Things To Do This Weekend

We rented an excavator to do 4 jobs around the farm this weekend.

1. Make a road along the fenceline to the back corner

2. Dig up the frost free hydrant to replace

3. Level the spot beside the shop where the RV is sitting

4. Bust up the hot tub & bury it in a hole & cover it with the fire 

Or, that's all things Lan will be doing. I mowed a large section of the front pasture to have a tack sale in there this weekend. I will move all the cars to the back so there's room for the guests to park.

I've got saddles and all the other crap not needed any longer and I'm going to sell it all, or as much as I possibly can. I'm sure I can get about $300 for Joeys saddle and maybe $800 for Wifi's dressage saddle. There are a bunch of old bridles and other junk too. 

I've got some household crap to sell too, actually lots of crap.  

Kitchen appliances, some clothing, a few other things. 

I just want it all gone.

Brandan 'fixed' the photos on my computer and now its all ruined, nothing is in the folders as they should be.

 

Ambleside Is Growing Up

I bought a slightly used saddle for Amble yesterday, a 2022 Circle Y, cordura, 15" seat with a rounded shirt and trail stirrups. I paid $900 for it.

The seller only used it twice on her horse.

I think she looks good with it on.

Its XXWide, measuring 8.25" wide between these conchos

It doesn't pinch

Now I need to get her started under saddle. I suppose I could just get on her but that would be completely stupid since I am NOT a horse trainer.

Once it stops raining I'll take her out to the round pen and get her going in it. I can do ALL the ground work and even use it for driving her and use the long lines from her cart harness.

Daisetta Cordura Trail Saddle 6914

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New to the High Horse Cordura line, this Daisetta Trail Saddle offers a number of custom options to really make this one your own. Featuring High Horse's new border tooling pattern extending from the Pommel back to the cantle, and topped off with new copper flower conchos.

From there, you choose from a black suede or black grainout double padded seat, walnut or black finish, and regular, wide, or extra wide tree. The short, rounded, 26" skirt makes this a great option for the shorter backed horse.

An adjustable position flat plate rigging gives you the freedom to choose your rigging style and the tall cantle will provide security under a variety of trail conditions. Cordura fenders and skirt keep this saddle down to a mere 21lb. Long saddle strings make this a great choice for the trails.

Made in the USA.

*Main picture shown is Walnut in color

Specifications

• Seat Size: 13" 14" 15" 16" 17" 18"
• Color: Walnut or Black
• Seat: Double Padded
• Tooling: : Border
• Rigging: Adjustable Position Flat Plate with angled rear dee
• Tree: Regular, Wide, Extra Wide (13" and 14" Extra wide can be special ordered)
• Cantle Height: 4"
• Silver: Copper Flower
• Swell Width: 12"
• Horn Size: 3-1/4" Neck, 2-1/4" Cap
• Skirt Size: 10" D x 26" L
• Weight: Approximately 21 lbs.
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Cleaned The Barn

The barn wasn't too messy but I wanted to straighten it up some & get current photos.

At the front end, this is Macks stall that Wifi uses and Gussys stall just past it.

From the back.

You can just about see the aisleway net. It came off a ferry & fits here perfectly. Horss could easily jump it but its a psychological barrier more than anything. They all respect it.

Four of the stalls have corner feeders but Gussys is too high for him so he gets his bit of grain in a rubber feeder on the floor.

Actually all of them are getting theirs in tubs on the floor right now.

I love that there is water in the middle of the barn aisle

Are a safe place to hang halters where the horses can't get to them & mess them up.

This red & white rope is used more than all the rest put together.

Wash rack

This drain grate came from the same farm where we got the stall fronts

Stalls from the back of the barn. I've got hay in this one right now & there are a bunch of colored hay nets just waiting to be fed to the horses. They are color coded, blue for Joey, green for Wifi, red for Gussy & black for Mack. That doesn't mean they aren't all fed out of whichever one I feel like giving them but Gussy gets a lot less hay, Wifi gets more than him & both boys get about 10 lbs each feeding.

That net on the door is from the ferries, I've got 2 & they make great barriers to keep the horses in if I don't want to have the doors closed.

 

Two Offers

Our home is officially on the market and today we made offers on two houses in Montana. 

The original one in St Regis that we both love and its perfect for what we want, 

and one in Plains that's close to what we want 

BUT its got a 24 unit storage facility that's part of the deal. 

That would make our house payment for us right there.

Our house & farm are on the MLS and 

FOR SALE

with an asking price of $629,950.00

Its a holiday weekend and its been on the MLS for 3 days and exactly ZERO people have come by to see it. That's a good thing because we're still completing projects.

We had never finished the stair treads with the hardwood flooring so realtor suggested I paint them, so I did, the turquoise you see here. It ties in with the color in the bathroom.

And this evening we're hanging up this sliding barn door Lan made for the downstairs bathroom. 

In this photo its just standing there, not complete. 

In about an hour its going to be FINISHED

and the white door should be gone.

We will save the white door for the future owners of the house 

in case they dislike the barn door and wish to remove it. 

That makes them total losers. 

I hope whoever gets the house and farm love it and continue to improve it.

I've been painting a lot, off white on a bunch of spots where there were either marks on the walls 

or entire places I hadn't finished before. 

I'm also busy painting the porch swing again, its hard to get something orange enough!

NO PHOTO!!

Lan removed a couple busted posts in the cross fence, removed a gate and built this new gate with electric fencing on the top. 

No more horses reaching over. 

Assholes.

I've been painting the metal on the pony cart. I know I'll never teach Gussy to pull it so I'm going to let it go for $500 to another gal. I'll include the leather and nylon harnesses and a whicker basket that I picked up somewhere along the way. I'll get better photos of it tomorrow, this morning I actually painted the arms and back supports. It looks good.

Drone

A friend brought his drone over today and did a preliminary video of our farm

He got several videos and many photos

The horses weren't impressed with the buzzing and ran for the hills

Mostly we were looking to see what it currently looks like and what we need to do to improve it looks. Theres still some cleaning up and putting things away but for the most part, it looks pretty good.

The machine itself was much smaller than what I thought it would be

Here he is, doing his thing

Photo taken from the back of the property towards the front

Too bad the so dry out now

The bright sunlight was drowning out a lot of the color

When he comes back, we're planning on it being in the early morning so the sunshine is on the front of the house. I also want to know when it will be beforehand so I can make sore the barn is clean. He flew the drove through the barn! twice!

In other news, I have purchased additional plane tickets for our trip:

 London -  Carcassonne, France $35.01

Dinard, France - Dublin, Ireland $63.27

Dublin - Newcastle, England $38.94

Then I realized Michelle & guy aren't planning on going to Ireland so I cancelled that leg of the trip.

 We'll be staying in France for the first week and will see MUCH more of it. South for 2 days, then middle eastern section, Paris (Mona Lisa!!)

We will go to Omaha Beach, where Lans grandpa was at during the war and then back down to Carcassonne to fly back to Stansted, England, $43.84.

Returning the rental car to Carcassonne airport and having it for a week costs less than having it for 3 days & returning to Dinard airport and negates the expenses of the cancelled plane tickets.

I'm not actually cancelling the plane tickets, we'll just not use them unless we decide we'd rather go to Ireland. But they drive on the wrong side of the street there & we'd crash.

Nope To HGTV

We decided to not use the HGTV lady to sell our home & not have it on the show. She was too pushy and didn't know enough about equestrian properties. She had zero interest in the Comfort Stall matts, didn't care about the quality of the stalls nor the barn itself. She looked at it but didn't 'care' about it. I want someone to sell my farm that loves it for what its worth and brings a buyer that will also love it for what it is, an equestrians dream.

Today I had an appointment in Woodinville for the deposition for the accident that happened 5 days after IMAZ when I was in the back seat of the car, an innocent passenger. We spent ALL DAY getting to & back from Woodinville & the fucking attorneys didn't have any record of my appointment. FUCKERS. This is the second time they have screwed up; last time was March 29th & they called me while I was in Idaho & said the attorneys were all there waiting for me to show up. The letter they sent me said MAY 29TH and when I got home I found it & called them back. Fuckers didn't even apologize for screwing up. If there is another screwup of any kind, I'm going to get another lawyer & if they try to make me pay them 1 red cent, I'll sue them for being incompetent. Fucking idiots.

The kitchen tile work is all finished, now we're finishing installing the plug ins & dimmer switch. We still have the hood fan to install too and then it will be finished.

Since my niece is here there have been a few changes. Shes got the cool room with the nice barn door closet. Now her son, my great-nephew, is coming soon too. She hasn't done a damn thing for him, she thought he would just sleep in her room with her in her bed. But hes 7.5 years old & boys that big don't sleep with their moms, they need privacy and a place of their own to play. She hasn't gotten him any toys nor bought him any new clothes. She seems to think his dad is going to bring ALL his toys & clothes here with them in an electric car with the step mom & step sister but I am thinking he going to have a grocery bag of dirty clothes & thats it.

I found this free captains bed & went & picked it up, then last night Lan & I put it together. He had to fix a bent nail & glue a broken piece of wood. I also had to go pick up the mattress. I spemt $287 on Spider Man sheets & a blanket, plus another blanket, Spidey beach towel and several more shirts & pants. I'm got about 10 toys for him, a few cars & trucks, some legos, a couple other things.

He needs a lamp, a toy box, more toys, new undies and I NEED to remove that window blind & find something different. Kids & blinds with strings don't go together.

I'm trying to make arrangements for him to go to a week of summer day camp. My friend Tina has a horse day camp for kids & that might be fun for him. 

HGTV Shows

I was on FB last week and LIKED a post about a TV show

 selling homes in our area & they called me last week. 

This morning the realtor, Courtney McClasky called & set up a time for her to come out & see our farm and possibly film it for the show. 

She want's to film this week.

Um...

We aren't ready to film anything, the house is full of our junk.

The kitchen countertops are being tore out this week and new quarts being installed Friday and most of the house is dusty from this. 

The wall mount stove exhaust fan is in the box, needs to go up.

Plus just our junk, everywhere. I'd need a POD right this MINUTE to full with the crap.  

I don't even have boxes yet!

The outside is looking good because I had a gardener come over & weed the flowerbeds & put down beauty bark. Lans been working his ass off to get all the junk gotten rid of & burnt a huge pile of brush. He removed one wall of the old barn & its now an equipment shed. 

I do have a few new plant pots I borrowed from friends that I'm going to put plants in & use as curb appeal. Once the house sells I'm going to give the pots back with the flowers inside. 

IN OTHER NEWS: 

We put in an offer on the Montana farm but haven't heard back yet. I doubt the owner will accept it; he was asking $475, dropped it to $350k and we offered $320k, 

contingent on the inspection and our farm selling.

Thinking Of Moving

We've thinking of moving so spent a few days in Idaho looking at properties, saw about 15 of them.

Someone else bought this PERFECT FARM before we had a chance to see it.

But there is always this one

with this amazing barn that's got living quarters

This is the inside of the living part

The ladders both fold up

Through those red X doors is an amazing interior

Open them up and from the other side you see...

This. A French door

Which opens into this interior that's 

PERFECT 

for a wedding venue

just imagine little twinkle lights up there

In the living part there is this awesome farmhouse sink

And then there is the log house at the other end of the property

This is from the ground looking up at 2 of the 4 balconies

The living area

Up these stairs

Around the corner is the kitchen or bathroom area

This is the basement. Its tall and made of concrete so if the river floods 

it doesn't take out the entire house

from above, barn in the background

The Weiser River

More inside

Lan & my dad are going to go back over and do an in depth inspection, looking for rot and bugs. I saw signs of it/them.

What I like: 

Its along the Weiser River Trail

https://visitidaho.org/travel-tips/riding-weiser-river-trail/

where I could ride my bikes, ride a horse or drive a pony & cart, walk my dogs or run a ways.

Its 15 acres.

The barn is beautiful and dry, even though they are just getting ride of 4 feet of snow.

The house has potential.

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What I don't like:

I'd have to quit my job.

Its very wet but it is right after 4 feet of snow.

Its going to need $50-$80k to get the house livable.

I'd have to quit my job.

Fences are all barbed wire, some parts falling down.

Barn really isn't suited for horses.

I'd have to quit my job.

Barn is a long way away from the house.

No garage for the Mustangs.

I'd have to quit my job.

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I will definitely take Joey, Wifi & Gussy but don't know if I'd take Mack. If I do, he would be mine & I'd have to pay for all his veterinary, all his shoes, all his feed, all his ripped up blankets, all his hay. I'm thinking about calling Julie and asking for Sunshower back & taking her.