When I was a kid, I spent a lot of my free time doodling about the Big Horse Barn I’d build when I got to be a grown-up: a couple of stalls for my riding horses, a couple of stalls for my team (I really really did not want to rely on horseless carriages; guess I was Amish at heart!), the tack room, the feed room, the wash rack etc…
These last heavy rains flooded out my big pole barn so it’s been a mess - just mud, thankfully no structural damage! Our gravel driveway is heavily rutted up - my farmhand seems to be falling behind on basic maintenance like blading the driveway (ahem). I fear for the suspension of my little car every time I creep up and down it. When I came home Sunday afternoon while it was raining, my driveway looked like a small creek flowing merrily downhill - the ground is so saturated there’s nowhere for the water to go.
I’m trying to figure out a safe way to fence off a section of my pond for Aphrodite - now Zach has me scared to death about the dangers of predation (for her; she’s still too small and weak to be a threat to much of anything!) Alligators have been able to recover from the brink of extinction by sheer reproductive numbers, but baby gators are tasty snacks for a lot of wildlife. After all, I never restocked our chicken coop after the heartbreak of watching my flock be picked off one by one, mostly by raccoons but I know we’ve got a few bobcats around here. So I’ve bought pond netting, but I worry about Aphrodite possibly getting entangled in it and drowning - that would also be heartbreaking. So for now she’s got to stay in her oversized goldfish bowl of a water trough until she gets a little bigger and stronger.
Susie and I detoured by the town square of Lancaster after our ride Monday morning since there was adequate shade for the ponies and had a nice mini-luncheon. Susie expressed how “this is how life should be”: a four-day work week with a three-day weekend is just about ideal. Of course I already have my four day week with my Thursdays off, but while Thursdays used to be a riding day for me, they now seem to be eaten up with errands. Le sigh - welcome to adulthood, I guess!
But the best news of all is that Zach accepted the job offer from Quest Diagnostics - I am not supposed to publicize this until he actually signs the contract, but hopefully that will be accomplished today or tomorrow. He had actually gone on another interview with Dallas County (ironically enough, his father worked for the utility district decades ago) but he realized that his (ahem) lack of ethnicity would not work in his favor despite his academic qualifications.
I’m still waiting for Victoria, who is supposed to be ordering his graduation announcements. I’ll give it one more week and then I’m ordering something myself even if I don’t have formal photos
Lazing around with a plump python last weekend
Our creek at overflow stage