Things are looking up --

Well, Mark not only got the electric fence wires tightened back up and turned back on this afternoon, he also got the grass mowed in front - NOT a simple thing as tall as it had gotten.  

Unfortunately, I have refused to learn to use the mower so it just doesn't get mowed for the entire two weeks he's offshore.  And this time - given how much rain we've had - it had grown almost a foot high!  (Sorry, dear!)   Tomorrow he's going to get the dog yard mowed.  That's going to be a darned good thing as far as Joey is concerned.  We have a row of foot-square concrete pavers outside the porch as steps and what Joey has taken to doing at this point is just going out and wetting while standing on those pavers, then slowly turning around and coming back inside, being careful not to step out onto -- or maybe I should say "into" -- the grass.  So he's going to be very happy to see "regular" grass out there again.  ;-D

I don't know yet if I'll make it to Zoilo's this weekend.  I AM feeling a LOT better, though, so . . . maybe!  But it will be very early Sunday morning if I do go. 

As for this Saturday, Buddy and Lisa are going to help me put 100 grommets onto a 100-foot roll of shadecloth.  Then we're going to fasten it to pipe curtain rods on the screened porch so we can keep the porch cooler on super-hot days, then just push them open like curtains on cool days.  I'm thinking they may well help protect the porch from rain storms, too.  And I'm thinking that if we put just a few more grommets along the bottom, I could attach the bottoms to some (unnoticeable) hooks installed underneath the window sills on stormy days to keep them from blowing around. 

But one thing at a time.  First we just need to hang them up.  Oh - we're also going to hang some across the back doors on the two back (west-facing) barn stalls.  Both of those stalls have doors on two sides, so the horses won't have to go through a door with a curtain over it unless they decide they want to.  It's supposed to reduce the temperature inside by about 20 degrees!  We'll see if it works.