Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Tagged!

I've been tagged by PastorMom, so here goes!


1. Who eats more? That one is easy, me.
2. Who said “I love you” first? I think Christie did, I remember long conversations about the "L" word.
3. Who is the morning person? Me, by necessity.
4. Who sings better? Probably me, Christie has a great voice but feels she needs someone to follow.
5. Who’s older? I am, by a year and a half.
6. Who’s smarter? Christie is. We are both pretty bright, but her brain works faster than mine.
7. Whose temper is worse? Oooh, that is a tough one. I lose mine more easily, but Christie is more ferocious.
8. Who does the laundry? Christie does, but I'm better at folding.
9. Who does the dishes? Neither one of us. :(
10. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? We are both on the right side for us. We tried the other way around and it felt wrong, so this way must be right.
11. Whose feet are bigger? Mine.
12. Whose hair is longer? Christie's.
13. Who’s better with the computer? I am, but then, I'm a software engineer. Christie is the resident webmaster of Wild Mountain Farms.

14. Do you have pets? We have 3 dogs and 4 house cats. Those are the traditional pets. We also have 28 horses, three goats, 4 geese, 2 ducks, and about 10 chickens, some of whom have names.
15. Who pays the bills? It used to be me, but Christie does it now.
16. Who cooks dinner? I probably cook a majority of the meals. There are some things we collaborate on, but I enjoy it more, so I do it more.
17. Who drives when you are together? I do, so Christie can save her energy for more important things.
18. Who pays when you go out to dinner? Usually me, because I have always have my wallet, but Christie doesn't like to carry a purse.
19. Who’s the most stubborn? My nickname growing up was The Negotiator, so that would be Christie.
20. Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? Most often me, but Christie is getting better at it.
21. Whose family do you see more? Christie's, her sister lives in town, less than an hour away.
22. Who named your pets? Joint venture.
23. Who kissed who first? She kissed me.
24. Who asked who out? She asked me out.
25. What did you do on your first date? We went to The Olive Garden for dinner in Kalamazoo.

26. Who’s more sensitive? I get my feelings hurt easier, if that is what you mean.
27. Who’s taller? I am, by 4-5 inches, which means her head fits right on my shoulder.
28. Who has more friends? Neither of us has a particularly wide circle, but I would say she does.
29. Who has more siblings? Christie has two, I have one.
30. Who wears the pants in the relationship? This is a partnership, we are in it together, so we make the big decisions together.

Cutting down trees for firewood

We finally got all our hay in for the winter, and it is stacked high and tarped down. We should be able to manage feeding through the winter as the piles are conveniently located. That leaves fencing and firewood as our two top jobs. We are building jack-leg fence, so now both of our top priorities require the ability to handle a chainsaw well.

I learned how to handle a chainsaw from my friends and neighbors. They taught me the right and wrong way to drop a tree, and how to do so safely. For those of you who don't have the benefit of Curry, Bob, Jarred, and Pete, and Aud, here's a great set of instructional videos I found online.

http://www.expertvillage.com/interviews/felling-trees.htm

Enjoy.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

New, old friends

From earlier posts, you might remember Michal, the girl from Chicago who stayed with us for the summer and helped out around the ranch. Well, her parents, Naomi and Larry are visiting us for the week. This is their first vacation without the kids for a long, long time and they are very excited. We met Naomi when she brought Michal out, but Larry couldn't come that time. It will be good to get to know them, even though we feel like we know them already through their daughter.

They are here to do some horseback riding, hiking, biking, and sightseeing. It seems Larry also has a fondness for power tools and he took the afternoon yesterday to cut and notch a whole bunch more posts for building jack-leg fences. I was dreading that job, and it seems Larry has given me a reprieve.

Christie, Naomi, and Larry are getting ready to go on a ride. Since it is 30 degrees out, I think I'll stay in my nice warm office.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Now this is progress

For those of you worried that we won't get our fencing project finished, fear not. This week, we have erected a total of 10' of jack-leg fence. Actually, we didn't do any fencing, Christie did it all. It was our intention to go out there every evening after work and put up a couple more jacks. Well, you know what the best laid plans oft do...

Tuesday Christie went to town to babysit our nieces while I tore down some old fencing that was in our way. Progress was made, for sure, but no actual fence was built.

Wednesday we discovered that Spirit, Nefertari's baby from this Spring, was limping and had a cut on his left, rear leg above the hock. After bringing him to the barn and getting his leg cleaned up, we realized it was a pretty bad cut near the tendon. So, we loaded him into the trailer and took him to Dr. Brown ... after hours, of course. Dr. Brown got him cleaned up, but it was a pretty serious cut, so Spirit will need to have the wound cleaned and redressed every day for a few weeks. No fence was built.

Thursday, while I worked, Christie went out and worked on the fence. She got one jack-leg set with all the rails perfectly spaced, so now we have a template to work from. Then she was off to town for a lesson with the gaited horse trainer. After the lesson she realized that one of the trailer tires was all shredded and definitely flat. The guys at the stables helped her change the tire, but they noticed that the trailer had a bent axle and that the mounting brackets for the axle were twisted and broken, hence the ruined tire. She got a recommendation for a trailer repair guy and dropped it off. He is going to get back to us with an estimate of the damage. Ten feet of fence built.

Friday, today. Our hay people were able to load up the flatbed trailer during the week, so we need to get back to bringing in hay only 23 ton to go! We're working on a loan from the bank to pay for the hay, but the banker seems to be dragging his heels a bit. If we can finalize the loan today, we will be getting more hay, otherwise, maybe ... perhaps ... there's a chance ... of getting some more fences built.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Two-fer Tuesday

I don't usually post twice in one day, I wouldn't want my dear readers to get the wrong idea about my level of commitment.

However, here is a quick bonus post. Below is a short video of Cami's baby running across the pasture. I captured this from my office window. He doesn't have a name yet, if any of you have suggestions.


Better than any gym

This weekend (a long one thanks to Christopher Columbus) we brought in 22.6 ton of hay. We had plenty of help, but it was still a lot of work. Our hay suppliers have an amazing attachment for their tractor which can pick up 12 bales at a time and stack them on a trailer. They were able to do almost all the loading with that machine in very little time (about 11 tons in 1 hour). The hay suppliers loaned us a flatbed gooseneck trailer which I pulled with our 3/4 ton diesel truck. Our helpers also had two trucks, a one-ton pickup and a two-ton flatbed with an additional trailer. With all that capacity, each trip up the mountain brought us 11.3 tons!

I drove two 4.5 ton loads up to the ranch, and helped unload one of them into the Big Barn. The Small Barn by the house is full, we have a nice sized stack in the yard near the friendship circle (aka fire ring), the Goat Barn is full, and the Big Barn is nearly full. Next weekend, our helper is going to bring more loads up, and we will start filling the Hay Barn across from the New Moon pasture.

We had a little excitement when I got the flatbed trailer stuck in the muck down by the Big Barn. We huffed and we puffed but could not budge that trailer. It only weighed about 13,000 lbs, so I'm not clear on why it sank so fast. Our helper was able to unload it into his pickup and shuttle the hay to the Big Barn. After the trailer was unloaded, we got it out of the mud easily.

Over the weekend Christie and I also gathered up jack-legs for the lower Little Barn pasture and laid them out all in a line. These were the heavy duty ones Jarred put together for the stallion pasture, so it took both of us to lift each one. We will begin erecting that fence as time permits this week. Also this week we will have to hit some of the stores in town to see if anyone is giving away palettes, we had to scour the ranch this last weekend in order to have enough for all the hay that came in.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

One fence down ... er up!

Christie has been working on finishing up one of the lines of fencing for Ryder's pasture (Lower Little Barn for those keeping score). Last night we worked together to put the finishing touches on it. We now have one complete line of heavy duty jack-legged fence. Some of the jacks were so heavy it took two people to lift them. If this fence doesn't hold the stallion, I don't know what will.

So, that is one down, and many, many more to go. Even though the job is huge, there was a certain satisfaction in getting at least one fence line completely replaced. Wish us luck, the next challenge will be a flatbed trailer filled with 122 bales of hay (again for those keeping score, that is roughly 4.5 ton). To get all of our hay, we will have to make 10+ trips with that trailer.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Tag team ranching

Well, I had the ranch to myself for a couple of weeks, and it was a little rough.  Not only did I have to handle my "day job," I also had to feed the animals, irrigate the pastures, and bring in hay.
 
Christie came home last Saturday afternoon and tagged me out so I could go to Chicago for a week.  In the last two months, I think we've only had about two weeks in which we were both at the ranch at the same time, and there was one week, during the fire, that the place was completely deserted.  As such, a lot of our ambitious projects, like the jack-legged fences, are less than complete.
 
It is my hope that when I return home from Chicago I can jump right into the ring and we can double-team some of the big chores, like hay and fences.  I want to put hay in a full nelson and get those fences in a figure-4 leg lock.  They will be at our mercy, begging to give up.  Will we let them?  NO!  We will follow up with a backbreaker and a series of combos, like a Facebuster/Leg Drop or even the awe inspiring Airplane Spin-Double Suplex.  Our opponents will be gasping for air and pleading for the sweet release of defeat, but we WILL NOT allow them to surrender.  We will CRUSH THEM, they will have to be removed from the ring with a MOP.  OHHHHH YEAAAAHHHH!!!
 
Whew, sorry about that, I got a little caught up in the moment.  Let's just say we have our work cut out for us, but as a team, Christie and I can do anything.