Word-Y Wednesday

In a departure from my occasionally Wordless Wednesdays (okay they're never wordless, I usually caption the photos haha), here is a massive mish-mash of updates. New Blogger is really cramping my style, because I used to do about 90% of my draft blogging on mobile, and then give it a quick onceover on a computer before I scheduled it. Now it's way too much of a pain to draft in mobile, so any kind of actual blogging needs to be done on the computer, and after I spend all day working on the computer, I'm not super inclined to sit at it even longer/start my day even earlier to blog. Grrr. First world problems -- am I right?

Dogs still love the new house. Based on the intent stares I must have also been holding food when I snapped this shot lol. 

Cruce is getting spoiled with his weekend porch time with DH. 

The noodles still love me WFH so they can come in and watch me. 

When they're not snoring on the couch.

The baby goats are not really so much babies anymore, and they have perfected the judgmental glare the adults already had down pat lol. They like to watch me ride.  

Anyway. Regardless of there not being much posted here, I am riding a ton and feel really good about where the horses and I are -- getting fitter and more consistent, and both girls have settled back into a routine. I am back to riding at about 6:30 am every day that it's not raining, and I alternate horses. On nice days or the weekend, sometimes I get both ridden in the same day :) I have an interesting offer from a local trainer to take some lessons on an older schoolmaster that I am hoping to explore, and I need to see about getting back on my old instructor's regular schedule now that the horses and I could probably make it through a full lesson without dying (or at least we're getting there!). 

One of my favorite parts about WFH is catching the horses napping alllllll the time when I go out to check waters or throw hay. 

We keep getting in a vicious cycle where his allergies flare up so he rubs his eyes and then his eyes puff up ridiculously large and he rubs them even more. So now he wears the bug eyes of shame in his stall and we seem to head off any issues. 

Jack is about the only one I don't catch sleeping during the day... but he makes up for that by sacking out in the pasture for hours, lol. Dunno why he prefers to sleep outside, but he seems perfectly happy so whatever. He's off next week for his appointment to have more teeth pulled. 

I temporarily stopped using the Pivo when I ride in the mornings -- my arena set up wasn't really conducive to getting useful video earlier this summer because of the angle of the sun/the time it rose/the shadows thrown by our outbuildings. But I'm looking forward to trying again soon as the days get shorter/as I switch to riding in the evenings. I'm still happy I have it available, particularly as they keep updating the AI!

I really thought I had it set particular ride, but I still only got a few minutes of usable footage. This was during an evening ride, so I was having the same shadow issues as I do in the morning, just the opposite direction.

I do love watching the sun rise every morning from the back of one of my horses :)

It's not just arena rides -- we did venture out for a weekend trail ride last weekend (although that was a shit show because the truck had a huge issue caused SOLELY BY AN INATTENTIVE MECHANIC) so that was a nice change of pace. I am hacking Ruby out a lot before and after my rides, even though our old trail through the woods is fenced into the goat pasture at the moment. I'm loathe to go down the gravel and chew up the horses' feet, and I'm also not quite ready to invest in hoof boots, although I did discuss them with my farrier and I do have a good source to help me measure/order if I make it to that point. So I just mostly ride around the yard (I'm sure DH loves that lol) and then over up into the mowed area in front of our abandoned church. 

My happy place.

She's still rocking out hacking out in this sidepull - I think she's ready for DH to step up and start taking her out, but he is dragging his feet. We easily W/T/C out on this ride as well as crossed water, and she was foot perfect. 

Knowing that when we got back to the truck we'd be waiting for a minute to get it fixed, we tried to get them to drink from the stream we crossed. They were not interested... lol. 

I do love this crossing though. 

Heading back to the truck to untack -- oh yes, it broke down fully on the side of the road, couldn't even make it into the parking lot 300 feet down the road hahaha. 

Grazing in the shade while DH and his dad fix the truck. 

This is what happens when your mechanic doesn't tighten down the carrier bearing bolts after balancing your driveshaft -- one falls off entirely, and the other only held the driveshaft on by a quarter turn of the threads. I said a lot of bad words. Luckily, it was a SUPER easy fix with the right tools/parts, and nothing else was damaged. Minus my faith in humanity. Oh and my desire to haul my horses behind this truck!

And lo and behold, after a FOUR MONTH WAIT (and also being straight up lied to by the CSR about when the package was shipped out, grrr), my custom Hufglocken pads finallllllllly made it here. I do love them, but the customer service experience left such a bad taste in my mouth that it's probably not going to be an experience I repeat again any time soon, much less in the near future, lol. Not that that should matter, lord knows I own plenty of saddle pads ;)

The truck issues that have plagued us this summer now have me seriously truck shopping -- while our big diesel is mechanically sound again after a stomach-churning amount of money spent and 6 weeks in pieces at the shop this summer, the last breakdown (even though it was human error, not an actual engine problem) eroded the last of the faith I have in hauling with it. Although the situation could not have resolved any better (we broke down nearby to DH's dad and he was able to run out the tools/supplies to get us back on the road with minimal waiting and the horses were able to graze in the shade), I cannot have that happen hauling alone (which I do a lot). We will keep the diesel as a general purpose work truck, particularly for hauling hay, because it's a beast and has many useful years ahead of it, but I am actively looking for something newer to haul with. So hopefully I'll have updates on that front in the near future! I have a few interesting possibilities bookmarked to check out this weekend if they don't sell by then -- what I'm looking for in a truck and my budget means that a lot of times what comes available that fits all my criteria sells IMMEDIATELY, so it's going to take some patience and being ready to pounce with cash in hand on the right one :)

I really thought I was done with the construction posts at this point, but apparently I am not. It's hard to believe we've been settled in the new house for almost a year now, but we're still making some little tweaks and things to make things more comfortable and great for us. One thing we noticed earlier this summer is that the amount of time we spend hanging out on the porches was negatively impacted by the amount of bugs. We mostly solved that on the front porch by adding a high-powered fan in the corner, and we are in the process of screening in the back porch. I wanted to hire someone, but DH thought he could do it himself for a fraction of the costs -- jury's still out on that, but it's coming along!

First railing up and stained. 

Second railing installed and stained. 

I'm not sure if we're going to start on the screen next, or finish the last side (which involves framing in the screen door). 

I think that's more or less all the important things going on these days! Oh, minus absurd amounts of canning!

I posted this photo on IG on a rainy day where we did a lot of canning. 

When Amanda posted that comment I laughed so hard I cried, and I still laugh out loud every time I read it. Both at the idea of staging the cabinet for dramatic effect, or having a canned tomato cabinet. The real answer is somewhere in between -- the new kitchen has about 3x the cabinet space, so when we moved in that cabinet was empty, and I put all the empty Mason jars we had accumulated in it (instead of boxed up in a closet). As we used them for salsa and spaghetti sauce, I just replaced the empty jars in there with full. I guess it does look a little dramatic, lol. 

At any rate. Now you're up to speed on what's going on with my life! Which, presumably you care about, since you clicked on the link ;)