Quick Update

I've been out of town for much of last week for a professional conference outside of Portland. I was also able to sneak out one evening to a little Horse Expo to meet up in person! with Kacy from All Horse Stuff! What a kick! She's just a fun and energetic as her blog!

Sunday, after a full day at the conference, and a four hour drive home, I just vegged.

In spite of the storm that was predicted, Pat and I were able to sneak out for a quick ride with Kate and Chief again on Monday afternoon. We were going to try to get out away from home a ways, but I got bogged down getting the barn ready for surgery Tuesday, and we didn't have much time before the black clouds moved in, so we just went down to Hank's cattle pasture again. Chief gave Pat one big jump, where she had to scramble a bit to keep her seat and regain contact, but once she did (and Kate stopped after her slight hop in reaction to Chief) he settled right back down again. He's such a good boy!One other exciting development that happened on Monday was that, in doing a thorough mucking of stalls (Al's mostly just been picking them nightly), I took the tractor out and turned the recalcitrant compost pile that hasn't been composting all winter, due to earlier than usual frigid temperatures. And, lo and behold, I got some steam rising from the poop! Now we're cookin' with [methane] gas! [old photo]Bad news is, the wind that has accompanied these last two storm fronts has pretty much done in my cheapo tarps at the end of the barn. But the system itself is good, so before next winter I'll invest in a heavier duty enclosure. I haven't yet decided on whether to get a solid tarp again, or a "wind screen" type, that would let some of the wind through (and therefore not pay such a heavy toll during heavy winds), but block snow and other precipitation.

Luckily, we didn't get all the snow that was predicted Tuesday (Aarene got it over in the swamplands, as did Jean in SW British Columbia) and, though early, the trip to the hospital in neighboring Yakima was uneventful, as was surgery (gall bladder removed). I was feeling good enough that we decided, in light of the continuing forecast of blizzard conditions, I would come home Tuesday night, instead of Wednesday morning. Took it pretty easy all day, but was up to going out to the barn Wednesday night to help Al with chores. I'm not supposed to lift much, nor drive for five days (I don't think they could have possibly meant the tractor?). I'm pretty tender, and a little bloated feeling, but otherwise feeling okay. The cold weather we're to have this weekend will probably out-weigh any urges to do anything silly like ride.

Al has been wonderful in covering horse responsibilities all last week and much of this one!
UPDATE: Thursday morning, and the storm front finally reached us! Sideways wind blowing just an inch or two of snow into nasty drifts. Because he can't see "his" mare herd in their respective stalls (or maybe because the barn is just too full of rattles), a blanketed RT chooses to stand out in it, silly guy! From the house I can see that Kate and Misty are also hanging outside, in the lee of the barn, so it must be that it's just too noisy inside for their nerves.
Again, Al insisted that I stay inside this morning, even though I feel pretty good, and was prepared to take over chores so he'd have one less thing to do before work. What a guy!