Happy New Year ~ 2011 Goals

 

Last year I created a very similar post to the one I’m doing today. Check it out:

Happy New Year and New Beginnings

It’s ironic that I’m including similar photos (different horse, though), although unintentional. I was up at the barn for a couple hours today…..in 9F degree temps (with a wind chill of 5F degrees. Brrr!) and enjoyed watching Apache get some exercise and a nap in the sun.

But her nap only lasted for about 20 minutes before she was eager to go back into her cozy stall and out of the fierce wind.

It’s supposed to get down to –15 degrees tonight, with a wind chill of –25. I’m feeling great animosity towards furry, underground, chewing creatures right about now. Because of them, I can’t use my electric water buckets in the barn nor have any electricity. Today, not even a hammer would break through the ice in one of the buckets! (All that scraping and breaking of ice even left marks on this bucket.)

It’s too far to run extension cords up there and very pricey to pay an electrician to fix the wiring and then someone to dig a trench to bury it. It’ll have to wait until summer, but hopefully we’ll have a warmer winter after this arctic blast moves through.

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So these were my goals last year, and how I did at meeting those goals:

1. To spend even more time with my kids and husband having fun together and doing things we enjoy. (Check!)

2.To find our 300th Letterbox.  (Check!)

3.To learn how to hook up and tow our horse trailer on my own. (I Missed the Mark!)

4.To take my llamas out hiking and packing more often. And maybe even do a camping/backpacking trip with them, too. (Half a Check for Hiking/Packing, No Camping/Packing Trips)

5.To find more time for hand spinning my wool. (I kind of lost interest) 

6.To work on the relationship with my mare and to ride her, even if only around my own paddocks. (Check! Although this original goal was made when I still owned Baby Doll.)

7.To take riding lessons again. (Check!)

8.To ride in at least one trail ride. And hopefully the Spring ACTHA event. (Check! Check! And Then Some!)

9.To become more fit, strong and flexible. (Check! Still Need More Work, Though)

10.To challenge and hone my photography skills. (Check!)

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So what are the goals I’m making for myself this year?:

1.To learn how to hook up and tow our horse trailer on my own.

2.To work on my relationship with Apache and to ride her more often.

3.To take more riding lessons.

4.To be healthy, strong and fit.

5.To compete in more ACTHA Rides.

6.To spend even more time with my family enjoying fun activities together.

7.To find our 400th Letterbox.

8.To take my llamas out hiking/packing more often, especially in the trailer.

9.To read more books.

10.To continue challenging and honing my photography skills.

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Let’s see how I did at the end of 2011! I wonder if you all will still be reading my blog, or if I will still be blogging at all? I guess time will tell.

For now, I’m just trying to keep myself from turning into a popsicle. Brr!

Happy New Year Everyone! Best wishes for a 2011 filled with everything you’re wishing for!

                                                  XOXOXOX

Gophers and Mud

 

First the gophers. I think my high school days are coming back to haunt me. You see, my high school’s mascot was the Gophers. Yeh. Really. I know. Who in their right mind names their sports teams’ mascot after a small, shy, burrowing pest?

Apparently my high school. sigh.

We’d try to make the best of it by chanting things like, “Gophers Go For it!”.

I know……..Lame. haha! 

I’ve known we had gophers here since we moved into this house, but didn’t think much of ‘em, as long as they didn’t eat my peach and apple trees or destroy anything important.

Well. they. have. crossed. the. line! Damn gophers!

Guess who has no electricity to their barn now? And guess why.

Gophers! That’s why.

We had an electrician out the other day and he said because the ground is thawing out with our 40-50F temps, the gophers are active. He’s been getting calls about chewed electric lines for years out here in our mountains, due to gophers. And it’s really the homeowner’s fault for not encasing the electric lines in flexible, metal or PVC conduit properly, and then burying it safely and deeply.

Clueless people really are burying their ‘bare’ electric lines to their garages and barns in shallow trenches. I suppose they believe it’s cheaper not to buy protective conduit, but it ends up being very expensive in the long run when a stupid gopher comes along, bites through the electric line, and moisture gets to the exposed wires. The Electrician disconnected the electric wires for us. And now, to fix the problem that the previous owner caused, we’ve got to rewire the entire line from the house, all the way up to the barn, and encase it in the conduit (like it should have been done in the first place. grrr!), and then bury it in a deep trench.

What a pain! We had similar problems when our water pipes to the barn froze and burst two winters ago, in the middle of winter. That was fun hauling water up the steep, slippery hill the rest of winter. Not!

Wanna know why those water pipes burst? The same homeowner never took it into consideration that water pipes in these mountains must be buried BELOW the frost/freeze line, which is at least 18” deep. Yeh, our water pipes were only buried about 8” deep. We had to wait until Spring and it cost a couple hundred dollars to get that problem fixed with a backhoe. Bleh! People really annoy me!

And so do gophers. This photo was taken underneath my peach tree today. Mr, Gopher better leave my peach tree alone or he’s going to be taking his last breath when a water hose is plugged into his burrow!

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Mud. I know there are many of my readers who deal with mud all Winter long and even during the Spring, but here in New Mexico, it’s rare to have mud except after it rains…which is rare. We usually have rain during our monsoon season in July and August, but this past summer we only received 3 good rains and the mud dried up the same day.

But we are making up for that lack of moisture this winter and now that our snows are beginning to melt, it will all be replaced by mud. Greasy, slimy, sloppy, boot-sucking, slippery mud.

I took this photo today. This is the view up the hill from our house, to the barn.

It’s not easy walking uphill in this slick swamp. I’ve been letting Ranchman John take over the animal care during the worst of this. My gimpy knee easily gets torqued when I’m slipping and sliding and I’d rather not risk getting hurt if I can avoid it.

This is the view looking down the hill from the barn towards the house.

But I did take a video this evening when Jenna and I went up to the barn to feed the animals because John was busy on the phone. I don’t think I’ll be going up there until things dry out some.

                                Nasty!

I can almost trick myself into imagining the slop as being chocolate pudding with cherries on top.

Almost. But not quite.

(Edited and removed part of this post because it was too lengthy.)