDM

Scenes from the Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum in Apache Junction, Arizona:

You Want My What?

Permission?  You want my permission?

In another post I had written about some some horseback riders who rode through my property with bad manners.  In the case of one rider, she squeezed between two vehicles on my driveway, and then rode along the northern perimeter, despite my neighbors to the north putting up signs asking riders not to go that way.  She also had a dog off leash, which would