Concrete Mine

We had drainage problems in the front yard.  Basically, the yard slopped from the street to the house, and was covered with two layers of black plastic and rocks.  This had the effect of turning our basement into the primary drain for our front yard.  Not good with carpet all through the basement.  So we had the rocks and plastic scraped off.  Something like 80 tons worth.  Now I was down to dirt so I started scraping that off to level out the yard.  I came across a rock.

I got out a pick and tried to pop it out.  Nearly broke the handle of the pick and the rock didn't budge.  Got out the tractor, dropped one scarifier down and hooked the corner of the rock.  It stopped the trator dead in its tracks.  Oh-oh.  Time to get out the big guns.

Building a New Driveway

One of the projects hanging over my head has been to build a new driveway to the back. We have a very steep hill from the street down to the back. Look at the fence rail in front of the bush. That gives you some idea about how steep the hill is.



So how does one go about building a driveway? I have no idea.

But, I have a tractor!! I have dirt. I have a large pile of broken up concrete.

Been a while

Things have been busy. We have been trying to do some work around project house and then it started raining. Every day for about the last two weeks it has rained. Not little showers like we normally get. No, it pours. I am really afraid of what is going to happen to my barn when things start to dry out. Too much water has run towards it which means water has gotten under it. I have some concrete floors and our Colorado soil has bentonite which expands. It expands enough to break things.

I did complete one project before the rain started, a retaining wall. Here is the before:
During
And after:
That was a project well done.

I mentioned a while back that I was putting the horses on free hay. That did not turn out as well as I had hoped. Mostly because hay is now at $8.00 per bale and the horses would go through 2 plus bales per day. Ebony and Beamer still look ribby and Mariah developed a terrible hay belly and she looks bad.

Okay, not totally bad, she looks kinda cute with the hay highlights in her mane. Note that the picture conveniently does not show her hay belly.

I think I insulted her the other night. We are working with Ebony on longeing. She is a pistol. One of the hardest things to learn is how to hold and control the longe line. When the horse you are trying to train is a brat it makes it all the harder. So I put Mariah on a longe line and let Kira longe her. Mariah is great. I had fun longeing her for a while and moving her back and front feet around. When I took off her halter she let me scratch her and then she took off at a dead gallop. Tore across the yard. She bucked, she leaped she stopped and snorted. It was pretty funny. I love my horse.

Memorial Day Weekend

Remember the picture from this post? Rain Rain Go Away I got to spend some time in the seat of my tractor and pull the box blade around the pasture. The rain held off and now my pasture is at least flat. I am not so worried about the horses getting hurt now. I also used the tractor to correct some drainage issues. All the rain caused a lot of erosion that collected along the grasses just outside my back fence. The pasture turned into a pond with heavy rains so I carefully cut the sediment out from under the fence and created a small drainage channel to allow the water to escape. I love my tractor.

The inspector came on Friday to inspect the panels I installed. Everything that I did passed just fine. What I didn't know was that the utility is requiring that the meter socket be changed so I got a correction notice for that. I am a little irritated by that because the county building inspector is enforcing something that is not covered by any code. In essence, they are enforcing a policy for a private commercial company. I am considering complaining about it but the inspector was actually doing me a favor. He could have passed my installation but when the utility came out to reseal the meter they would have made me change the socket and then I would have had to pull another building permit. So the inspector was actually saving me time and money.

My Mom and Dad came over for a little Bar B Q on Monday. I asked them to come a bit early so Dad could help run some wire and copper tubing up to the new evaporative cooler. I had purchased a new drill bit that is 162" long (three pieces each 54" long that couple together) so that I could drill a hole from the basement into the attic. It worked perfectly. So I hooked the copper tube to the end of the bit (it is designed for this!) and I crawled up into the attic. I had to crawl through some trusses and wiggle may way back to where the bit had come up. It was incredibly cramped but I did get a hold of the bit and I started to pull. Then Murphy came to visit. When I finally pull the last of the bit up through the wall there was no tubing connected to the end. Nuts. There was no real practical way to get the tube into the wall at that point so it was time to regroup.

Dad had a great idea. We could run the tube and wire down the wall next to the furnace flue. It was perfect because we had a reference point. I drilled a couple of holes in the top plate. One hole went in perfectly, the second hole was a nightmare. I have no idea what was up there but wood bits would not drill through. Fortunatly I had a long 1/2" twist bit and I finally got through. I assembled two section of my long bit and fed it through one of the holes. I started to drill and something did not feel quite right. I pulled the bit back up and Murphy had struck again - the bit had come apart and half the bit (the expensive part) was now stuck in the wall. NUTS! To make a long story short, we were able to find the bottom of the wall we were drilling through, cut a large hole in the bottom, retrieve the lost drill bit and pull the wire and tubing into the wall. We then enjoyed some very tasty grilled Italian sausage prepared by Kumi.

Saturday was a Westernaires day and it was weird. EHV-1 is in our state so Westernaires was in lock-down - no horses in, no horses out. Kumi had to rent a Westernaires horse for her class. But it was really weird to be at Westernaires and not see a single horse trailer. Kira and I did manage to get in a couple of days of riding. We stayed close to home because of the EHV-1 virus. We are staying away from the equestrian center since that is a place open to anybody with a horse. Better safe than sorry. I enjoyed every minute of our ride together. I am working with Mariah on speed control, collection and brakes. We are making good progress. Kira and I rode in a pair in a figure 8 and tried to keep our horses side by side. Its tougher than it sounds.

Kumi and Kira gave Ebony and Mariah baths. There is nothing quite so wonderful as a clean horse. They are soft and their manes and tails are fluffy. And they don't smell like sweaty horse.

This last picture is one reason why I love our new house. Here are Kumi and Kira after spreading the hay around. They were just goofing off and having a great time and afterwords, they were walking back to the barn arm in arm. One of those moments that parents treasure.

(Note: this picture was taken before the pasture was graded.)

Good Neighbors

One of the "features" of our new house is a septic system. Every couple of years you need to pump out the tank to give the leach field a rest and get the solids out of the tank. Today was my day. Its the first time we have had to do this so it was a bit of a learning experience.

First step, figure out if you have a single tank or a divided tank. How do you figure that out? You are either smart enough to ask the previous owner (I wasn't) or you dig up both ends of the tank. Did I mention I have a tractor? At least digging up both ends was easy. For future reference, I only have a single tank. Good lesson.

Next step, find somebody who pumps out septic tanks. My neighbor, Bob, has lived in the neighborhood since he built his house there in the late 60's. Ask the neighbor. We talked a bit a figured out that he needed his tank pumped as well so we set up the truck to do us both at the same time. That worked well.

Step three, figure out how to get the truck into my backyard. You see, the hill into my back yard is to steep for most large truck to use. They can get in, but they can't get out. Thank heaven for good neighbors. Bob said the truck can use his driveway to get into my back yard. How, you may ask? Simple, there is a nice double wide gate between our yards. He lets us use it all the time to take the horses out into the greenbelt. (This will become a problem shortly, as you will see.) The truck arrives so I need to go open the gate. It has a chain around it as the horses figured out how to open the gate and get into Bob's yard for afternoon snacks.

As soon as the three horses heard the chain rattle they came a running, well, at least a trotting. They saw the gate open and the large rumbley scary thing behind the gate was not a problem. They split up, one from the north, one down the center and one from the south. I was running back and forth trying to shoo them off just long enough for the truck to get through. It took a couple of minutes but I did it!

20 minutes later it was time for the truck to leave. This time I decide to do it the easy way. A flake of hay spread out just enough that the three of them could each nibble on a pile and we had no problems opening the gate to get the truck out.

The only thing that really surprised me was the Beamer did not have his head in the middle of things. He usually does. When I am using the tractor I usually have his head in my face. Doesn't scare him at all. But he didn't like the truck. Maybe it was the smell he didn't like.

Oh, and there is a step four. I need to fill a 5 gallon bucket up half way with horse manure (preferably hot and steamy) and dump into the tank to get the right bugs back to work. At least I have a reliable source for horse manure. Unfortunately, it also seems to be an endless supply.

Busy Times

We have entered that time of year when time speeds up and there is never enough of it. It is the last four of five weeks of school and our schedules fill up until bursting and something has to give. Usually, we just run out of time for riding the horses. And that leads to a whole other set of demands on our time just deferred to a later date. Kira is preparing for a school trip to Washington D.C. (I have to have her at the air port by 4:15AM on Mothers Day). Her sixth grade class just performed their class musical, which was a blast. She is in honors choir so she has a few more performances and we have a bit extra work to do in math. Nothing major but it all adds up.

So, Kira has joined Lacrosse. They practice twice a week and have games on Saturdays. I got to go to here first game which they won 7 to 4. I did not get to go to her second game which they lost 13 to 8. Saturdays are Westernaires days so I have to take the horse(s) to the fair grounds. That makes it hard to get to her games. Fortunately, most of her games are very close to the fair grounds so I should be able slip over to watch. As soon as she gets her uniform I will post a picture of our Lacrosse star.

Kumi tried out for a spot on the White Grand Entry team for Westernaires and she won it. That means that at the beginning of every show Kumi and 17 other kids will present the colors and do a short routine. To get on the team the kids have to show a high level of horsemanship and control of their horses. They are expected to show a much higher level of coordination in there drill and they have to do their drill at a fast lope. She loves loping on her horse so she is having a grand time.

Kira did a lesson on Ebony last night and it was a good lesson. Ebony tested her and Kira was frustrated. But Carly talked her through it and in the end, Kira won. Ebony would not go into a lope no matter how hard Kira kicked her. So we got out a dressage crop. Horses are funny critters. Ebony ignored the kicks but when Kira popped once with the crop Ebony said, "Oh! You mean it!" and stepped up into a very nice lope. Kira's look of frustration turned into a smile pretty rapidly after that. Kira loves to lope as well and Ebony has a nice smooth lope.

I went for a ride on my horse last Sunday. It was crazy windy, the kind of wind that makes horses crazy. As I climbed up into the saddle I thought to myself, what am I doing? Mariah is a bit jumpy under the best of conditions and I am going to take her out into the open space where horse eating plastic bags and evil waving signs wait to devour her. So, being male with that gift all males have for ignoring common sense, off we went. We had a great ride. She was much more collected and controlled in her trot than ever before. I credit Carly for that. Carly told me in our last lesson that I need to expect more from Mariah and keep the pressure on until she does what I want. So I did. We did circles and figure eights for a while and she got the idea.

So off we went down the trail. The first small spook as at a plastic sign advertising a housing development. It was waving in the wind and she tried to side step it. I didn't let her and she knew what was coming next. She is not allowed to get past a scary thing until she puts her nose on it. She put her nose on it almost immediately so we proceeded down the trail that runs next to the ditch. The coyotes must travel along that trail pretty regularly because she was real jumpy the whole time. She didn't spook but I had to keep a short rein on her to keep her focused and calm. The next small spook was a steel sign with the name of the open space on it. It didn't wave in the wind but it is as tall as she is so it was obviously about to eat her. Again, she touched it with her nose with very little coaxing on my part but we spent about 20 minutes at that sign just trying to get her to stand quietly next to it. I will go back to that sign again for the practice.

The big blow up came in the place I least expected it. We were trotting along at a nice slow trot and all of the sudden we were side-passing at a lope. I am happy to report that my seat is sure enough that while I was unbalanced for a moment, I did not come off. Cool. So what spooked her? A dark spot on the trail where a puddle had been. There was no water, just dark mud. It took me five minutes to get her step over that horsey eating black-hole of death.

(Note regarding horse psychology. Horses look at the world by determining the answer to two questions. Question 1, will it eat me. They always assume that it will eat them until proven otherwise. Assuming the answer to question 1 is no, they ask the second question: Question 2, Can I eat it? It is amazing what horses will eat. The horses of people I know at Westernaires have eaten the following: Oreo's, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, live fish, cheese burgers and one likes Pepsi.)

We spent about two hours on the trail and working on some circles and figure eights and all of it was fun. It was so much fun I didn't even notice my knees were getting tired until I got off the horse and me knees almost buckled when I hit the ground. I held onto Mariah for a few steps until my knees remembered how they are supposed to work and then all was good. A good day of riding.

Project house has another project that is one step closer to completion. The new electric panel is set and some of the wires a terminated. This is the new wire waiting to be connected to the meter.
The board at the bottom of the pictures is just holding the conduit in place while the insulating foam cures. Once cured, that board will go away.

The next step will be to connect the new panel to the meter and then move the circuits from the old panel to the new. That will be an all day project so I am thinking Memorial day. Nori has to work, there is no Westernaires and no Lacrosse games so I will have the whole day. And I will need it. Moving those circuits from the old to the new means each one has to marked, a new piece of wire added to it and then connected to the new breaker. Its not hard, but it is very time consuming. And the price of wire doesn't help at all. I bought 50' of 12/2 romex wire (the kind of wire used for nearly all household wiring) and it was $62.00. $62.00!! That is over $1.00 a foot and that is just crazy! Ah, well... Such is life.

Spring Break

Last week was spring break for us. I took the week of and we had a bit of a stay-cation. I loved it but I think a few of the other family members felt a little cheated out of a trip. Sometimes its nice, REAL nice, to not have to worry about packing and driving and flying and activities that vacations usually entail. Sometimes its just nice to stay home and do not much of anything.

Monday was spent riding and dealing with the drama of pre-teen girls. My oh my. We had five girls of varying experience trying to ride two horses. It actually worked out pretty well. Beamer and Ebony were very well behaved and generally did what the rider wanted them to do. Mariah was a freak a usual but I didn't mind. She has really taught me balance. As to the drama, a sixth girl was invited but felt that she was invited out of order and was mad at everybody else. For the whole week. *sigh* That's all I think I'll say about that.

Tuesday was spent putting a new window in the bathroom. Just as winter was starting Kira went to open the window one night. We heard this terrible crash and ran into the bathroom to find Kira in the corner surrounded by broken glass. The windows are so old that when she went to open it the top of the pane fell out of its track and towards Kira. She tried to stop it but missed so she got out of the way. In accordance with long standing household rules regarding the breaking of glass, she did not get in trouble. It wasn't her fault and we were glad she was not hurt. Interestingly, it only broke the inside pane so we stuck the window back up and dealt with a cool bathroom for the winter. The new window is a vinyl frame and really brightens up the room. Plus, I was able to use the project to justify the purchase of a new tool (toy)!

I spent some time in my shop trying to unpack it and get it organized. It has been in boxes for nearly two years now so I am kind of excited to see it actually start to take shape. Mostly it was puttering with purpose.

We made three trips to the video store so we spent a lot of time being lazy and watching movies. We rented some good movies like "Inception" and a positively terrible movie "2010: Moby Dick". It was so bad it was fun.

I love watching bad monster movies. When Nori and I were first married we were living in a 350 square foot apartment that had a small video shop across the street. It featured a huge selection of fantasy titles of the ilk "Warrior Women from Mars". We were living on one income of $7.00 per hour and the movies were only $0.99 each which was about all we could afford. We played them a behemoth of a VCR that was a hand me down from Nori's cousin. We had the best time watching those movies. Good memories.

Anyway, Saturday was spent at Westernaries. 9am to 5pm. Kumi was selected for the White Grand Entry team which is limited to about 16 kids selected from about 30 or so that tried out. She was excited when she got the e-mail that she made it and I don't mind the extra time. There is so little of it left. She graduates in three years and then off to college. It was a beautiful day with a high of about 80°. I even got a but sunburned. (No mom. you may not scold me again!)

Sunday was a bit different. It snowed. Great big fluffy flakes. It was actually quite pretty and relaxing. As soon as the ground got wet enough to make some decent mud, down went all three of the horses for an extra long roll. So much for relaxing. Now we have mud to clean out of tails and manes and cheeks. Now, Kira was feeling a bit disappointed that we didn't go some place so she said all would be forgiven if I would take her to the pottery place. Pretty good hustle. So we went and painted pottery Sunday afternoon. We spent a couple of hours and just enjoyed painting and talking about nothing in particular. The results will be available on April 10th. If they look half way decent I will post a picture of what we made.

Since it snowed on Sunday it reminded me of a poem Kira wrote in 3rd or 4th grade. Its a bit out of season but here it is.

A New Tractor

The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. How true. Project House has a large number of outside projects to accompany the inside projects. This is actually good since it means I have fair weather projects and foul weather projects.

Outside projects usually mean dirt needs to be moved. A lot of dirt. And in the case of Project House, a whole bunch of rocks. The whole front and back yards are covered with rocks. The front yard is graded such that water from rain and snow flows towards the house. Not long after we put carpet in the basement a large rainstorm blew through. The water flowed right up to the house, filled up a window well, poured in around the window, down the wall and soaked the brand new carpet. Since it was outside ground water it was not covered by insurance. We called Serve Pro and they came out and vacuumed up the water, lifted the carpet and set a fan to blow air under the carpet to dry things out. Interesting fact, Serve Pro does not set their own rates, the insurance companies (the same ones that will not cover flooding for outside water coming into your house) dictates the rates Serve Pro can charge. Everything cleaned up very nicely and its like it never happened. But it did drive home the point that we needed to do something about the grading in the front yard. This picture gives you some idea of what we have.

Its all covered with rocks and there is black poly under the rocks so the water has no place to go but towards the house. We called a couple of landscape companies and learned that the cost of moving dirt was high. Very high. We have a hill that needs to be regraded, the whole front yard needs to be scraped so that we can put in a garden, there is a failed retaining wall to be rebuilt, I had a horse drinker and some electric and gas lines that needed to be buried. I am too damn cheap to pay others for things like that. I came up with a different solution - get my own tractor.

Now, I would like to say that the tractor was purely a purchase to help us save on our landscaping coasts. Truth be told, I had driven my brother-in-law's tractor and I wanted one. Bad. So after looking around a bit I settled on the Kubota BX25. It came with a front end loader, a removable back hoe (how cool is that! Useful too.) and I added a box blade for grading projects. Here is my tractor.


Here is the tractor "at work".

I have since used the tractor to bury the water line to the horse drinker, and electric line to the barn, scraped all of the rocks out of the back yard, turn the manure pile and shovel snow. As it turns out, a compact tractor is very handy machine t have around even if you only have an acre!
Now, I would like to be able to blame the purchase of this tractor on my promise to help my daughter own a horse but lets face it. This is Dad's toy. It has a 23 horsepower, 3-cylinder diesel engine (real tractors have diesel engines). It moves heavy loads, it digs holes, it fills those holes back in. It moves snow and I even used it move a 500lb table saw from the garage to the shop. And the daughters enjoy taking it out for a spin as well. Yep. If you have horses in the back yard, get a tractor! You will not regret it!