Fashion Victim

It happened again yesterday. This time it was a perfectly clean cashmere sweater.  As usual, I didn't even consider, let alone think through, the consequences of farm/barn/horse/dog related activity on a decent working wardrobe.

Yesterday I picked up three bales of wheat straw from the co-op to make a puppy chew-proof bed.  The puppy's real name is Indy, but the nickname should be "El Destructo", with apologies to my Texan roots.  We had thought the king of destruction was foxhound Rutherford, but there has been a coup. The nice man at the co-op loaded the bales in my car.  I got them out at home. You can guess what the sweater looked like afterwards.

Many horse people are aware that it is not the best idea to wear your nice work clothes into a boarding barn where others keep your horse for you.  It should come as a warning label--like those pre-made horse liability law signs-- on every property sold to a person about take care of horses on their own land "DO NOT WEAR NICE CLOTHES OR SHOES  TO DO ANY BARN/FARM CHORE--EVER".  And it should be posted prominently in Hunters Orange above the clothes closet hanging rack, the back door, over the shoe rack, on the coat closet door, and on the barn door, in addition to over the stall(s) and hay for at least the first year of ownership.

Rules of engagement so far:

1. Under NO circumstances should polar fleece ever be worn to clip or shave any dog or horse. The hair penetrates the fleece at a 90 degree angle; this results in wearing a porcupine around.  The same can be said for spring shedding season grooming. Summer tank tops are worse than t-shirts because horse grooming always winds up going down the front somehow, chafing the unmentionables.  This also happens if attempting to fill a hayrack hung higher on the wall than you are tall.
2. NEVER enter a stall in nice work shoes. You WILL manage to get manure on them, whether you clean the stall or not. It will harden before you get around to cleaning them off. They will join the pile of nice shoes you can't wear. Eventually, you will give up an afternoon to clean them off.  Repeat.
3. NEVER wear pants you really like to walk a fence line, or check fence work you're having done. You will find the only remaining piece of barbed wire and snag a hole in the pants.

Curse of weather events plus chores brings excitement too. Because there is now so much more to do on the daily routine, and the place is likely bigger than the last place occupied, everyday items get lost or misplaced regularly. About two weeks ago,  I used a very short window between rain and appointments to mulch leaves in the side pasture in order to put out more grass seed. I naturally could not find my watch, resorting instead to a wind up pocketwatch on a chain around my neck.

This look was originally popularized by Ice Cube ca. 1987, but is currently being revived by Flava Flav. Neither one of them were also wearing rolled up jeans over chartreuse rubber boots and ear protectors while covered in a light film of leaf mulch and dirt, but I prefer to contribute my own fashion interpretation instead of just copying the famous.

Hot Pursuit of Smokin' Grass

Pasture renovation on a horse farm is serious business. It is seriously yawn inducing in those who don't have horses, or own a yard yet. I remember a conversation in late college with a friend who had gone to her first party with People Who Now Had Property And/Or Children. It was the maiden voyage of conversation tag lines not being some variation on "So, what's your major?" She was both horrified and stultifyingly bored at the main topics: prices of heads of lettuce and kinds of lawn grass. I don't know how she survived long enough to tell me about it.

I began to grasp how difficult grass growing in the shade can be on Prescott Street's vast quarter acre (including house). Two enormous oak trees, a holly, a black walnut, a pecan, a dogwood, assorted other trees, heavy acid compacted clay soil, and Western exposure on the front yard, combine to make getting a stand of grass similar to winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning.  Now that I have more experience on Fat Pony Farms, I think I finally know how to fix it.

Here, the land was allowed to lie fallow and unmolested for at least 10, possibly more like 15- 20 years, if the size of the poison ivy is anything to go by. As a result, old aerial photos of open pasture are now shade forest, with some spectacularly large trees. The back had a small pine plantation coming up. And we had lots and lots of invasive 30' tall Chinese Privet (aka Ligustrum) and several acres of vibrant poison ivy. Plus some 8'w x6'h x40' long junk piles. Not much in the way of grass. Which is only important if you happen to be a hungry horse.

Adding to the complexity, we wanted to preserve and increase native wildlife habitat, and we had the two horse extremes:  one very hard keeper ("This food doesn't agree with my sensitive palette" Miss Charlotte) and one extremely easy keeper ("So are you gonna eat that?" Mr. Dublin).  I began to research grass varieties and forage management in earnest while we worked hard on landscape removal to gain area in which to grow pasture.

Emotions: We were happily surprised when bush hogging with the generous loan of a friend's tractor resulted in latent grass popping up. YAY!  Grossed out with the sheer quantity of ticks the privet hosted.  Elated when our experimental first pass with endophyte-free fescue with our itty-bitty spreader produced a two foot wide green ribbon of grass meandering through the property.  Grimly determined to mix Round Up at a concentration high enough for jurassic poison ivy removal. (Some of those vines had to be cut with a chain saw. No mere loppers were big enough.) Delight that landscape removal and tree pruning were actually going to WORK. Exultation at the incredible quantity of wildlife and grass increase this year over when we got here in 2007.

There will be more on pasture later, but that will have to wait for when the intended audience snaps out of the coma induced by this episode.

Present Status

Today we continued this summer's epic saga of bridge rebuilding. Or more precisely, shoveling limestone road base to finish the abutment on the barn side of the newly reconstructed bridge. Other people will refer to this as "Working on Your Abs".  Our tool of choice is a shovel given to us around 14.5ish years ago at our "couples" wedding shower. The Best Man attched a note saying that it might be useful for digging graves. He was right. But mostly, we use it to shovel thousands of pounds of bulky HEAVY limestone. Since we wore the point off some years ago, a new spade has been employed for planting escapades. 

Another shower gift still in use is the Blue Wheelbarrow. Repainted once, then rebuilt with new handles when we cracked one on the first major limestone moving project (shed floor at Prescott House). It moves plants, mulch, manure, and lately has also been a rain gauge. Unfortunately the water pressure here blew all four of the hoses (11years used at a gentler property) from the shower stash, and forced us to buy a giant 500' roll of industrial 200 psi rated agriculture hose from Temco, Ag supplier to the stars. That was cheaper than plumbing the pasture water troughs by a longshot.

Roof Party!

Today we had a contractor party: a framer, a G.C., and a good metal roofer came out together to have a second look at the mess most people would call a roof on both the barn and the house. The sticking point is the framing on the "kennel room".  My main methodology is fix things so that we not only cure the current problems, but also reduce maintenance. Thus, if we just fixed the soggy framing and sheathing and put it back the way it was originally constructed, sans skylights; there is still too much water flowing down valleys that never should have been on the roof, overhangs are too short, and I'd be in a bad mood about foundation erosion permanently.

So, I wanted to look at framing it in properly--integrating it with the garage to make a hip roof wing. It will also make the space inside much nicer. The new space will then be more like a party/workshop space. As opposed to that moldy nasty room where Rutherford (hound) likes to tear the fiberglass insulation out of the wall. Good news: the GC agreed that the framing was a wash either way, so we might as well frame it like we mean it. No more accidental roofing allowed.

Almost all the barn eaves will be extended to 2' instead of 8".  Ridge vents will be going in everywhere. Extra satellite dishes will be going away. Fewer Penetrations equals fewer leaks. And I found we will not use the plumber who installed the water heater again. Really bad job on the roof plumbing vent--BAD man!

Hopefully this time next week will reveal how in or out of budget we are. Keep your fingers crossed!

How to Tone Those Abs

When moving to a horse place, the very first thing is to get the horses in so one can stop paying horse board, no matter what people tell you needs to be done in the kitchen.

The barn originally housed miniature horses in Western platform framing-- all 2x4s; the largest stalls were 12'x8'. Horses require at least 10'x10'. Our remodeled stalls are 12'x24', because of the thin framing. If we had divided it there would just be giant holes everywhere the horses kicked through. The larger stall has proved to be great for bad weather weeks, and was extra roomy for our geriatric, Miss Charlotte.

Demolishing the old stall partitions was no biggie. Putting in stall mats to reduce stall maintenance and the gradual "pit" horses make proved to be more exciting. First the strange nationwide run on stall mats in fall of 2007 meant that I couldn't get all of them at once. So I settled for a heavy 12x12 set that could deliver before Christmas--trying to get Dublin in at least the run-in for the opening of the new far away hunt territory January 1st. Linear Rubber took the order for the custom cut mats for the run-in, but we would see them in February. Around March, I finally found Mighty Light mats for a 12x12 stall through Smart Pak because of their flat rate ship-all-you-can policy. All the other vendors were out.

The thing about stall mats is that they work best if they have a really level base. 1/4"minus limestone works quite well. What no one shares is that it's really heavy if you are shoveling it all by hand. It took 4000 lbs of limestone to do the dry indoor 12x24 stall. By the time we had all the materials in place, after March's record 21" of rain and one bad horse fight, the atmosphere was 89 degrees F. And humid. Did I tell you it was humid?

Miller and I shoveled until the sweat came down like rain.  We found out gravel was really good for the abs. I offered the workout to friends. Sadly, we had no takers. Even the screeding proved to be great for the hamstrings. These are hard to target muscle groups.

Eventually we succeeded in getting it all into the stall and then laying mats. The run-in was next, only now it was hotter. When I called for gravel delivery, I asked for 3500 lbs, since the stall was 21' x 11'8". They said they would do their best, but normally went by the ton.  About two hours later the same driver as last time appeared with a large truck. He was smiling broadly. He said " I knew it was the same place where this gravel went last time for horse stalls, so I made sure the Loader guy gave you extra gravel!"

I said thank you just like my Mom taught me. I was crying inside.

Sometimes, it's not about the Aesthetics

Since we bought this joint from the drug dealers via Countrywide's Fire Sale Dept.during a 3 year drought, visitors have occasionally wanted to revise our To Do list to suit their own personal world order.  The most frequent revision is "so what are you going to do with the deck?" The "deck" spans the ravine, which actually makes it a party bridge. But since its main function is to connect us with the side pasture from the house (NOT the barn), we don't use it much, which makes it easy to ignore. It's about 4,982 on my To Do list.

The main insinuation is that it should be cleaned or stained or both. I did fix the hole in it and tighten the step treads down to the paddock for safety reasons. OK, really because it was right before we hosted the Derby Party. It is now clear that the drought is over, and equally clear that mildew encrusted deck is slick as all get out when wet. So in effort not to go down on my backside like I did when running for the school bus on ice in the Ohio snowbelt--books flying--I began to look at deck cleaners on an extremely casual basis over the course of a year.

Most deck cleaners read badly on the label.  Something like:  "Dangerous Fumes. Will blow sky high if looked at sideways, scar lungs for life, and kill all plants around whatever you are trying to clean." In our case, since the deck spans the ravine, what goes on the deck, goes to the ravine, flows to Nonconnah River and then to the Mighty Mississippi. And then we are trying to keep what little vegetation we have in that area. Another minor consideration is my allergy to fumes, especially if being forced to clean something.  So like all great stories begin, I was cruisin' the internet one day...and ran across Wash Safe Industries "Deck Cleaner".
(www.wash-safe.com). They were harnessing the power of a strong hydrogen peroxide to clean nasty decks, and horse stables too. I knew this worked on a small scale, as I frequently use it to clean around the sink drain. So I yanked out a garden variety bottle from under the sink, and gave it a go on a deck section sized for a lazy man. Tried it on the driveway too, just for fun. Came back in and ordered 2 containers online.

My party bridge now has a racing stripe. A non-slip strip on the route of least resistance to the paddock. All plants survived, no breathing mask required.  

Slight Progress on Roofing and Lighting

Today I actually got around to having a good metal roofer out to do some initial pricing on our multiple roof issues. For instance, replacing the run-in roof with something that is slightly more helpful than a sieve in a big rain fiesta. It looks like a shower in there with any quantity of precipitation. Hmmm, maybe I should just call it a wash rack. It's actually right next to where the wash rack will be.  The second story roof is not much better, but since there is a floor under it functioning as a drip pan, it is less annoying on a daily basis. We will also install new polycarbonate skylight panels in the same profile as the roof. The stalls will be lighter then.

I wasn't quite ready to do the electrical lighting, but the lighting is now ready for me. The second to last fixture is on its deathbed. It even has cool "last breath" special effects. OK-not really-- it just takes forever to come on, flickering lots. I've been procrastinating because I wanted all LED, sealed, hose down fixtures, with cold weather starting, but they have not come out yet. I just found one outdoor fixture on EarthLED.com, but it's so new it was not on the "add to cart" list.  I put a solar LED shed light in the dry stall, but while it gives enough light to pick manure, it is not enough to do any sort of show grooming (like we ever do that anyway). Worst case is Lithonia food service fixtures, retrofitted with LED bulbs. That seems a shame though, because the LEDs do not require a ballast. It's always something. I liked the prospect of no dead bugs in the bulb area, and cleaning with a hose. And I found a spray that makes the plastic lens anti static (no dust on at least part of a fixture in a barn, imagine!)  I figure our only chance at this whole thing working out is to make it as low maintenance and energy efficient as possible.

Dedication

This blog is dedicated to Ashley (especially), Kenny, and their two girls. They have shown immense dedication to long standing friendship by visiting us on a whim whenever we are in the midst of a construction project. To be fair, the first time Ashley interpreted the terms "a little home renovation" and "not quite childproof" as "opening a paint can," due to her previous experiences. We were in fact gutting & renovating the only bathroom we owned in two weeks flat, over on Prescott St--a 3BR/1 BA house.  She brought on the toddlers (later visits they were taller), and everyone had a great time.  The next time it was the kitchen and laundry room, same house, floors missing.  Now it's a whole horse farm. They ate breakfast here when we supported the stove on matched speakers (because that's what we had with matching heights). They have caused construction to happen  merely by calling to let us know they were coming. I believe they truly like construction and visit us to immerse themselves in the full experience, sorta like camping.

Some History

Round Track!!

Dad announced he was coming over Labor Day weekend, so I took advantage of his tall third person-ness to help hang up sliding door track for the new front barn door.  It took some doing, and a very understanding man at Harrrison Wholesale to get the Cannonball round profile track and associated parts trucked over in time.  I was told they couldn't get the universal bracket I wanted for the front doors from the regional distributer, but it was OK, as I ordered it direct from the manufacturer. And it looks good too.
      So the front gets the "fancy-schmancy bracket" (to quote the distributer). The back gets the standard no frills keyhole track & bracket. The back doors will be the existing front doors, only relocated. The front doors will be new bi-parting polycarbonate, 77% light transmission with a new wood frame. Should be much more light and a whole lot warmer in the barn this winter. Sure beats the old bedspread we threw over the door on the coldest nights last winter to cut the draft!!