inflectionpoint

The sun is coming up, streaming through the windows and pointing out that I really should do some housework. Sigh.  Today is a "horse" day, so I was moving horses, cleaning pens and filling water well before the sun made an appearance.  Driving down to Winter Quarters we looked out over the Ukiah valley, full of fluffy white fog, which of course isn't as fluffy or nice once you are in it.  All the horses were full of themselves, including Firefly. 
I rode Firefly both days this weekend.  She was, as usual, very good.  
There was a nice group of riders on Sunday who apparently had fun and want to return.  We will see if the weather cooperates in January and February! 
It has been sunny and dry for a couple of weeks now, I wouldn't mind a bit of rain.  Indeed, it looks like we might get some in another week.  I hope so.  The chart says we are still a tiny bit ahead of seasonal normal, but when we start into this dry weather pattern it sometimes takes over for the rest of the winter. That would be bad as we have only had 20% of our normal rain for the year.  On the other hand we have a foot of nice green grass in some places on the Ranch.  Some years that would be 1 inch, not 1 foot. 

Sat and Sun are December's Obstacle Practice Days here at the Ranch. As usual I have 8 obstacles planned.  Sunday's event already has its limit of 10 riders signed up.  Saturday has 5.  I have no idea why Sunday is more popular, but that has been true on several recent events.  In any case, I'm really happy to have this many riders signed up in the middle of winter.  It is true that the weather has been spectacular for the last week and should be perfect on Sat: Sunny with a high of 65F.  The hills are green and lovely. 
Got some shelves half installed. They are good metal industrial style shelving that were being thrown out of the Opera House back when I was working there. I brought them up from Henry St last week. 
Scored an excellent buy of some used but very good fence panels. Priced about $150 per panel.  New they would be 250+.  It was one of those deals that I tuck a little money away for.  Thank goodness Ray was willing to pick them up for me, the seller wanted them gone ASAP.

Lily and I worked for almost 4 hours picking up all the pallets that hay gets stacked on, cleaning old hay out of them before laying the pallets down to be covered with 3 pickup loads of bales from the barn.  In doing so we moved the hay stack over a couple of feet.  The move made room so we could move the supplement cart against the back wall.  Tomorrow I'll extend out from the cart with 3 feet more counter space.  At night, in the dark, it would be nice to lay out all four tubs that are used for supplements. Each horse gets a slightly different mix.  Rio gets 5# of  senior feed pellets mixed with rice bran for calories.  The other three get 1 # each of Purina's Enrich.  Beau gets a tiny scoop of a probiotic plus a splash of cider vinegar to help keep his gut happy.  Baily gets water in his because he choked gobbling down a huge mass of dry pellets and the vet said to serve his damp from now on.  Firefly just gets pellets.  So far she eats her pellets quickly, but doesn't try and gobble them down. 
After Lily left I stayed to finish cleanup. Mostly just moving things back into the center feed area, but also removing the insulated wire that brought power in for the electric fence since we no longer need it.
Tried a fix for the front of the wheelbarrow, a little cheap one. The piece of metal that goes in front of the tire refuses to stay in place.  Every time the wheelbarrow is dumped the metal flips up and acts as a stop on the wheel.  I screwed an L shaped piece of metal over the top.  The L shaped piece was salvaged from the packing around my new stove.  If that isn't enough I'll screw through the front of the L bracket, and the metal tire guard and into the end of the handle.  I'm just afraid that will just crack the handle...
Tomorrow I'll finish putting in the new counter in Winter Quarters and possibly some little shelves.  That should make it a pretty nice place to care for horses. 
Was nice to find I'm still in good enough shape to pick up heavy, three wire bales and move them.  On the way home I picked up three out of four bags of damp leaves that have been sitting down at the main gate.  Those are really heavy, definitely heavier than the hay!  A couple of the bags had multiple small holes torn in them.  I can't decide if it was squirrels looking for acorns, or crows/ravens looking for trash to eat. 

The very last of the fall color is starting to fade, but not these leaves, seen here glowing in the late afternoon sun.
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