New Project Part Two

What a whirlwind week this has been! We are very quickly making progress on our new shelter. I woke up yesterday at 5:30 in the morning to my OH leaving for work. I woke up again at 9:00 a.m., to my OH coming home from work. What? Is there something wrong with the clock? Did I oversleep and it is now 4:00 p.m.? Nope. My OH was home at 9:00 a.m. Why? Long story, probably one I am not supposed to tell. It has to do with the FBI, and no, he isn't in trouble! So he was ready to continue working at home. I drug myself out of bed and headed on up to the work area. He almost had all the roof supports up.



The metal brackets are in place.



My OH decided while he was home, he'd call and have a dump truck of fill dirt delivered. The pasture is a little uneven, so we need fill dirt to level out the ground where the shed is. Here's the dump truck backing up the long run. My horses don't even care, they are so used to dump trucks, regular trucks and tractors. My sister's boy, he spooked. But he was fine after a couple seconds.



Yes, fill dirt. I remember a few years ago we had to have 10 dump trucks of fill dirt brought in for my arena. That was not a fun time.



My OH is inspecting the fill dirt, not sure why, isn't dirt, well, dirt? Yes, there is some rock in it, so it's rock and dirt. But inspecting it? There is only room for one inspector here OH! That would be Fritzy!



After lunch, we went back out to continue building. Well, I wasn't building. I just watched my OH build. The other day Sadie had started limping on her front left leg. I was concerned, so I made a vet appt. for her. I think I jumped the gun a little. Because yesterday morning when I was awakened at 5:30 in the morning, I was told by my OH that Sadie was doing way better. So I canceled the vet appt. She had been on limited activity and she will be kept on limited activity for a few days. So poor Sadie had to spend most of the day locked inside. I did bring her out for a little while, on her leash. Her anxiety kicked in. She kept crawling between my legs. After about a half hour, I took her back to the house.



My OH noticed something in the stump next to the shelter we are building. He told me there was a snake pile and I might want to get my camera. I really didn't want to get close to the snakes, but I had to get this picture. I am terrified of snakes. When I say terrified, I mean they are one of my worst fears, along with spiders and heights. We don't have any poisonous snakes around here. Our snakes are harmless. But that doesn't matter. Once I see one, I freak out. It is just the way they look and move. No matter how big or small they are, I scream and run the other direction when I come across one. But you all will be so proud of me, I calmly walked up to the stump, and took this picture! They started moving their heads. I had to back up. I imagined that they were going to come get me, just because I took their picture! I see three snake heads here, but it looked like there were more. Okay, enough about snakes.



My OH is up on the roof, pulling the plywood up. Looks safe, doesn't it? He is only standing on a 2 x 4.



We are preparing for our neighbor J. He was on his way over with his tractor to move our fill dirt to the shed.



Neighbor J to the rescue, again! I don't know what we'd do without this guy around! Our tractor hasn't been running for a couple years now, plus ours doesn't have the front bucket needed for scooping.



Busy raking out the fill dirt after each load is dumped. Eventually we will be installing kick boards inside the shed. That way, if we ever need to put a horse or two in this pasture, the horses can't kick through the wood. Safety is key!



Now we are filling up with fill dirt! You can tell how un-level the ground was before the fill dirt. Oh, and no, we aren't putting sky lights in! My OH didn't have a chance to finish installing the roof. Once he gets the wood finished, he'll put the tar paper up, than put on the nice metal roofing, in the same color we used on our bigger shelter, or barn, as I call it.



Can you believe, I even found time in my very hectic schedule, to drag my arena? Yep! This girl is on fire! Who needs a job when there are so many jobs to do at home? Doesn't it look nice? I picked the rocks after dragging. But of course we have the rock breeding program going on around here, so it will need to be done again. I was thinking about ordering some sand and having it delivered this weekend. I have been wanting to do that for years now. The arena footing is just dirt, soft on one side and compacted on the other, until today. While dragging the arena, since we have only had a few sprinkles in the last 3 or 4 months, the dust was just terrible! I ended up being covered in inches of dust! Definitely had to take a shower after that one!



One more thing, I sent in a volunteer application to a local no-kill animal shelter last week. I got a phone call this week to go to their new volunteer orientation. So I will now be an official volunteer! I can't wait, I am so excited. I have been wanting to do this for so long. But I guess when I had a job, I just kept putting it off. Now that I am not working, and I haven't found a job yet, what better way to spend some of my time? This is the same shelter that we adopted our million dollar cat from, and my parents also adopted their dog and one of their cats there!