The holidays are coming...

Alright, I know, it isn't even Thanksgiving yet! But we can't help but be in the holiday spirit around here, with all the decorating going on.

We are steadily making progress on the foal barn. There is so much to do! Today we strung many of the lights to make it look holiday-riffic. Victoria wants me to post progressive photos as we clean, so hear are yesterday's: (I know, scary, huh?)

I didn't get any photos today, so you will be blown away by tomorrow's pics. ; )

We have a ritual that is officially the start of the holiday season here at the Last Chance. If you have visited in the evening lately, you may have noticed that we have a pathetic spattering of lights on one corner of the gate. No longer is that the case! After an hour or so's death-defying work, the result is a sight to behold. The problem with decorating and undecorating the gate is that a ladder doesn't do the trick. So we use the tractor.

Yes, I mean we ride in the bucket of the tractor to put the lights up. I know - what the heck? What can I say, the folks at the Last Chance Corral have lost their minds.

Despite the fact that Victoria was absolutely shaking in terror, she wanted to go up first. (It's her only roller coaster ride of the year.) She pulled down the old lights and readied the new icicle set to go along the top. When she headed to do the corner, she had me go up with her. Our fearless tractor driver, Tracy, is already so nervous her legs are shaking as she holds the brake with all her might.

Bad idea, Victoria and Lauren! We almost broke the bucket riding up together. YIKES. After that, she let me do the rest by myself. Riding in a tractor bucket at full extension is scary. That's what I learned. And of course, there are no photos of me because everyone else refuses to bother with the camera! The best part was, we got the whole darn thing up, plug it in.... and the top is blinking. We don't do blinky. These brilliantly designed lights required that I remove four separate red-tipped bulbs and replace them with clear bulbs. More scary lifting in the tractor bucket and moving around. But the result was so worth our strife!

Some folks came by to have a look at King last night. They seemed fairly interested, but haven't heard back yet today. He is a really good boy. Tracy and I think that maybe he had a fever that broke this morning - he was kind of sweaty and clammy, but looked happy as could be. He seems more alert and interested in things today - I think he may have been fighting an infection, and 2 days in a stall just gave him enough rest to beat it! He looks great this evening!

The paddocks have been slop here with the bit of rain we got, so everyone has been in for two days. We let them out today since more rain is on the way, and oh my gosh, you should have seen them. Mack was hotter than a pepper. He was cracking me up! He ran around, harassing all the other horses, for most of the day. Too funny. Unfortunately, everyone will probably be stuck in stalls for a few days now. With such limited turn out and poor drainage, we just can't afford to let them tear up the paddocks. Victoria is out there after every rain, digging trenches to help the water flow out.... but it still takes forever for it all to drain. ; /

With Tracy's help, I got the tack room in the upper barn all cleaned out. It needed it DESPERATELY! I can't believe how much crap I took out of there... probably at least 40 saddle pads... 20 blankets... and this is a 10 x 10 room! Now she and I have room to walk around and feed. We are switching some of our feeds over thanks to the education I received at the seminar at OSU, so we wanted to get stuff cleaned out and organized before we order in the new feed on Monday. Whohoo! Tracy was then motivated enough to go clean the bottom barn tack area too - go Tracy! Now everything is beautiful and organized. I LOVE organization...

I am very behind on office work, but oh my, what can you do. ; ) I will catch up soon. Our goal is to have a new newsletter out before the first of the year, so if anyone would like to write articles about their adopted horses/foals (or anything else for that matter!), please let me know!

No one work too hard tomorrow - it's the weekend! (Speaking of rain..... it just started.... I can hear it quite well on my roof!)