Thursday it is

Stude said he's lurrrrrking... Yesssssss. 

Sssstill lurrrrrrking...

Still working at getting this Shhips project finished.  We got in the vinyl flooring in and are waiting for the underlayment.  The fellow who handles this account came in with 3/8 plywood and we requested 1/4 inch.  Jmebear refused it and we are now waiting on the bureaucrat to get off his butt and do his job again.  He's delayed the project over five months with this kind of silliness.  He also complained that we put in only one set of steps off the back porch.  Also that there is a deck in the back and not two minimal porches.  He was particularly unhappy that we ran a narrow (4' wide) deck to the laundry room instead of minimal little landings and two sets of steps.  I have a feeling the USDA rep is going to be even more unhappy.  The plan was to put a ramp on the end of the narrow deck in the back and he said we can't use the SHHIPS materials to do so because it wasn't in the original job order.  Not a problem as I have the materials between remnants of the old deck and my own lumber pile.  In fact, I have already put a ramp in the front doing just this.  He was surprised the entire thing was done with reclaimed materials.

Well, gotta go.  Lots to do...
Hope everyone has a great week and not the stifling heat like we had here.

By the by, I posted this on Facebook yesterday and Jmebear contributed her bit:

Well we had an interesting day here in Oak Run at the Walkingbear. 
It started at about 3:30 am with the neighbor roaring into the driveway with her horn blaring. She kept it up till Joyce was up and looking out the window. Joyce went out onto the porch to see what was going on and Harriet had already gone to the other neighbor's house to roust her out of bed too. When she looked to her right Joyce could see a line of fire several hundred feet wide in the field across the driveway. Frank Lima's place was on fire! She ran out to my trailer (after calling the Fire Department) and woke me and we went out to see which way it was burning. Thankfully the wind was blowing south-west, away from Joyce's place. Wayyyy too close, wayyyyy too much excitement that early in the morning!

Jmebear added:

Last night they still considered it a "live fire" and the Fire Trucks continued to crisscross the burn area putting out spot fires. The fire departments were very quick to respond (thank you!). They stopped the progress of the fire a few hundred feet from my place. At least this fire didn't come quite as close as the last one in 2008 that burned right up to my round pen. In that fire my mobile got a bath via helicopter and the trees up front stayed pink from the fire retardant for a long time. Both fires started in basically the same place probably from someone tossing a cigarette out the car window.

I hear you!   I will soon only have a month left of my summer  I feel like I haven't gone and done nearly enough !   With Cody being ill that took a couple weeks of riding out     He is doing really well and this morning when I was feeding I saw that the edema on his underbelly looks like it is gone .   I was waiting for that to go down before I put a saddle on him again .   We rode with our group the other evening and I rode Spirit and ponied Lola and Kelly came along on Tahoe for his first ride  since being sick .   Spirit actually had a lot of spirit and was moving out and offering to trot quite a bit .   We lead the group for about half of the ride which is unusual for him .   Lola did very well and she learned how to follow directly behind spirit on the narrow areas .   She pooped out about 2 miles from the end though and suddenly put the brakes on .   About jerked me out of the saddle a couple times   because she would stop so suddenly !   One of the other ladies had a neat leather braided strap that clips onto her saddle like a whip  and Kelly smacked Lola  gently on the behind and sometimes from Lola decided she could keep going .    

We brought a cute Appy gelding  to the ranch as a summer project for Kelly from the same rescue where we adopted our little Jenny .   He came to the rescue from the animal shelter after he came in as a starvation case.   He has been fattened up and just hanging out at the horse rescue for about a year .   He is about 14 years old and about 14.2 and a cute snowflake chestnut .   We got him out last night for his first ride here .   Kelley wrote him in a bareback pad and just walked around the arena and over some poles and small cross rails and he did really well .   If we can get a good feel for him and either put some training into him or tune him up he can maybe find a good forever home .  

The heat makes it hard to want to do anything outside.   By the time I am done feeding I am soaked every day .   We are progressing with our fencing .   We have the 3 big paddocks off the north side of the barn with custom pipe rails that look fantastic .    When we were planning it all, the fencing guy kept commenting on how big the paddocks were and since the horses moved in he has commented on how they really like moving around and playing in their big areas  This week they have been putting up 6 foot tall chain-link along the perimeter of our Stream Property , with 2 large drive-through gates .   Next we will be putting up the white vinyl fencing around the arena .   We are going to have two new pastures fenced   With one more large shelter put up.   We still have another large paddock to put off the south side of the barn but the stalls are full of Gary's things that will be going to his shop soon so we are not doing those yet.

Gary is back in Ohio this week and will be going to the air show in Oshkosh this next week .   He flew back with a friend yesterday .  

Three of our little bottle feeder Jack Russell puppies went to their new homes and the remaining Puppy joined the other two puppies from the litter at another foster's house so that we could take in a an extra large Husky German Shepherd puppy from a litter that was being taken to the shelter .  Lena  is only 3 1/2 to 4 months old and already weighs almost 40 pounds !   She was very anxious and confused at first because she has only lived in the backyard with her siblings   So she was very clingy and defensive the first couple days but luckily she is relaxing and starting to settle in  and not wailing and yelping in her crate or going after other dogs that came near me .  Phew!    She is a pretty little thing with a dark red overcoat and cream underneath with one blue eye .

DH- I hope your volunteer day did not drag out too much .   Penny appears to have some rain rot or something fungal on her back that made some of her hair come out so I am bathing her back in that "Hey ,what's that blue stuff?" every morning .   Her leg has healed up really well and I am going to start getting her out and doing some groundwork with her .   I am thinking of about selling her if I can get her totally sound and ready to go .   I had a lot of fun on her the first year I had her but she definitely can be a handful and now that I am in my 50s with some issues in my neck I am rethinking whether I should be on a horse that might hurt me.   I know there is always the potential to get hurt on any horse but she raises the bar !   I also did some thinking when my ribs were broken because I had to have other people help me with her and I did not like having to put people like my husband in a position where they could've gotten hurt handling her.   So we will see how things go.  

Stude:   I hear your pain on construction projects!   I am very glad we got the barn and arena done .   I'm glad the fire went away from your place !

Leaving in the morning to join friends for my friend's mama's funeral. I'm trying to be calm and not be overwhelmed.

Glad the fire missed Stude. Hope the vol day went well. Dana, I can't wait to see Kelly's progress with the Appy!! Connie, hoping Whisper's skin issues clear up.