This week has exhausted me. I will be more wordy tomorrow, maybe.
Thursday in Pictures
Category: Ranch Life
Well, Today Was Good for Making an Arena
Too bad I had so much work that I didn’t have time to take photos or put together deep thoughts. But it’s fine. Stuff got done, I enjoyed lunch with friends, and bought myself a big ole tape measure.
Why did I buy a hundred-foot tape measure? Because I had a plan! I missed my horse lesson yesterday, so I conspired with Tarrin to do a FaceTime lesson in which we turned one of my small pens into a dressage arena!
It’s not quite regulation width, but not too small, and the length is 120 feet (thank you, tape measure). The interesting part was measuring the correct places to put the cones with letters on them (note to self, look up why the letters they use appear random; it must be a French thing).
Tarrin told me I’d get a lot of walking in. I did. There was a lot of moving tape, fetching cones, and measuring. Tarrin ended up watching bugs in the sky when I’d throw the phone down. At one point I put her in a cone. She was so patient as I dropped things and coped with weeds.
I did at least have some clever innovations. I marked the fence where the cones and corners should go with bright red duct tape. I know Fiona and Drew will play with the cones. But the tape on the fences will withstand amusing animals and weather both. I hope. Do cows and calves eat tape? That’s what’s on the other side of one edge. Only Cone A will need a rock or something to mark it. Cone A is in the center. It’s doomed.
Why on Earth did I do this? It’s because the Working Horse Central shows’ functionality tests use standard dressage arenas. You’re supposed to turn, make circles, move sideways, and such at certain points. I used the nice one Sara made at her house for filming last year, but I know I’ll practice a lot more with an arena closer to home.
The FaceTime meeting was fun. Neither of us had done it before, but it worked. But now, after even more work meetings, I’m tired. So is the family!
PS I tried looking up what those letters mean. Apparently not much.
Rolling with Changes
Oh you never know what’s going to happen around here. So today’s agenda changed, but it’s all good!
Since I needed to skip Drew’s lesson today, I just worked with him a few minutes, which made it clear I needed to rearrange my obstacle area, or horse playground. So I moved a lot of barrels, cones, posts, and other objects around to make more riding options.
Tomorrow Tarrin will help me figure this stuff out better and set up a slightly off-sized dressage arena wannabe space to practice for this year’s shows. I just hope I can found one of our many giant tape measures that usually are in plain sight but are now hiding. I may have to run to the hardware store to get one!
And, as always, I used nature to take my mind off unexpected events. Look at this beauty!
And I scared everyone on Facebook by posting what I thought was just a fun photo of a boho bird nest. I didn’t provide enough details so folks thought we were gonna burn the house down.
I’m any case, I’m interested to see what tomorrow brings. I’ll be outside at sunset again but not going an hour away in yet another direction. Today we went west, rolling down the highway!
Come on changes! I can take it! I’m flexible!
Scenes from a Day
Scenes from today.
Too Windy
I had many outdoor plans today but ruled many of them out due to a pounding wind from the south. Activities like cleaning up trash and shoveling horse poop were curtailed pretty quickly. I did manage to get some square bales of hay out to the horses with minimal bits of hay going into my eyes.
Once I put the bales in, each horse seemed certain that the next horse over had a better selection, so they ended up moving in circles just like a merry-go-round. Such comic relief.
Soon they got a new round bale, which calmed them down. Maybe having enough hay will keep them out of the dang cockleburs. Fiona apparently slept in them, because I got 20+ off her right side and there are still some left. I wore out her patience.
The rest of the day included highlights such as kitchen cleaning and re-organizing my nail polish strips. Whee.
I watched US football playoffs and worked on the last border of the rug project. I’m growing quite fond of the back side of the rug!
At least I got to see friends at dinner and laugh a lot. Our conversations veer off into strange territory sometimes! I’ll be more interesting tomorrow, perhaps. There will, at least, be horse riding if the wind stops. It might have toppled me today—the gate nearly did so today!
Happiness Is Birds and Beasts
This is an interesting part of my life. Outside of me, things are challenging. Inside of me, I’m feeling better than I ever have. I wish I’d learned to focus on what I can influence and let other stuff go much earlier in life. But I think only experience teaches us how important this is and helps us do it.
I had a lovely day. Birds made me so happy, just watching them. I watched the resident great blue heron looking for food in the new pond and wondered if there are fish in there now.
Then I just watched our sparrows traveling from tree to tree, and was really impressed at how many bugs a mockingbird got while I was getting the mail. That bird was busy, and it seemed very pleased with itself.
The beast that made my day happy was Apache. We had quite a productive day. We’ve been working on cantering after jumping and in the round pen. He’s really improved since our last lesson. He was a jumping fiend today and did his cantering exercise in the round pen the best he’s done so far. He has figured out what I want him to do, and he actually seems proud of himself.
And we had a fun ride, too, with improved skills and encouraging calmness when we went out to ride around. Things that used to be hard are getting easier, and his demeanor is so much calmer. Y’all, I keep saying this, but I’m still blown away at how much better things are getting between us. We’re a team!
I know I’m feeling good when I get goofy. For the past few days I’ve been doing arts and crafts at the horse pens. I’m making a decorative weaving with the strings that hold hay bales together. Well, that’s re-using a waste product, right?
I’ll need more string soon, but that’s okay, since they need more hay.
You know, having a calm and peaceful part of my life took a lot of work. So I’m going to enjoy the heck out of it.
Crafty Crafting
It’s nice to be back to normal. Life here is just fine, working hard, playing with horses, and enjoying new plants as they return each season. No complaints.
I’m glad I’ve relaxed about a lot of things, like caring about people’s opinions of me, trying to lose weight…etc. One thing I’ve also let go of is trying to be perfect in my crafts. I always used to beat myself up over mistakes. Now I just go with it.
I’ve been putting a very bright border on the mosaic rug I’m working on. About halfway through, I realized the first row should have been the orange color. Shoot. But I just kept going. Now that I got to the end, I got crafty.
I decided to add some embellishments in the right color and I think it looks cute! I’m just slip stitching, and I think it looks correct from a distance and interesting up close. I’m going to add another border repeat in two other colors. Then poor, patient Rollie will finally get their Christmas gift!
Here’s to crafty crafts and embracing imperfections!
The Real World for Elderly Hermits
The morning today was like in some princess movie, with dozens of little chirping birds surrounding me with songs, plus a loud and strikingly beautiful red-bellied woodpecker. I’ll remember this brief retreat at Lake Somerville for a long time.
It’s impressive how much beauty you can find among bare branches and the promise of spring flowers. But these things must end, and I turned my focus to work as we left for home.
I missed getting to evaluate the horse camping area because I was concentrating on work, but from what I saw, it could be fun. I was thinking of my precious pets, though, as we stopped at Tractor Supply for horse and hen food.
After a happy reunion with all the pets (you should have seen the horses galloping up from the back pasture when they saw me!), reality hit me and Lee with a thud.
Yeah, the people who sell Medicare supplements came by to help Lee with his Part B and supplement selection. That’s painful. I’m just getting A until my job ends, so I mostly sat there wishing the government made ANYTHING easy for people. Being elderly hermits isn’t for wimps.
There was just so much chatting and chit chatting as we filled out forms and made decisions. I missed the silent campsite! But the folks we are working with are nice, not high-pressure sales people, and knowledgeable. I shouldn’t complain. They made it easier to know what to get and what not to get, for our specific needs. It truly feels weird to be old.
Oh and one more thing. Wow, people have a lot of opinions on this delicate topic. I’m glad I know some smart folks. Just whatever you do, don’t make decisions based on the ENDLESS television commercials about Medicare. If I were younger I’d be throwing things at the television to make the commercials go away. I’d like to now, too. So deceptive! And incessant.
I hope your mortality isn’t staring at you today, that you’re safe from flooding if you’re on the West Coast of the US, and that you have something or someone to hug, even virtually. We all need support for one reason or another.
The Mobile Office Gets Mobile
I may have mentioned that Lee got the mobile office he’d been saving up for a few weeks ago. He wanted something that could pull a horse trailer and let him work comfortably. That proved really difficult!
After months of trying to find a custom van, he changed tactics. We both missed traveling with our two previous RVs, so Lee looked at them as potential mobile offices you could sort of live in and pull a trailer. I sure heard a lot of conversations about various formats and types. Lee wanted one with a big truck chassis, because they are reliable.
Lee actually found a low mileage used vehicle that was very nice and budget friendly (for a behemoth). And so now I can work anywhere I want to, I guess. More importantly, Lee can, too. Well, anywhere this thing can park and get cell reception.
Anyway, enough about the conveyance, let’s talk about travel. We’d wanted to try the mobile office out this weekend, but I needed to do horses yesterday.
So, we left for Lake Somerville State Park today. It was a lovely, short drive, perfect for getting used to the squeaking and rattling of a building on wheels. The noise is a small trade off for the fun of looking out of that big windshield at the world. I’d missed that. Lee has missed driving a big truck, and I truly loved seeing how happy he was driving.
I, on the other hand, got my happiness once we arrived. A Sunday in winter is not overly popular at a state park, so we can’t see any other groups and all we hear are birds (and planes flying over). That’s so rare and precious.
I enjoyed wandering around the lake and looking at birds and signs of aquatic life. I love winter, when you can see through the trees. Seeing the yellow bellied sapsucker was cool. And from the sound of it, every tree had a woodpecker this afternoon. This made me so happy.
Yep. We had a lovely and EXTRA peaceful afternoon and evening, with few problems other than realizing we only had ONE fork for eating dinner! I enjoyed using the little oven, which is a combination microwave and convection oven. That saves space for the large fridge.
We will be here through Tuesday. I’ll be able to work just fine, as there’s 5G out here! And Lee can work without me bothering him with my endless Zoom meetings, because I can shut the door to my office, AKA the bedroom.
I think it will be fun to work from various spots closer to home in the future. I didn’t think another RV was in the future, but this one seems like it will make my hermit husband happy and let me spend some quiet time close enough home that I’ll be able to keep up with my ranch chores and precious horses.
And maybe we can eventually bring a dog. On the other hand, there’s no barking here!
Humid Winter Days and Hairy Horses Don’t Mix
This was the second day in a row that I mostly did horse stuff. That sure is a fun way to spend a day. But there was a lot of sweat involved. It was extra humid and quite warm today, which was hard on us all, especially Apache.
I do enjoy just hanging out with these guys, even when shoveling poop. But the lessons are even more fun. It’s so educational to work with two such different animals.
Drew is making so much progress. The body work seems to have helped, though we think he pulled a muscle something. Probably from all that literal horseplay with Dusty or slipping in mud. He cantered well for Tarrin, though! And I’m really feeling better riding him. We even did a great job walking to the trailer!
Apache then worked and worked. He’s gonna canter under saddle some day, but he has lots of ground work to do. Here’s Tarrin working with him on transitions.
I have riding exercises to do, too, with both horses. Drew needs to walk while Apache trots the double slalom. This means Drew and I get to leave the round pen! Graduation! Here’s me and Apache doing the exercise.
I’m impressed that you can’t see all his sweat here, but these are screenshots from video as, which may blur the sweat.
I was impressed that, even though he was tired and getting cranky, Apache kept trying and working. He seemed to enjoy himself.
He even did his very best walking around all the scary spots. I’m so proud of us! As a reward Apache got a bath, which he liked. He liked rolling in the dirt when we got home even more!
I hope you got to do something fun today! My fun continues tomorrow, too. We’re breaking in the mobile office!
The Hermits' Rest 