Depressing weekend . . .

Not sure where to start exactly, but . . . well, let me just start at the beginning.  The pastures over at Al's place are a muddy mess and in order to get to the HayHut, the horses end up standing in mud halfway up their legs.  So Sunday when I went over to the barn, I decided to go up to the house and ask Al if we could put down some gravel somewhere out there and put the HayHut on that so they wouldn't get as muddy standing around it.  Now if he didn't want us to do that he just had to say "no."  But instead, and I don't have any idea why, he threw an absolute FIT.  I should have had sense enough to just get up and leave, but I didn't.  Instead I tried to reason with him.  Baaaad mistake.

Al hasn't been well lately.  He's had several kinds of surgeries over the last year including having some skin cancers removed last spring and since then he's been told he can't go outside in the sun anymore.  And lately his wife says he's had problems walking and standing without pain.  Still Al does get up super early (before daylight) and feed everyone's horses on weekday mornings, but we never actually see him anymore because by the time any of us go over there, he's back inside and never comes out.  So that's why I went up to the house to talk to him.  Anyway, for some reason - maybe he was in pain or feeling bad for some other reason, I don't know, but as he got angrier and angrier he started screaming at me about leaving the water turned off and letting the lines freeze overnight.  What??  I told him I hadn't turned the water off - it was already off when I got to the barn, and that I wasn't the last person to use the water anyway.  The deer hunters came in from the woods and were hosing down their 4-wheeler when I left.  He said there were no hunters there last night and if they had been they wouldn't have been washing their vehicle anyway!  What the heck!??  I may be less than subtle.  I may have a talent for p...ing people off, but I do NOT lie and I couldn't just let him stand there and tell me I was lying when it was so obvious that I was not!  So instead of staying calm and just leaving (as I probably should have), I proceeded to tell him he was wrong.  And ultimately HE proceeded to tell ME I could take my horses out of his barn and take them home.  At that point I DID just get up and leave.  What could I say to that??  It IS his barn.

So I'm hoping Mark will be able to finish our barn SOON.  I don't think Al will actually "evict" our horses, but I sure don't want to stay there if he really wants us gone.  That really hurts.  Al's always been pretty testy from time to time, but I've always felt pretty close to him anyway.  If it weren't for him, I wouldn't even HAVE horses.  He's done so much for me over the past few years.  Before we bought our trailer, he even drove all the way up to Shreveport to pick up Duke for us after we bought him.  So this is a particularly painful thing for me.

So anyway, that's why I got busy today and ordered the polyethylene for the stall liners that we plan to use.  Mark and I had talked about it a while back and decided it would be worth the minimal extra cost and effort since over time it will make the barn a LOT easier to maintain.  Here's a review of the stuff:  

I don't expect our barn to stay as tidy as that picture (my HOUSE isn't even THAT tidy!), but the walls can be pressure washed periodically to get them back to being that immaculate - which is something you sure can't do with wood.  And it will make it easy to see spiders and wasps and keep them under control, too.  Definately worth it, I think.  So instead of having to build the walls and stall dividers out of 2 X 6's, we're going to use plywood and cover it with that polyethylene.  I called FarmTek before ordering and asked them if they were POSITIVE that a horse kicking the stuff wouldn't make a hole in it and they assured me that it wouldn't happen.  (I'm sure Ladybug will test that out at her first opportunity!)

When Mark comes home this time, he plans to finish the fencing around the back pastures first, and then if there's still time, he and Jerry will finish the stalls.  Once that's done, if Al really does make us leave (I'm hoping he'll cool down and not, but . . . ), we will be able to bring the horses home even though the tack room isn't done and there's no water or electric in the barn yet.  All that can be finished after the horses are here if we have to.   I hope that isn't necessary, but  . . . we'll see how it goes.