Boring!!

I keep saying I am going to get to riding these horses...and I get a couple up and clean them up and do some groundwork...and that is about as far as I get before I get sidetracked.

Quite frankly...

It's HOT!!

Not Arizona hot...but still hot!!

And dry! OMgosh, we are so damn dry!!

Back at the end of June we got that week of nice rain and cooler temps and I really thought we were in for it this monsoon season. But it just dried up and we haven't had a drop of rain since.

Since I have my irrigation working properly, my pastures are doing well, but without any rain, I have to irrigate more often and I can't have horses on the pasture when I irrigate, so it's a catch .22.

I noticed that Flashy and Ruger were starting to look a little bedraggled...so I got them and Twister (the Canadian horse) up. They are all appreciating a little stall time.

Sassy and Hawk have been enjoying some pasture time in the mornings, but usually by about 1 pm, Hawk is ready to come in. He says it's too hot out in the pasture. At 3 months old, he is extra-ordinarily independent. When he is ready to come in, he will come stand by the gate and whinny. Sassy is usually on the far end of the pasture and could care less. Weaning this one is going to be easy peasy!!

I am working on a few different projects. I guess my goal is to just get as many of them done as I can while I wait for better riding weather. Every year my raised driveway island fills up with weeds and every year I pull them and say, THIS is the year I am going to get grass planted. Well....This IS the year I will get grass planted!! I have irrigation water to the island now, so there won't be having to drag hoses back and forth over the driveway.

I didn't get a garden put in this year. I just didn't want to deal with the extra work. I am missing my fresh produce though!! So, I am in the process of killing the weeds, then I'll burn them off and get the garden tilled up and I have some good rotted manure to put on it before winter, so that next spring all I have to do is retill it and plant. The wall on the backside has collapsed in a couple of spots, so I guess I will get that fixed and haul in some fill dirt to bank up back there.

I still have a bunch of old, broken pipe to clean up on the far end of the pasture and I have been bringing a skid steer bucket of that junk down every 2 weeks and putting it in the dumpster. I kept saying I was just going to take my big trailer up there, load it all up and haul it all to the dump in one fell swoop...Well...That has never happened, so if it takes me all summer to get rid of it in out dumpster...then so be it!!

It actually works out pretty good because every time I take the skidsteer up there to get a load of junk, I make myself go around and pick up a pile of rocks (picking rocks out of my pastures and arena is a non-stop job) and haul them up to the rock pile. Then while I am up there, I gather up all of the piles of weeds that I have pulled and pile those all together, so I can burn them this fall. So, in a way, I am accomplishing 3 projects every time I make that little round trip. :-D.

I am also, slowly, but surely getting my tack/feed room finished. Last fall I finally got all of the walls lined with the plywood that has been stacked in there every since the barn was built. Then I started adding all of the things you need to make a tack room useful, like hooks and shelves. You wouldn't think it would be that big of a project...But I have A LOT of crap!! Even I didn't realize how much until I started unpacking storage containers. Two years ago I went through everything and got rid of a bunch of stuff that I didn't want anymore and I STILL have a ton of stuff.

But you know, it's all coming together!! I have one spot of weeds to pull yet, which won't happen until we get another good shot of rain to soften the ground up, but other than that...I am pretty on top of everything this year. When the weather does cool off, I won't be killing myself to get horses worked AND get Fall work done. I can just go to riding horses and enjoy it!!

I'm pretty sure my husband wishes I would put as much effort into cleaning the house as I do into walking and weeding and watering my pastures, but I have my priorities straight!! LOL!!