Whew!

Busy, busy, busy day.  Did all (6 loads) of my laundry, cleared out the living room bookcase, helped Mark finish putting up all the stall gates, walked around the property putting ant poison on the red ant piles, trimmed the lower branches and suckers off all the trees in front, and picked up all the dog poo in the back dog yard.  Whew!  Loooong but productive day.   (I ended up poisoning the red ants because they bit the heck out of my feet and legs TWICE.  They were around the base of two different trees that I was trying to trim back.  So I went out and spread poison over all the piles I could find, then went back a few hours later to finish the trimming.  Ouch!)

Here are the new stall gates.  I really like the look of them, but more important than that -- now we can get in and out of those stalls without having to unlatch THREE chains every time.

NEW GATES

That's what used to be across each stall before we got those gates in. 

CHAINS CLOSING THE STALLS BEFORE THE NEW GATES WENT UP

Getting in and out of there is SO much easier now! 

This is Ladybug's stall.  We only had enough metal for one outside gate, so we put it on Bug's  stall because her stall is the only one with just one outside door.

Oh - the guy who made those gates did give us the bid we asked him for.  We wanted metal frames for exterior dutch doors.  Now it's true that the exterior doors would be really large -- 4 X 9 feet.  But come on . . . his bid was $500 EACH, just for a steel frame with holes in it so that Mark could bolt plywood panels and trim boards to it.  Wow!  I was shocked.  That is NOT what I expected.  And that price doesn't even include the plywood panels -- just the frame.   So we're looking at $2500 plus plywood and trim boards!  I think NOT!   I guess if we have a hurricane before we figure out some way to put outside doors on those stalls, we'll just screw plain old plywood sheets over some of those doors!   Good grief!


But at any rate, the inside gates are in now and I'm really pleased with how well they work.  So we'll think about the outside ones later.


While Mark and I were putting those gates up, we turned the horses all out into the front.  Duke immediately went to the front fence and just stood there, looking up and down the road as if he were waiting to see if someone was going to stop and pet him!  Now I know he's an incredibly social (and maybe even "spoiled") horse, but come on . . .  watching the road?!   Can you believe THAT?!

But after a time, when no one stopped, he looked around to see if he was being watched, and when he didn't see me he stuck his head through that fence and started eating the grass on the other side.  Big sneaky guy!  

Love that  zoom on my camera.  I think I'll take this picture over to the barn tomorrow and show him that he was caught!

All the while, Lizzie was apparently roaming up and down the side fence line posting "piles" along the edge to claim that territory -- and we got to clean up all that poo later after we put them all in the back again.  


But in the meantime, Ladybug was either grazing on her own or (as in the photo below), just napping in the shade.  

Then this evening we hauled trash out of the house -- and the barn -- and the office -- and the back yard (I cleaned up dog poo as well as horse poo).  So now there is a truly enormous pile of trash out in front -- it looks like someone just moved out or something.  It is HUGE!  But the house and barn are looking good and are on their way to "tidy."  


And I am ready to go back to work tomorrow and R E S T !!