Monday, May 4, 2020

Monday Musings

Holy cow guys, what a weekend! It was jam-packed with a little bit of everything, and I find myself almost a teeny bit relieved it's Monday -- if for no other reason than I get to sit down a decent portion of the day... haha.
Also didn't hurt to start my Monday morning with this view!
Saturday morning we had arrangements to help my mom put up her winter's hay. Our former hay guy had gotten a little too flaky (ha!) for comfort so she found someone selling really nice hay from last summer that had been put up and stored right. BONUS -- he had four strapping sons who were available to help both load AND unload the hay at her house, so instead of slogging through 350 bales with only DH for help and wanting to die, I only touched like... eight bales. We were done by 11 am! And now she is set for the rest of 2020 and probably at least 2/3 of 2021, so I only have to focus on my own hay situation this summer. WHEW. That's a load off my mind.
Extra glad to be done with hay at 11 am because it was freaking NINETY PLUS DEGREES on Saturday. The goatlets were pretty sure they were melting. 
The afternoon was a bit calmer, with DH working on getting his car lift installed. Naturally we had to use my car as the crash test dummy to make sure things worked okay -- win-win, because if the lift had failed and dropped my car I could have gotten a new one, lol. Buttttt it worked just fine, so my car got a little TLC including a tire rotation.
He told me if I wasn't nice to him he'd just leave my car up there... lol.
This dog ya'll... she cracks me up. 
Sunday kicked off with more insanity. We had a large pile of the last of the construction scraps, as well as miscellaneous things that needed to be burned as we worked to clean up the property. To improve the view from our back porch, we moved the scrap metal pile (DH goes through phases where he makes junk art sculptures so he has a vast collection of actual metal junk). That also freed up an old non-functional water trough that I decided to repurpose as a raised flower bed.
We disturbed a danger noodle moving the scrap. I relocated him safely away from the tractor wheels. 
So. Much. Junk.
You can also see DH's impulse garden behind it. Just a handful of tomato plants and some peppers, nothing like the massive gardens of years past, but that's okay. I don't want to snap green beans this year lol. 
But it gave us as excuse to view the house from my favorite angle. I love this pasture. I love our place. 
While the tractor was out and about I also cajoled DH into raking the arena, because the previously forecasted storms mostly missed us. 
Monitoring his burn situation. 
Looked better with flowers, but still missing something.... 
This sign was a gift at our wedding 10+ years ago, and being outside had not been super kind to the finish. So I gave it a touch-up. 
Perfect!
DH continued to mow and weedeat the fencelines, but I was ready to play with some ponies. It was the LAST DAY of our stay-at-home order, so I figured a good lunge was in order to maybe prep for some actual saddle time this week. The horses were more or less pleased to oblige, so we had some productive (if short) workouts.
"work is bullshit"
Definitely not here for my shit haha. 
"OK FINE, I'll be cute for two seconds"
I was also already over dealing with hair again after like the second grooming session of the year, so I cut it off. 
Ah yes, my proper Spanish mare (minus the shaved tail because ick). 
Ruby also got her turn, and was much more excited than Cinna to be back in work. That kid has missed having a job, I'm so excited to get back to it!
The best bay mare TM
She also got a haircut. Bye mane maintenance!
Not to be left out of the action, when I asked DH to move Trigger to a different pasture, he took the circuitous route and joined us in the arena for a bit. 
Then everybody got to go out together in the back pasture, which naturally led to some squealing and angry mare episodes. Thankfully, with both of them muzzled to limit their grass consumption, a helpful side effect is that they can't bite each other, haha. There was still some chasing and kicks tossed in each other's directions, but they settled down after a few minutes. I missed the shot of Cinna and Ruby curled into each other, but I did catch this which was equally cute!
It's a short week for me (we have a holiday on Friday) so I'm feeling refreshed and ready to work, both at my actual job and with the horses :)
I have faith that season 2 is gonna be better than season 1! ;)


10 comments:

  1. Life on the ranch seems fun (but also danger noodle!). Hope you guys get out maybe a little bit (while staying safe of course)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha I love snakes actually, while my husband hates them, so I am the designated snake wrangler when one shows up. But we love them - they eat pests and don't bug us. I actually saw another one last week moving horses (but didn't have my phone on me). Two snakes in a single week is a bit unusual!

      Delete
  2. Next time you need a crash car to use for something borrow mine lololol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Is it bad that I was a little disappointed it didn't drop my car so I could get a new one? 😂😂 Oh well. At least I'm not racking up miles right now while I WFH 🤷‍♀️ I hope my car doesn't live as long as yours though, no offense 😉😄

      Delete
  3. LOOK AT THAT FANCY LIFT IN YOUR VERY OWN AT-HOME GARAGE.

    I love the little flower garden + sign, too. The whole property is really just gorgeous, Leah. What a piece of paradise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I mean, considering I have saddles that cost as much as that lift, I can't complain, haha. And it will be nice for him to be able to do more maintenance on the vehicles that I've been having to pay a mechanic to do, so there's that!

      Thank you!! I'm always jealous of your views, or the access T has to trails at her place in NV, but really I do quite love my own little piece of dirt. It's been a LOT of work, but so rewarding! I kind of avoided landscaping or making any permanent changes before we built the house, but now that we're FINALLY "settled", I'm "nesting" a bit.

      Delete
  4. Phew busy weekend! It's the best when the hay comes with its own stackers! My guy charges $100 to bring a helper to stack, and it's literally the best money I've every paid.
    The girls are looking good! It still kills me a little when you roach the manes! haha! They have the necks for it though, so I'll let you run with it ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This guy didn't charge any extra to bring it out and make his kids stack it, they had to move some other hay that day anyway, and his comment was that it teaches them efficiency, haha. But my mom did slip each of the kids an extra $20 ;) definitely worth it!!

      Does it make you feel better if I tell you it's actually breed standard? Like the fact that I let them grow manes for many, many, many years horrifies the die-hard Spanish people, LOL. Of course they still get mad at me because I won't shave the tops of the tails, because I think that's icky. The roach actually horrified me for a long time, because I loved all the hair, but then I had to take care of it solo for years (with upwards of 2-5 Spanish horses at a time) and then I realized I am NOT CUT OUT FOR THAT MUCH HAIR CARE ;)

      Delete
    2. No, no I get it! It's just hard for hunter/jumper me to accept! Also, thank you for leaving the tails alone!
      You should see my horses' manes. No one has touched them since I've not been at the barn, and they all look like wild mustangs.

      Delete
    3. I'm sure you'll have them back in tip top shape as soon as you get them home 🙂

      Delete