3 Ring Circus
Somedays it really does feel like a circus around here. Except I think we normally have 5 rings going. Take this past Sunday. Dave and I had been burning all morning after the dogs got their breakfast at 7:30. Ginger stayed in the kennel to work on a contract for some people who want to hold an event at our barn.
About 11:00, the people showed up and were wandering around the arena. Finally I left the burning to go greet them. Turns out only one of the 3 had been out before, so the first person was showing the others around. I told them they could find Ginger up at the kennel.
Ginger came down later talking through some more logistics with them - where would cars park, where would horse trailers park, how many horses would there be. This group is the Society for Creative Anachronisms, so it might just be a rather entertaining day. They do the full regalia and horseback games/challenges.
About 12:00 she finished with them and came down to spell us from burning. But by then we were exhausted and figured that if we quit we would never get back to it that day, so we wanted to get the last of the piles to mostly burn away. So, we kept raking in between pile-fluffing.
About 1:00 Dave and I did quit, got something to eat, and I showered because everything completely stunk of smoke - and promptly fell asleep for an hour.
Seeing as how we never moved hay on Saturday due to the burning, I got up to move hay, while Ginger went to let the kennel dogs out. Only the moving hay part took twice as long as usual, because I had to rake up the ashes at each of the 3 hay spots, re-set the pallets, and some how I twice managed to drop bales off the back of the truck without noticing, so I had to backtrack to get them! I was just heading back up when I remembered that I wanted to take 3 of the moldy bales up to the dog yard to be climbing obstacles for the dogs. Why is it that the bales you want to discard are always the heaviest??
On the way back, I had to wait for a customer's car on the driveway. I figured she was a kennel customer coming to pick up her dogs, but not so. She was here for a 5:00 appointment to see about leasing a horse and was looking for Ginger. As it was only 4:30 and a second person was scheduled at the same time, Ginger couldn't really get with her right then. She volunteered to wait in her car, but I was headed down to ride Jordan, so I said I could show her around the barn at least. Well -- as we were walking down, the other person, her husband, and three kids showed up. Also apologizing for being 20 minutes early. So we all tromped down to the barn while I called Ginger to let her know the other person was here as well.
Ginger said she'd put the dogs away and be down - but we were expecting a 4:30 checkout who wasn't here yet. So I called Dave, who had gotten back to raking by this time and asked him to go to the kennel. Off he went. I got out Jordan and chatted with the people for awhile until Ginger came to take over.
As I was riding Jordan... now about 5:30 I guess? I saw Patrick show back up. We'd told him Saturday we'd be continuing burning and he could come over when ever. Somehow I figured when ever meant earlier than 5:30, but oh well. He managed to figure out Dave was in the kennel I guess, and pretty soon I saw him out supervising the dogs while Dave was distributing feed bowls, etc. Not long after that they came back down and resumed burning.
I finished my ride (on my really wonderful pony I have to add) and decided to give him a bath since it is not only spring and he's shedding, but he also seems to have a bad case of dry itchy skin this year.
Jordan and his favorite scratching post
I got the hose that had been set up to be available in case the burning got out of hand (if ONLY we'd had that trouble!)... and proceeded to start bathing him. Got about 25% lathered... and saw a kennel customer drive up to the kennel.
There we were -- Ginger was giving an introductory lesson to two new leasors. Dave and Patrick were burning, and I had a wet horse. Wet horse got tossed into the round pen, and I ran up to checkout Callie and Meeko, who had been scheduled to go home 2 hours earlier.
Went back down, finished the bath while Ginger helped her leasors untack and turn out the horses. Good news is it looks like we have 2 new leasors. We love leasors! Ginger took them back up and went in to turn out the dogs for the final time of the night. I fed Jordan his grain in his stall hoping he'd dry off a bit in his stall since the sun was already down and it was starting to get chill outside. I gave him some hay too, but that only occupied him for about 10 minutes before he remembered that he was the only horse in the barn and everyone else was out in pasture, at which point he insisted he had to be out in pasture too. OK, took him out, and threw hay for all the horses.
We could barely see anymore, but I helped Dave and Patrick rake up the last section of the area they were working on and burn a few more piles. It was 8:00.
About 11:00, the people showed up and were wandering around the arena. Finally I left the burning to go greet them. Turns out only one of the 3 had been out before, so the first person was showing the others around. I told them they could find Ginger up at the kennel.
Ginger came down later talking through some more logistics with them - where would cars park, where would horse trailers park, how many horses would there be. This group is the Society for Creative Anachronisms, so it might just be a rather entertaining day. They do the full regalia and horseback games/challenges.
About 12:00 she finished with them and came down to spell us from burning. But by then we were exhausted and figured that if we quit we would never get back to it that day, so we wanted to get the last of the piles to mostly burn away. So, we kept raking in between pile-fluffing.
About 1:00 Dave and I did quit, got something to eat, and I showered because everything completely stunk of smoke - and promptly fell asleep for an hour.
Seeing as how we never moved hay on Saturday due to the burning, I got up to move hay, while Ginger went to let the kennel dogs out. Only the moving hay part took twice as long as usual, because I had to rake up the ashes at each of the 3 hay spots, re-set the pallets, and some how I twice managed to drop bales off the back of the truck without noticing, so I had to backtrack to get them! I was just heading back up when I remembered that I wanted to take 3 of the moldy bales up to the dog yard to be climbing obstacles for the dogs. Why is it that the bales you want to discard are always the heaviest??
On the way back, I had to wait for a customer's car on the driveway. I figured she was a kennel customer coming to pick up her dogs, but not so. She was here for a 5:00 appointment to see about leasing a horse and was looking for Ginger. As it was only 4:30 and a second person was scheduled at the same time, Ginger couldn't really get with her right then. She volunteered to wait in her car, but I was headed down to ride Jordan, so I said I could show her around the barn at least. Well -- as we were walking down, the other person, her husband, and three kids showed up. Also apologizing for being 20 minutes early. So we all tromped down to the barn while I called Ginger to let her know the other person was here as well.
Ginger said she'd put the dogs away and be down - but we were expecting a 4:30 checkout who wasn't here yet. So I called Dave, who had gotten back to raking by this time and asked him to go to the kennel. Off he went. I got out Jordan and chatted with the people for awhile until Ginger came to take over.
As I was riding Jordan... now about 5:30 I guess? I saw Patrick show back up. We'd told him Saturday we'd be continuing burning and he could come over when ever. Somehow I figured when ever meant earlier than 5:30, but oh well. He managed to figure out Dave was in the kennel I guess, and pretty soon I saw him out supervising the dogs while Dave was distributing feed bowls, etc. Not long after that they came back down and resumed burning.
I finished my ride (on my really wonderful pony I have to add) and decided to give him a bath since it is not only spring and he's shedding, but he also seems to have a bad case of dry itchy skin this year.
Jordan and his favorite scratching post
I got the hose that had been set up to be available in case the burning got out of hand (if ONLY we'd had that trouble!)... and proceeded to start bathing him. Got about 25% lathered... and saw a kennel customer drive up to the kennel.
There we were -- Ginger was giving an introductory lesson to two new leasors. Dave and Patrick were burning, and I had a wet horse. Wet horse got tossed into the round pen, and I ran up to checkout Callie and Meeko, who had been scheduled to go home 2 hours earlier.
Went back down, finished the bath while Ginger helped her leasors untack and turn out the horses. Good news is it looks like we have 2 new leasors. We love leasors! Ginger took them back up and went in to turn out the dogs for the final time of the night. I fed Jordan his grain in his stall hoping he'd dry off a bit in his stall since the sun was already down and it was starting to get chill outside. I gave him some hay too, but that only occupied him for about 10 minutes before he remembered that he was the only horse in the barn and everyone else was out in pasture, at which point he insisted he had to be out in pasture too. OK, took him out, and threw hay for all the horses.
We could barely see anymore, but I helped Dave and Patrick rake up the last section of the area they were working on and burn a few more piles. It was 8:00.
Labels: Ranch
posted by Monica at Sun Pony |
11:15 AM
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