They say the Universe keeps sending you lessons until you learn them. I guess I haven’t *quite* mastered the patience thing yet.
But we ARE making progress! (Finally!)
The electricians came yesterday to run power and install the outlets at the top of each stall for the fans, which is awesome because it has gotten really hot here really fast this year. Unfortunately the fans they brought were not the correct ones, and it turns out that adding the extra outlet above the wash stall for the solarium requires more power than they initially anticipated… and that means we have to trench over to the shop to run power from there, install a new panel, and THEN they can install everything. Sigh.
The arena construction is going well, though. We woke up pretty early this morning when there were suddenly a bunch of headlights running around in the pasture behind the house. I don’t normally expect contractors at 5am 😉 But they were worried about ensuring the sand delivery drivers didn’t ruin the base while they were delivering their loads this morning. Sure enough, the big trucks started showing up about a half hour later. We’ll get about 12 loads of sand today, and that will be mixed with the fiber footing to create the riding surface.
We’ve also decided to create a “bridge” into the arena; the water management system deflects water around the edges of the ring, but that means the entrance to the arena could get soggy in wet weather. So the guys are putting in a pipe to carry the water under that entry area, and creating a path above it so we won’t have to deal with a muddy area after it rains.
That’s about all I have for updates on the farm at the moment. We did take a few days off last weekend to go show at the beautiful international horse park in Tryon. What a gorgeous show grounds – it’s absolutely my favorite place to compete. The barns are beautiful and the entire facility is first class. Great footing, plenty of room to hack, school and show, and the amenities are incredible. It did not hurt that we were stabled in pretty much the best barn – right across from the big jumper ring, and across the horse path from the Silo Bar! The non-competing members of the team (also known as our families, grin) particularly enjoyed that aspect of the trip. I was super pleased with JJ, who has just moved up to First level. He got scores of 68.8., 67.4 and 67.2 with some great comments from the three different judges. Time to start thinking about learning test 3 so we can take a shot at qualifying for Regionals this summer. (He is already qualified at Training, so we are going for sure!)
Hedgerow Farm 