Let There Be Light

Whew, what a weekend! I have managed to sneak in works with both ponies in the last few days, but nothing terribly groundbreaking and I don't have a ton of media, so I'll probably just skip over that -- sorry not sorry, I have 8 minutes before I need to leave for work so I need to make this quick! Haha.

Ruby is working on not being feral, since I want to start riding again haha.

Saturday we spent most of the day visiting family -- we also picked up a new (to us, but also only used like 3 times) stove that we were SUPER excited about. Brought it home and tried to install it only to realize we didn't have the right plug. No big deal, we needed to make a run to the hardware store anyway, because we were hoping to finish the arena lights on Sunday. We we hooked the truck to the flatbed and headed into town. After hitting two hardware stores and picking up the miscellaneous hardware and two additional light poles we needed, we stopped to have dinner (because you know, non-functional stove). Leaving dinner I noticed the truck needed some gas, so I headed to the gas station down the street. Pulling out of the restaurant parking lot, I noticed the brakes of the truck seemed really soft. Like almost going to the floor when I touched them soft. I'm pretty familiar with this feeling, because this is at least the THIRD time I've had brake trouble with this truck (which is why it's the hay truck, not the horse trailer truck).

Not what you want to see under your truck.

We pulled into the gas station so DH could crawl under the truck and look -- but unfortunately he didn't need to look hard. The front brake line was spewing brake fluid. Even without anyone touching the brakes, there was a steady drip-drip-drip. After some swearing and some phone calls and trying to figure out what we were going to do, DH cobbled together a plan. He dug around in the back of the truck and found a rusted hose clamp, a half destroyed bell boot, and a dime -- he then somehow managed to MacGuyver a solution that at least stopped the brake line from dripping. It wouldn't hold up to much pressure, but it should manage to keep enough fluid in the lines for us to get home. Luckily in his digging he also found a bottle of brake fluid from the LAST time he had to replace the brakes, so he topped it off and we made the white-knuckled journey home. Luckily the route we take is very lightly traveled, and we only saw one other vehicle (they got tired of following me at 25 mph with my flashers on, and they passed us on a double yellow line -- oops). Thankfully we had the flatbed hooked up so we could use the trailer brakes to help us stop. It was a terrifying 25 minutes, but we managed to nurse the truck the 8 miles home and park it until DH's mechanic friend can check it out.

The barn cats were "helping"

Of course that terrifying story makes my Sunday sound fairly tame by comparison -- we spent about 8 hours working on finishing the arena lights. DH decided that 4 weren't enough, so last week I had 2 more lights delivered. We attached the new lights to poles, dug the holes, set all 4 posts (the 2 new and 2 old) in concrete, trenched where the conduit would run in front of the arena, and then ran 250 feet of electric. Unfortunately, buying the 2 additional lights ate up all the extra wire we had budgeted, and we ran out after wiring in 3 out of the 4 posts. DH threw an extension cord on the last one so we could see how the final product would look, and we'll get the last post hardwired in sometime this week I hope.

Lights!

But we are more or less finished with the light project, and we stayed marginally on budget, haha. We were doing fine at 4, but 6 pushed us a little over! Plus now I realized I need to get a light for my grooming area -- being able to ride at night is all well and good, but I also should be able to see my horse to tack up! Haha.

From the road.... haha.

How about you? Did you spend Father's Day weekend with family? Did you work on any fun projects?