Back to the Real World?

Hey there! I bet you're starting to think that we'd dropped into a black hole... Well, we did - a black hole by the name of Sun Pony Ranch. I took 2 weeks off from work to help out at the ranch, and I have to say - it is a whole different world when you are there full time. I admitted after several days that it is very easy to feel like you're on vacation and start sleeping in later and later - even though we know the best time to work is in the morning since the horrendous winds usually blow up early afternoon.

For nearly 2 weeks I didn't even touch my computer, which is a big reason there haven't been any blog entries. Though last night I did get Ginger and David sat down for a database training session. I figure it'd be best if we all knew how to use our kennel database before dogs start walking in the door.

I helped Ginger with the horse chores daily. Mucking stalls is a great time to just let your body work and mind wander. But she still handles most of the horse stuff herself. I don't know how Ginger finds the energy to keep going down to the barn to do whatever else is required.

Since Thanksgiving the weather has been bitterly cold. And the ground frozen, so we were not doing much outside. But over Christmas we got 2 weeks of temperatures in the 50s so we got a lot of work done. We are still getting blasted by the wind on occasion, but all things considered we had little to complain about.

We had nice, albeit quiet holidays. We had dinner Christmas Eve (Cornish Game Hens, which I thought were just as cute as could be!) Christmas morning the 4 of us all fed and mucked, then went back to the house for breakfast and presents. Ginger and Roger took off to visit with Jessica and Marshall, while we finished off our present piles, and then we were off to DIA to visit with Dave's folks who had a long layover on their way home from a Carribbean cruise.

The week before Christmas we got two new boarders - 17 year old twins who each have a show horse. These guys are hardly the low maintenance variety that all of our other horses are, I'll have to write them up in another entry.

We also lost two of our boarders this last weekend. We knew one was leaving to go to California, but his 'brother' also left because the owner wanted to put him in training as she hasn't had time to work him much (let alone TWO horses.) So, we're even keeled again at 11 horses - though the swap of the two new horses for the two old horses was far from equitable as far as our labor and resources goes. Ah well.

Not much happened on the kennel, but we have achieved signoff on the rough electrical and plubming, as well as got the propane piped to the boiler and inspected. So hopefully the momentum will pick up rapidly this week.