2011 Ch 4 ~ The Project

After selling my truck I had some dough to play with. Being me, I couldn't just be responsible with ALL of it, so I decided we needed to knock out one of our lingering, much anticipated and dreamed about projects: the arena.

Of course, being February, the timing wasn't great, but we lucked out with a very nice dry break in the weather and we were able to get it done. And of course when I say "we" I mean mostly the boyfriend. I pretty much just wrote the checks and cheered him on. I did run the roller for an hour or so one day. That was an adventure.

We rented a big (to me, boyfriend wasn't real impressed) roller and dozer for the project. First we (he) leveled the pad off with the dozer and got it to slope the way he wanted for drainage.

After he had that right, he rolled it pretty good so it was solid.

When that was ready, we brought in a few truck and pup loads of gravel, leveled and rolled that. Because the weather was so nice for us we actually spent a lot of time watering the gravel so that we could get it compacted enough. Who'da thunk that it would be too dry in February in Washington?!

The boyfriend spread the gravel out with the tractor and the TR3 rake, to make it all even and nice before we rolled the crap out of it.

That was the part I got to run the roller on and since I was actually working, there are no pics. Those things are pretty weird! Needless to say, my passes across the pad were not all straight and perfectly lined up like his were. Mine looked a little drunk. Maybe a LOT drunk! lol

The whole time we were working on this project we were checking the weather reports constantly. Hoping that it wasn't going to freeze too bad or rain or snow. Like I said, we really lucked out. After the base was about as good as it was going to get we started getting sand in. The dump truck driver was really great to work with and realized that we needed to get the base covered up before a storm rolled in and made it happen. He was so considerate of how he pulled in the driveway and drove nicely across the base so he didn't mess anything up and left as little evidence of his being there as possible. The extra care he took was definitely appreciated!

We got the base mostly covered up just in time for a big storm to roll through and the rest of the sand was delivered in the snow.

Once the weather cleared up a bit, the boyfriend got the sand all spread out and drug it a few times and we were ready to go!

We don't plan to put rails around it. Right now all of our horses are broke enough that we don't need fence and we've got portable panels we can put up if we do end up needing them. Plus, this way we can expand it later when we get tired of loping little circles.

I got my first ride in the arena on March 2nd! So far it's been a fabulous arena! Even with the massive amounts of rain we've had this year there were only a couple days that it was too wet to ride in. It drains great and has been excellent all weather footing! And let me tell you, having an arena at home so we can just tack up and ride is the most fabulous thing EVER!!!

A Funny Story...

I just have to share this story because I think it's funny and hope you'll get a chuckle out of it too!

I decided that with all the pots I'm planting this year, the seeds that I started indoors and need to bring out to harden off and my bad luck with pots/plants and the dogs in previous years, it would be best to block off the porch area to the dogs. I figured it would be temporary and one side already had a gate that we could close so there was just the stairway to worry about. I was just going to see what kind of baby gates they have available and stick one on there, easy peasy. But after a day of running errands and no baby gate and really needing to get it blocked off so I could get to work, I decided to just scavenge stuff we have and see what I could do.

This is what I came up with...

A roll of fence that we took down in the back yard when we bought the house. I was too lazy to cut a hunk off, so I just brought the whole roll over. Yes, I realize that the effort "saved" in cutting the fence was negated by the effort expended in moving the entire roll. After wrestling with that thing for a while I was really wishing I had just taken the time to hunt down a pair of wire cutters!

So after getting the fence in position I fastened it in place with none other then....

Yep! Baling twine! Any horsey person knows that this stuff is almost as good as duct tape. And there is ALWAYS some around! But, I have to admit, it was maybe just a smidge ghetto looking. I reassured myself that it was free! And temporary! And easy to get the job done! And did I mention it was free? I figured I'd look a little harder for a baby gate later, but for now, I could get to work on what I needed to do.

That's when I heard the Boyfriend banging away in the garage so I went to see what he was working on. Apparently, he'd had a very bright idea for the gate issue. I thought he was busy with other things, so I'd just gone ahead and done the ghetto fence.

Well, 10 minutes later, he had this hung...

He had stuck two of the garden border panels together, one on top of the other, then used some hinges and a latch that I had gotten for another project that we hadn't used and voila! We have a nice swinging, latching wooden gate that coordinates with the garden border all the way around the front of the house and doesn't look completely ghetto. LOVE it! And the best part? It was also free, made with things we already had laying around the house.

And really, with all the time I wrestled with that darn roll of fence, it probably didn't take any longer to get done either.

I try. But I probably don't have to tell you that my ghetto fence was taken down shortly after that gate went in. lol

That Marriage Thang

I've been thinking lately about the whole marriage thang. I am currently teetering on the edge of 30 years old and not married. I don't have any thing against marriage, nor was it ever part of my "life plan" to be nearly 30 and unmarried.

Actually, I believe my life plan went something like: graduate college with bachelors degree at 21, meet guy, fall in love, marry at 23, buy house, have horses, live fairy tale. May or may not have included kids, I don't remember. Never been much of a fan of them.

Instead of that, life has gone more like this...go to community college. Meet guy some where in there. Buy car and horse that you need to continue working to pay for. Work 2 part time jobs, go to night classes, still a full time student. Take a little time off from school. Go back. Finally get AA after 4 1/2 years. Never make it to "real college". Get engaged to guy because we've been together for 3 years and that's what you do. Besides, I'm almost 23 and that's when I'm supposed to be married. Break up with guy after a month of being engaged. Date some more. Pass 23rd birthday, which is when you were supposed to be married. Buy yourself a truck and horse trailer to cheer yourself up. Continue living with parents. Date some more. Finally meet boy of my dreams. Move out of parents house into house with boy of my dreams after 2 years of being together. You're 25 by then. Talk about getting married. Buy house together instead. Talk about getting married some more. Buy new tractor instead. Buy new horse trailer. Buy new horse. etc. etc. etc. And now, here I am, owning a house, truck and horse trailer with boy of my dreams, firmly cemented in this relationship, possibly more then if we had that piece of paper telling us we're legally married. But we're still not married. Technically.

I've never been one of those people that thinks it's "just a piece of paper". Ever. I've never NOT wanted to be married. I certainly never expected to be here and not married. But life has a funny way of carrying on and changing priorities. I'm happy. We are happy. We love our life. Neither of us has any thing against marriage. No previous marriages, no baggage with parents surrounding the idea of marriage. We do plan to get married, just haven't done it yet.

It is strange to me when people that I haven't seen in a while ask if I'm still with the same guy. We bought a house together. We are in it for life, just as much as any of my married friends. Does not having that piece of paper making it legal or rings on our fingers make our relationship not as committed?

Every once in a while I get the wedding bug, but it usually passes fairly quickly. It's just not a priority. I refuse to go to Vegas. Just not my style. I'm not opposed to a court house wedding, but I want to include my family and friends. That means doing the whole wedding thang which requires planning and time and money and that is probably the main hold up. There are other things I'd rather do with that time and money. We own and show horses. 'Nuff said. lol Besides, why mess up a good thing?

And so here I am, almost 30 years old (OMG!!!), been together with the Boyfriend for nearly 6 years, and I have the whole fairy tale life I had envisioned (mostly anyways, there is always the crappy real life stuff that comes up, like work), with every thing I hoped for. Except that little piece of paper.

I know at least a couple of my bloggy buddies have been with their bf's for quite a while and are not married. It's not uncommon. And this isn't a rant or anything, I'm just really curious about this. Why? Was it a choice to not get married? Was it something that just happened, like me? Why is that "piece of paper" so important? Or so important to avoid?

It's a very curious phenomenon.

To me at least.

In Other News...

Well, now that I've gotten those posts out of the way, on to 2010! This year is going to kick some serious booty, I just know it! 2009...well, it just kinda sucked, to be quite honest. Maybe it's just because it went out on such a sour note, I'm not really sure. It wasn't the greatest year, so I'm glad to be done with it and getting a fresh start in a new year. Decade even!

We started off the year riding our ponies. Doesn't get any better then that, does it? I was careful and used my "best judgement", but I rode. I got off regularly to check and make sure her guts weren't falling out (the exercise wasn't bothering her incision), since she had just gotten her stitches out and all, but it did just fine. We loped and she was enjoying herself, so I decided she would probably be just fine for the show over the weekend.

My goal for the first show of the year had been to finally, finally get our flying lead changes in our pattern. I was a little skeptical though. We hadn't had any lessons since the last show because of her lameness and surgery. The day before the show was the first real ride I had been able to have on her since the previous show more then a month ago. Yikes. While warming up I asked for lead changes and she did them with just a swish of the tail. I couldn't believe it. The pattern had changed for this show, the first time in years at the series, so I was ready to have some problems with Midori thinking she knew the pattern. And I did. She just knew that after 2 large fast and one small slow circle to the right, we were supposed to change leads and do those circles to the left. Unfortunately in pattern number 4 you stop and do 4 spins to the right after the circles. She was not about to stop. We had already changed leads (simple, as we had always done before) and were heading into the next circle, battling it out before she finally stopped. Damn. There went our score. Oh well. I finished the pattern nailing both of our flying lead changes. WOHOO!!! She was all sorts of confused when we walked out of there. That was certainly not the pattern she was trying to do! I was thrilled just for the fact that we got our flying lead changes. As you may remember, they've been a pretty major battle for us the whole time we've been together. We had a little "school the naughty pony" time, but for the most part I was pretty darn satisfied with the class, even though we didn't get a score.

The boyfriend won his beginner reining class, had a fabulous run, and then two handed his bratty pony in our rookie reining class, getting him a no score as well. It was still a good day. I was just so happy to be back on my horse!

Our lessons are going well. What few I've had. I did take a couple lessons on Sugar while Midori was out of commission. That was fun and a great learning experience. She is in a bridle so I had to ride one handed, which is always a challenge for me. It was good though, helped me relax a bit. We have been talking about getting a new horse for me because we're totally diggin' the reining thing and would like to get into it a little more. Midori isn't much of a reiner, so if I want to really get into reining, I'll need a different horse. Midori will still be my dink around with everything else horse, I still plan to do some cutting and rail shows, I'd like to do sorting again, stuff like that. Don't have a whole lot of cash floating around to put into a horse right now though, so that may have to wait a while.

We've got some ambitious plans for 2010. I'm hoping this will really be the year that we get our barn situated. And our arena. I won't hold my breath though. Of course there are the requisite pay off debt, save-save-save, get on the blasted tread mill and get in better shape, get organized, etc. resolutions that are always around. And plenty of house and yard projects that we'd like to tackle as well.

So here's to 2010! I hope you kick 2009's ass!

Holy Big Rod!

Ya, that's the rod I'm talking about. It's kinda crazy looking!

Want to know the craziest part? That rod was in the boyfriends leg until this last week when he had his "Left Tibia Hardware Removal" surgery. It had been in there since July of '07 when a monster rock rolled over the boyfriends leg while he was at work, breaking his leg. He called me at work, I thought to tell me he had been rained out and was headed home. Instead he very calmly informed me that he was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital with a broken leg. I didn't believe him at first. Later that evening he went in to surgery to have that thing inserted in his leg. It was not a fun day and a long recovery.

Here it is next to a dollar bill for a little perspective. I couldn't believe how big it was! That is not the way I pictured it at all! And the bend at the top really surprised me. Sorta creeped me out to. The boyfriend was pretty darn excited to get to keep the hardware though. He intends to put it right next to my buckle in our "trophy case", where ever that may be.

Those are the screws that were holding that thing in. One at the top and two at the bottom. I have no idea what the other little thing in there is, but I'm sure it fit in that rod somewhere.

So this will be my next few days. Taking care of gimpy. Atleast this time it is a comparatively minor surgery and shouldn't be more then a couple weeks of recovery.

Any Excuse will do!

I think the boyfriend likes his new toy. Any excuse he can find to use it, he's all over it.


He had some extra time on his hands a couple weeks ago so I suggested getting the evil Juniper root up that I mentioned in this post. Since we had a nice break in the weather I was starting to get spring fever and take inventory of the outdoor projects that I would like to tackle when it gets nice out again. I think this little area is a priority so I can call it complete for reals. I was not able to pull the root out on my own last fall, but it needed to go. He went out, fired up Holly and 30 seconds later it was out. So happy to have it outta there!

I also wanted to add some dirt to this little garden area to bring it up level to the concrete pad and redo the rock border. After he pulled the root out he got to work digging it up a bit, loosening the existing soil and leveling it back off. It cracked me up because the little garden area was no bigger then the bucket on the tractor! I'm sure he could have easily dug it up with a shovel by hand in about 10 minutes, but he used the tractor instead.

He's pretty darn handy with his new toy!

Progress

I can't even express how excited I am about this project. I have dreamed for I don't even know how long of having my very own real arena at my house. Now I can see that dream becoming a reality! I'm ecstatic!

The boyfriend totally rocks on the tractor! He's been a busy bee around the property playing with his new toy and getting things cleaned up and looking good. I was blown away the other night when I came home to the arena-to-be all graded out, looking level and beautiful. Of course I had to grab the camera and take pictures.

*grins*

What a weekend!

Wow. I'm exhausted. I think it's going to take me the entire week to recover from my weekend! Once again, I'm feeling every one of my 27 years and realizing that I just can't party like I used to. It's sad. We didn't even party like we used to, not at all, but I'm still totally beat. I guess we also used to be able to sleep in til noon after staying out late, but I suppose that's another fun part of getting old...you just can't sleep in any more! Not that we had much of a choice this weekend since it was a winter series weekend.

Our weekend included a bon fire party (well, really a small, totally reasonable recreational fire, since "bon fires" are not legal), the reining show, cleaning paddocks and putting down new hogs fuel for the ponies, clipping horses, washing dirty horse tails, working the butt head (Mister) on the ground, a bachelor party (the boyfriend), a movie night with mom and meeting two of the most adorable corgi puppies on the planet (me, while waiting out the bach party as the boyfriends DD), numbering cows for sorting (the boyfriend, while I tried in vain to sleep in), sorting and drill practice. I also managed to squeeze in some laundry and kitchen cleaning, but no picture loading or blogging for me! Whew, just typing all that makes me want to take a nap. It was a busy weekend.

It was also a totally gorgeous and sunny 60 degrees during the day this weekend and I tried to soak up every bit of it that I could.

Anyways, on to my usual winter series updates. Unfortunately it was a pretty unspectacular weekend. Well, except for the boyfriends absolutely beautiful reining pattern! I wish I could have video'd it for him, as well as his first one of the series. It's amazing to see how much he's improved! I somehow, miraculously, managed to stay on my pattern, though I'm pretty sure it was only because Midori knows it and was on auto-pilot. I had no control. It was all I could do to get her to slow down enough to change leads. She was a naughty, naughty pony. The boyfriend ended up getting 3rd out of 8 riders and I got 4th. There was a rather large gap in the scores between us, but that was the way the placings fell. So now there is one show left and the points for the buckle are pretty darn close. The next show is going to be a nail biter and I'm probably going to fold under pressure. Pressure at horse shows doesn't usually work in my favor. Should be interesting.

Sorting didn't go so hot either. The boyfriend and I got a no time on our run. I did get 6 cows on a couple of my runs, but so far that is where I'm topping out. Midori seemed to be having fun though so that was good. It wasn't a bad day, but the late night Saturday was taking it's toll on us. Neither of us placed with any of our runs so we didn't win any money and it was an expensive day. Still mostly fun, but expensive.

After sorting I had to stick around for drill practice too. The sorting ended up going late so drill practice got started really late and went even later. It was a pretty fun practice though and Midori and I found our second wind. She was tired enough from the weekend that she behaved herself, which was fabulous, but still had plenty of go left to haul ass on the outside of a crack.

I was totally beat by the time I got home. I think Midori has earned a day or two off, I'm sure she's pretty sore too! My butt just wasn't ready for an almost straight 7 hours in the saddle yesterday. And while the majority of it was spent sitting around waiting for our turn sorting, plenty of it was spent riding hard. I started the day off sore from Saturday too since I had ridden hard for quite a while after our no control pattern.

All in all it was a good weekend. The weather was fabulous and I won't ever complain about a weekend spent with my pony. I'm just exhausted and looking forward to some quality time with the couch and my bed this week.

Bummer!

Well, we didn't continue our deja vu with sorting, but we still did alright. Well, the boyfriend did. Which makes twice in one weekend that he's beat me now. He came in 2nd with 9 cows, and 3rd with 7 cows. He and Sugar were on fire this weekend! They did really well.

I did better then last time, I got 6 cows twice, but it wasn't good enough to win this time. Oh well, still improved. And my first run with the boyfriend that got 6 cows did have us leading it for a little while.

All in all it was a fun day and I am learning and getting better. For only my second time ever sorting I think I'm doing pretty good. I also feel like a couple things clicked with me this time. Like how sitting in the gate you can just tip your horses head a little bit and peel a couple unwanted cows off that are coming with the right cow. That was kinda fun! Midori did pretty well, I think she's enjoying it too.

Deju vu...sorta

Not to brag or anything (because you know I would never do anything like that), but for the second show in a row, the boyfriend and I came home with 1st and 2nd place in the beginning reining class. We were pretty darn surprised! Not only because this time there wasn't snow and ice on the ground keeping a lot of people home so we actually had a class of 9 people, but also because the 1st place isn't mine, it's the boyfriend's. It's the first time he's ever beat me.

Honestly, I was pretty darn proud of him! I'm not just saying that to sound like a gracious loser either. He did really good! He had a really good pattern and deserved it. I am really happy for him! I watched him from the in gate and when he finished I was hooting and hollering at him, totally embarrassed him. hehe He got his lead changes, he had nice circles, he had a good stop and back, the whole thing was a vast improvement over some of their other patterns. Especially considering he hadn't ridden Sugar at all since the last show, 4 weeks ago. And he was a little tipsy.

He wasn't even going to come to the show since he hadn't ridden at all, but I dared him to do it with some whiskey in him, mostly so he'd just relax and not fight with his horse, and he won't ever turn down a dare that involves whiskey. :-) So he had whiskey for breakfast and was all relaxed when he went in. Probably started a bad trend there, but it was still really funny that he won.

I will say that we were both pretty shocked when we heard his name for 1st place though. We were walking up to the office when they announced the top 3 placings. They said my name for 2nd and I was happy about that, but certainly would have liked 1st. I felt like I had a really good pattern, but I was first to go in the class so I wasn't holding my breath. Then they sort of paused and said 1st place, paused again and said the boyfriends name. We both looked at eachother and went, huh?!? No way! Then I slugged him in the shoulder and said "you beat me! I can't believe you beat me!" We got into the office and asked the lady if we had really just heard that right and she grinned really big.

So we got our ribbons, our jackpots and the boyfriend got to pick out his crystal trophy. There were champagne flutes, little bowls, candle stick holders and bud vases, the usual assortment of little crystal things and then there was a whiskey bottle. Nothing special, certainly not expensive, but it was a whiskey bottle so the boyfriend grabbed that, saying it was just too appropriate. Then the whole rest of the day he just kept saying, I can't believe I won! hehe It was great!

Since it was such a big class and the people that were at the top of the standings for the series weren't there again, we might actually be leading the standings now. Or atleast close to it. I need to go check that out today. Who'da thunk?!?

So off to sorting this afternoon. Wish us luck!

Totally cleaned up!

I'm beginning to like this snow/cold/bad weather and roads stuff! Apparently it keeps all the good people home from the shows so we can clean up! :-)

Yesterday I did sorting for the first time ever. I've been hesitant to try it out because my horse gets a little amped up around cows and being in a small pen with a bunch of them just never really seemed like a great idea to me. After our work last summer with cows/buffalo and watching the boyfriend sort at a clinic and the last show I was itching though. It looks like fun and I was beginning to really understand it. I hadn't ever really paid too much attention before, but when I actually watched closely and figured out what they were doing it started to appeal to me. So I decided to take a stab at it this weekend. I figured I would either get it or totally suck and never do it again. Apparently I got it. My very first sorting run ever I ended up tying for first place with a couple other teams. My first run was also with the boyfriend so we both came home with pretty first place ribbons and a small jack pot. It was kind of fun!

The exciting part was, Midori was great! She was mostly quiet and went into the herd just fine. She picked it up really quickly and we did awesome for our first time, in my opinion, placings aside. During all three runs she was cooperative and did great shaping to the cow I wanted and cutting them out and pushing them. I didn't feel like a fish out of water trying to get the cow I wanted, like I've seen so many people do. I was thrilled. She wasn't so happy sitting in the gate, but she did alright. Until the big black baldy charged us. She didn't quite know what to think of that on the second run and we ended up letting him thru so we got a no time. But when the same cow tried the same thing on our third run we were able to stop him, twice, and we got 3 cows.

Yes, that's right. 3 cows in 90 seconds. The sad part is, our "winning" run was 4 cows. Love the small shows! I'm still very excited with how well Midori did sorting and I think I may be hooked now. I can't wait til the next one to see if it was just a fluke! :)

We cleaned up!

This weekend the boyfriend and I went to another reining show in the winter series that we're participating in. We're both doing the beginner reining class and so far this series we are pretty much stuck in the middle of the pack. We had debated even continuing with the reining since the sorting is way more fun, but decided that since we started it and it's a pretty inexpensive class we may as well finish the series just for kicks.

This weekend in particular we were really debating going since we hadn't been able to ride much because of the weather. On top of that, the few oppurtunities that we did have to ride I had passed on because I was just burned out. I wanted to stay home and clean my house (yes, I do realize how crazy that sounds) and just relax instead of being outside freezing and riding. I was going thru some major pony withdrawals and would stick my nose in my horses neck any chance I got, but I just couldn't bring myself to actually ride.

The weather was still bad and the roads were a little icy since temps had dropped way lower then they had predicted over night, but we still braved the elements and headed out to the show. I went into it with the attitude that I really didn't care, I just wanted a good ride on my horse. I had ridden once in the past 3 weeks and that was just briefly so I wasn't expecting anything. Of course with the weather a lot of people decided to not chance it and stayed home so the show was tiny. There were only 4 people in the beginner class that usually has 8-10.

We got there extra early to have plenty of time to warm up and get their kinks out. Midori was being an angel. I didn't ask for much since I hadn't been on her in a while, but she did everything I asked. I think she was excited to be out. I even got a flying lead change out of her, though it wasn't pretty and sort of by accident. lol

The boyfriend went third and I went last in the class. I didn't watch the first two, but the boyfriends pattern was much improved over what he had been doing. I was really happy to see that. I felt pretty good about my pattern, in relation to my other patterns. We got our leads, our "spins" weren't any worse then they usually are, the stop was good and she backed nicely. She launched into the big fast circles. I was afraid I wasn't going to get her back to slow down for the small circles, but she did. I think she knows the pattern, even though I never do it except at shows. Brat.

Since it was so freaking cold we put them away as soon as they were cooled out after the class. While we were at the trailer untacking we heard placings for our class. The boyfriend got 2nd and I got 1st. We wohoo'd and high fived eachother and laughed. We rocked that show! But only because everyone who usually beats us were too chicken to come out. Oh well, I'll take what I can get! Atleast I was happy with my pattern that I won with! We're both improving and that's all that matters. The ribbons and jackpot are just a bonus!