I’m too old for this….

Today I decided to attack Espree’s stall. Somehow the back stalls, and the stallion stalls, never seem to get done. The last time I did them was when we still had the tractor. That was fun. Now I’m back to doing it the old fashioned way, pitch fork, and apple picker. With each year my pain issues seem to increase, and I’m able to do less, and less. Now that April is helping me I figured I had no more excuses so today was the day to begin the unbeginable (I can make up words if I want). The day was cool with just a slight breeze, actually it was a perfect day for riding, but those stalls kept calling at me. The stallion stalls are at least 120’ long. The four mare stalls aren’t as long but they’re still about 100’.Espree’s is the first. I didn’t quite get it all done, but I got most of it. I still have to clean out the drainage on both sides, and take out about ¼  of the top. I think I took out five gator loads. My body says it was more like 500., but I got it started. If April can keep up with the daily poop, then we should be able to keep them all clean between the two of us.

Espree was in seventh heaven as I put her in the round pen, which still has (albeit dry) grass in it. She has come such a long way since we first bought her seven years ago. The first time we put her out in the pasture it took Rudy half an hour to catch her to put her back into her stall. She wouldn’t let me even come close to her then. The funny thing was once you caught her she was (and still is) a perfect lady on the lead line. The one saving grace was she loved to be groomed (don’t they all), so I earned her trust with a brush and comb. Now I can go up to her, and put the lead line on, but it has taken all this time for her to allow that. I can even fix her halter when she rubs it off one ear. It takes a little more time than with a normal horse, but I can do it. Like all of them the more you handle them the better they get. The problem I’ve had in the past was I only had weekends to work with the horses, and most of that time was spent in cleaning stalls, occasionally grooming them, and keeping the barn clean. It wasn’t until I got laid off from work that I had the time to really work with the horses. Now I never want to have any other job than to keep up the ranch. My body isn’t too happy about it, but I’m in my seventh heaven being a full time rancher. If I weren’t so stressed out about money we don’t have I would enjoy it more, and do more. I’m hoping that with more time on my hands for training we might actually start selling horses instead of just feeding them. That would be a novel change for us. Of course if we lived where we didn’t have to buy hay all the time it would be a whole lot easier. Problem is we both love the southwestern deserts, and grass just doesn’t seem to grow without tons of rain or on rocky ground. I guess you can’t have everything.

Now that I have one stall done, I only have six more to deal with. Tomorrow I have to go to town (somehow that takes most of the day), Saturday is hay day, and Sunday I go to Roswell to visit my parents. That means I probably won’t have time to spend with the horses. Then there is laundry, woodcutting, and that most despicable thing of all, housework! If someone could invent a dust free house they would make a fortune. Unfortunately like the barn, as soon as I get rid of the dust, and dirt it comes right back. Somewhere along the line someone put in a cement floor in the barn. Do you have any idea how ridicules it is to have a cement floor in a barn? It’s never clean, and if we ever have to repair a water line in the barn… don’t even ask, it simply can’t be done. We will have to run new water lines. God willing that will never ever happen, or at least not until we have the money to take up such an endeavor (yeah that means never in our life times). At any rate my body is quite upset with me for having it do such a stupid thing as work like a 30 year old. Maybe I’ll make a visit to the chiropractor when I go to town. Lord knows I will definitely get my muscle relaxer’s (assuming of course that I can move tomorrow). Tonight when Katie came over with her tack she said I looked strong, and I thought yeah right that’s why when I have days like today I spend the next day in bed. At least there were no disasters today, or for that matter all this past week. Might things be turning around? That would be a nice change. We’ll see.