Two Policemans and a Tractor

Whew. I have been swamped this week. Every one of us has been rising with the sun, going hard all day long, and falling into bed much too late each night. For some reason, I think we forget exactly how busy foaling and breeding season truly is. It takes a huge team effort each and every day to accomplish both the mundane and the extraordinary things we do.

Here are some Noteable Notes along with some Quotable Quotes from the past few days:

On Sunday, Wayne, Tara and I began the process of constructing 6 stalls in the indoor arena for the overflow of horses we were expecting to arrive at the farm in the next week. Like many things, the project seemed to creep forward at a snail's pace. Two horses who were already living in the main barn thought that since we already had our tools assembled,  they would oblige us by breaking a couple of stall walls. How thoughtful of them to do so while we had drills, saws, bolts and screws handy. That day's quotable quote is not fit to print.

On Monday, we continued the construction process and still had one wall to repair. This time, Amber joined our crew to construct stall walls and Neighbor Jim showed up just in time for the wall fixing party. He took the lead assisted by myself and Tara. Neighbor Jim is an oddity of nature because he owns every tool known to the industrialized world. He could singlehandedly build an ark in one day, I do believe. At one moment during the wall fixin, he observed Tara and I standing on an upturned bucket together- vieing for a foothold as we tried to reach a bolt high above our heads. He asked, "Girls, If I may use your ladder bucket for a moment please?"  We obliged.

On Tuesday, we attended to regular chores and business and caught up on neglected duties from the previous days. I believe someone on the team may have said, "I'm sore," once or twice. I helped unload bulk straw for bedding while Amber resumed teaching her tiny ones their lessons (horses and humans alike).

On Wednesday, we woke bright and early and dove into the final stages of the stall construction process. Wayne and Tara unloaded the final hardware and fixtures for the stalls and then everyone revved up for a final massive effort to finalize the project. By 9:00pm on Wednesday evening, the lesson mares from the farm were happily munching hay in their cozy new arena stalls.

On Thursday, we disinfected stalls and prepared them for the afternoon arrival of Chevy and Company from Michigan with Christa Baldwin. We were anticipating the snow and ice we had received since the weekend was going to cause some complications so we coerced the assistance of Bubby (Neighbor to Neighbor Jim) and his large tractor to plow the parking lot and driveway. Then, salted the small hill leading into the farm heavily and prayed. Unfortunately, we either didn't pray long enough or use salt liberally enough as the trailer loaded with 4500 pounds of Chevy and 3 friends became firmly lodged into the bank as it entered the driveway. Unable to go forward or backward, we were in a pickle. Within approximately 9 seconds, we were swooped down upon by several policeman who deftly guided traffic around the sight. Like an army of worker bees, neighbors poured forth from their homes to weild shovels and advice. Soon, the crowd swarmed to near mob size of 12 people. Neighbor Jim's Neighbor Bubby was called with his large tractor and after roughly 90 minutes of strategizing and several failed attempts, the 50 foot rig and it's truck were finally pulled up the incline by the little tractor that could. Someone was heard to say, "Well, all that took was two policemans and a tractor." If I had known, I may have had those tools on standby.

The events of this week ended with a most bizarre dinner at Olive Garden which involved a shortage of Lasagna and Gluten Free Pasta. No one was injured in the making of this blog so all-in-all, it can be counted as a successful week. And, now on to construct something else...after all, that's how one builds an Empire, I hear!

Khris