After the Storm

I had a beautifully written, logical, witty, wonderful post all written about my last couple of weeks...
And Bloger lost it!
While I try to regenerate it, here are some photos from last night, following a nasty thunderstorm system that blew through the Valley the night before.

Usually one of the dirtier horses.

Just-had-a-bath horse.

Supposed-to-be white horse.

But the filthiest of all?
Hooves down winner was old man RT.


Left side

Right side



Back side.



Who me?

A Passing Grade, Five Fs, and a PhD, and We're Ready for Winter

Well, we got the edge of the big Alaskan storm through here Friday night a couple of weeks ago (when I first started this post--now I've got to update it so I can actually get it published!).
 
The wind started howling something awful about 8 pm, and I worried that I hadn't even gotten you a picture of my new barn-end curtain yet!

Last winter's cheapo tarps about beat themselves to death in the first big storm, and had lost most of their grommets by the end of the winter.

Would my new "wind screen" (70% shade cloth) from Farm Tek survive the night?

It passed the test!

Not only does it let a certain amount of the wind travel through it, thereby preventing the pressure of the full force of the wind, but it's nice that it also allows some light and visibility! (I still have a couple of tweaks to do with it before next year, but it looks like its good to go for now.)

You can see how impatient RT gets for his Senior Mush by his well-worn path along the fence.

******************

I had a honey-do list of five "F" projects to try to get done over that long Veteran's Day weekend.  Then I'd be ready for winter.  Actually, none of them were absolutely necessary, but they would pretty much finish off my list for the year.  (Of course, there's the tack room insulation waiting, and a list already brewing for next year!)

*******************

The first F:  Feeders

Last year's feeders have been okay, but the girls have to twist their necks a bit to access the hay.  They also don't like it when precipitation drips off the roof line above onto the back of their heads.

I fabricated these two feeders from hockey net material from Arizona Sports Equipment and they came out so well that I think they deserve a post of their own at a later date (don't, however, hold your breath).

An ancillary project finished that weekend: the water tank experiment.

 See the layer of foil/bubble insulation between the two tanks?  See the ripples on top of the water?  There's a "Clean Flow Tank Filter" (essentially a pond filter) with a small (500 watt, a third the size of my other tank heaters) heater in this tank.  I'll let you know how it works out.
******************

The next F:  Feet!

Everyone's due for a trim.  With my back, I can usually do two feet at a time.  My goal is one horse a day, but I will often settle for one horse a weekend.

I got these four feet trimmed Friday. 

 The old gray mare ain't what she used to be, but Misty looks like she's ready for the weather--fat and fuzzy!  She's pushing 25!

And started on RT's fronts Saturday morning, and finished that evening. 

 The old guy looks pretty good for almost 32!  I like to keep up on his feet pretty regularly, as he has one slightly clubbed fore foot (the right, exaggerated here by the sticky snow balls in his hooves.

The girls coming in--they figured they needed some extra breakfast...

 Maddie got done on Sunday, and Kate the next weekend, so I"m probably good until Christmas break, when I'll give everybody a quick touch-up that may get me through to spring (or at least late winter).

*****************

Another F:  Flowers

 These flowers from Pat now needed to be "dead-headed"--I'll scatter the seeds in various beds for next spring.

The flower heads laid in composted manure along the back yard/paddock fence.

*******************

 One more F:  Fencing

The driveway Fence is all done.

Along with leveling these two piles--Fill dirt from Hanks and Fine gravel where I didn't need to build up the driveway any.

I'll get a load or two of big gravel in the spring to go over the fill dirt, and then a healthy layer of the finer gravel to smooth it all out.

I just need to add some garden mesh to a couple of my arena gates, and Sandy will have the bigger yard I've been promising her all summer.

********************

The Final F:  Fixtures

These ugly brass Fixtures have needed changing out since we moved here 9 1/2 years ago!

The cover on this one finally gave up against the Ellensburg wind a month or so ago, and now they really need to be replaced!

 The fixture issue, however, has not yet been addressed.
Partly because I made a last minute trip to northern California over Thanksgiving weekend to visit my Mom's new assisted living apartment.  With the hubby, who didn't get to go down last summer (though Mom was in such bad shape at the time, she may not have remembered him).  And the dog... And my daughter...And the grandkids!

This is the woodsy view from Mom's apartment!

And partly because the fixtures will require a decent-weather day:  I'll have to work gloveless to do the wiring, so a warm-ish, windless day will be a must.  Might not happen 'til spring...

**********************

The PhD:  My "new" post hole digger

I've had this auger for most of two years now, borrowed from Terry and Anita.  It became "mine" as part of the deal for Beth.

Done for the season.

But I'm not quite ready to put the sn*w plow on yet!

 Another random chore:

 I never got around to washing blankets, but the E-burg Saddle Co. is having a special right now: 3 for the price of 2.  So RT's two will go in next week, plus one back-up for the girls, just in case.
************
And some random winter pictures.

The spoiled baby blue Buick that we adopted from my Mom in California,
 when she gave up driving this last summer.
Not! Happy!

 Speaking of spoiled, Hubby Al feeds our fat birdies year round.

Final image:

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!

Too Windy To Ride

Something's in the air!

Kate's all worked up!

Seems like every winter we have to have one of these "airs-above-the-ground" sessions.

Pat and I had made a quick trip to town for the 4H tack sale. Not finding anything to spend our money on, we decided that, since the forecasted rain had not made an appearance, we would load up and try to get her new youngster, Chief, out for his first ride in the open. She's been hauling him to the local indoor to leg him up, and has been really pleased with his laid-back acceptance of life as a saddle horse. But she was waiting for a decent day to get him out and about.
At first she was going to bring him down and we would add Kate to her trailer and head for the John Wayne trail. But as we came home from town, up the hill to my house, in the car, I realized we had a great training spot right here in Hank's empty cattle pasture (his cows are down the road for calving.) She ran home to grab a little lunch and then loaded Chief.
I had a quick sandwich, and then wandered out to catch Kate.
Leading her in from the pasture with a piece of baling twine was no problem, but just as we walked in to the barn a gust of wind came through that rattled the rafters! And out of the blue a windstorm was born.

[This is a roll-back to change directions!]

She finally quieted down, though still on high alert,...
...just about the time her visitor arrived. I had called and talked to Pat's husband when the wind started, but she had already taken off towards our place. When she pulled in she said the wind started just about half-way down the road.
Who's in the trailer, Mommy?
A settled Kate mooched cookies from Pat. But both of us decided that it was not a good day for an outing for a young, very green horse. So Pat declared the trip to be "trailering practice" and headed home.

I took Kate back in and we did a little hoof rasping, and post-winter mane and tail untangling and conditioning, before turning her back out.
We'll have to see if tomorrow's weather is any better.

I Ride A Reiner! and Early Winter Projects

Okay.

So I got two projects pretty well finished over the last three weekends. Plus I had a little fun!

I don't have any pictures, but Saturday afternoon a local training barn had an "Holiday Open House." High Country Training is run by a couple who moved here from the wet side of the state to slow down the pace of their lives a bit. Kim and Deb Witty bring an interesting compromise to their lives: Deb has long been in the Arab show scene, and Kim hails from a cattle ranching background. He is doing primarily working cow horse (with a little reining and cutting naturally in the mix) with mostly Quarter Horses. She still shows Arabs, but has added half-Arab reiners to her repertoire.
So their open house featured some demos, sale horses, killer chili, and the chance to "ride a reiner." Their assistant trainer Portia offered her little dun gelding, Fred, for folks to try, and I finally decided I may as well make a fool of myself, so I climbed on.
What a HOOT!
Fred was exceedingly lazy at first (I didn't have on the usual jingle-jangle western spurs that he's used to), but I still managed to get a decent lope, some spins and even a couple of sliding stops!
And I won a free lesson in the door prize drawing! If the roads stay decent, I may haul Maddie the five or so miles down the road over Christmas break to see if Deb can give me some pointers.

The rest of the weekend was spent on two projects--the last two I need to get done before winter really settles in.

I have tried, since we added the center aisle to the barn in 2006, to figure out a way to close in the east end to the weather, without closing it in permanently--I need the full 20 foot height to bring in Hank's harrowbeds loads of hay (sure beats stacking).

(This isn't my barn--it was the only photo I could find of a harrowbed unloading--5 tons at once!)

I closed in the west end in 2007 and finally got the doors hung in 2008. I'm still not quite done with the trim (after all it's just aesthetics, I've got real work to do...)
One fall I tried hanging a heavy-duty hay tarp over the east opening, by screwing through furring strips into the bottom of the roof truss and the side posts. When that simplest of systems started billowing in the wind, I added a removable framework of pieced together of 2'X4's. The very same night we had one of the worst windstorms ever, with gusts of close to 50 mph! I found the tarp, frame and all, in a heap in one of the paddocks the next morning, with horses eyeballing it suspiciously (you can see all that remains, hanging in the top corners of this photo). To say I was discouraged is an understatement! The tarp was moved to cover the hay pile (on the right, here), and the barn end stayed open for the rest of that year.
I considered using a tarp with long pockets every three feet or so, with lightweight conduit in the pockets to prevent the billowing. I got lots of ideas from perusing the Farm Tek catalog (a great resource, by the way), and was about ready to go that route.
Then this fall I spotted an ad for a "Hay Shade" from Horse Fly Net, and though their product was designed for much smaller opening, the idea of hanging the tarp from a cable system like a shower curtain, with intermediate cables to prevent billowing, took shape.
Each cable below the top one would be on a hooked-end turnbuckle, so it could be UN-hooked in June and the curtain pulled to one side for hay delivery.
I wove the tarps through the cables, because my barn is "porous" enough that if the wind blows from the west, even with the barn doors closed, I get quite a wind tunnel down the aisle. I used cheapo tarps from the hardware store this year, because I wanted to test the whole idea before investing $300 in the tarp I really wanted.

I left it tied up at one end of the run for a week, until I did the other project (creating another stall for Misty, to be blogged later).

Finally, it was time to try it out.

Even in a mild breeze you can see the tarp "leaning" against the cables.
The aisle-way will have some adjustments, to allow driving through with the tractor, while allowing minimal weather inside. For a week, we just ducked under for feeding.
And there was a glitch.
The last of the huge, heavy duty snap hooks from which the tarp is hung (think shower curtain rings) got hung up on the end of the cable where it is looped through the turnbuckle at the northeast corner. I had borrowed a 24 foot ladder for the installation of the top two cables (our rickety old extension ladder is only a 16 footer) and there was too much snow on the lower roof section for me to access the top that way (my plan for opening the curtain in the spring).
And, sure enough, the infamous Ellensburg wind came up to test my invention the very same night I got it in place!
In the morning when he fed, Al announced that the southeast corner was hanging down. On inspection through the telephoto lens, the cheapo tarp's grommet had pulled right through.
It had to stay that way until this weekend when I could borrow the tall ladder again. But I was able to fairly simply create a new attachment point (probably even stronger) and get it back in place in about 10 minutes, using a clip something like this, that I happened to have on hand. (I thought about taking that whole section of tarp all the way down and rehanging it with the rip at the bottom, but noticed that several other grommets are already working loose, so I will probably just order a bunch of the above clips from Farm Tek.
It just took a quick run up the ladder to pull the northeast snap hook over the turnbuckle and snap it to the cable anchor.Here's the arrangement I put together for the aisle-way exit. I can just get the tractor's ROPs (roll bar) under it, and Al and I don't have to duck at all when we go out to Maddie and Beth's feeder.
And not a moment too soon.

I told Lytha to keep her lovely German snow in Europe, but NO, she had to send some our way!
But this afternoon the mist dissipated, and the sun came out.