Flooring Ordered

Finally, we have made a decision and ordered our new flooring. We chose Bellawood engineered Acacia.This has been a long and drawn out process; we wanted solid hardwood but with a 185# dog we can't get just anything, it needed to be strong and resilient. Acacia is a harder wood but we were told the solid wood could warp in our damp weather and both our floor guy and the store guys said engineered was tougher.

 

This is what it should look like when its installed.

 

So there won't be a lot of Ironman training going on for a while, we've got to get the floors in shape for this new topping. The parquet is gone, now to clean it up, remove the carpet, sand and or treat them and then we're ready. Of course, we've still got a lot of furniture to move too.

 

Stall Fronts

After returning from Disneyland and the land of sunshine, I spent a grumpy day at home. I just wanted to see something, ANYTHING, happening with our home updates.

 

So I sat at my computer and did a Craigslist search, STALL FRONTS, in the greater Seattle area and found this:

 

Retiring thoroughbred farm,20 stalls ,stall fronts are 12x8,we will help remove and load call or text for a look, these are locally made, heavy metal ,fabricated in the 80s ,angle iron frame ,instant stall

 

I called and he still have most available but some had already been sold and more people were showing up all the time. Called Karen:

 

Me: Want to go get stall fronts with me?

K: Yes.

Me: Can we use your flatbed?

K: Yes

Me: Can we use your truck to pull your flatbed?

K: Yes.

 

We left home at about 1pm, I had to call in to work that I couldn't make it in, just in case, and headed to Granite Falls.

 

These stall fronts are dang nice. Heavy duty, truly 2" thick, they include the wood and the sliding tracks on top. Each door weighs about 100# and the stall fronts are easily 250. Some of the wood is rotten from having had horses spitting water onto it for 30 years but most is just fine.

 

I'll need to clean them up, maybe sand blast & repaint the metal then purchase bolts to attach these to the barn, replace a few boards and then they are done.

 

I paid $1100 for 5 stall fronts ($220.00 each)

plus $100 for a single and a double window bars that can opened.

The fuel was $40 but I'm going to pay more for that

and I owe Karen my firstborn child.

 

I have search locally for stall fronts and the only ones I could find that were sturdy/strong enough are in Graham and cost $550 for the frames and are a foot shorter, I'd still have to purchase and install the rollers/sliders for each door ($125) and wood.

 

These were a bitch to get out of the barn and onto the trailer but there were 3 big guys to help, they had a welder to get rid of the old rusty bolts holding them in place and they were much stronger than us and had tools.

 

I saved over $500 per stall.

I have a lot of work yet to do on these, the entire barn needs to be built, but to have these makes my heart happy. No shitty shed stalls for my horses.

 



Disneyland

 

I'm getting pretty excited for our upcoming Southern California trip.

 

 

We leave here Tuesday morning, go to Disneyland Wednesday & Thursday, then have 2 open days for whatever. Lan wants to go to Santa Monica Pier.

 

The weather is supposed to be in mid 70's, PERFECT for us.

 

 

No Wonder I Can't Run

I went to the doctor (Nurse) a couple weeks ago, since they wouldn't believe me that I needed to see a FOOT DOCTOR. She prescribed meds for the inflammation and sent me to the foot doctor. Not right away, you know, its got to take another few weeks. I finally get to see the podiatrist and he found a lump in my foot.

Plantar fibroma, a benign nodule that grows on the bottom of the foot. I have a single lump so he is sending me for an 'urgent' MRI, which is scheduled for 3 weeks out. I'm glad its not a regular one, geesh. Then he will probably want to do cortisone shots and when I get those I hope to hell they don't hurt like the dickens.

I just want to run again.

On a good note, Lan is turning 50 in 8 days so I'm taking him to Disneyland. I've purchased the flights, rental car, hotel & Disneyland tickets, now I'm counting down the days till we fly out.

Out Of The Mud Horse Show

SeaSpots Appaloosa Club had the first of 3 Out Of The Mud Horse Shows today at Stormy Acres. It was our first time at this venue so we were really hoping for a small turnout. There were about 10 riders, mostly all English and it was a good day, not too cold or windy. We worked out a few kinks and after getting this all figured out we're all excited for March.
We will blast the Kitsap horse world with show info and advertisements and we hope to have a large turnout next month. There is plenty of parking, lots of room for horses inside and outside the arena and just enough room in the aisle for spectators.
We made about $354 before expenses but after dividing certain costs, like insurance, we did all right. The club rented the facility outright so we paid them $150 for today. They made that plus had rented out some stalls for horses so it all came out good.

Mostly there were Friesians but there are 4 living at that stable. Tori took High Point English and won a $25 gift certificate to Olive Garden.

Boarders

I can't wait for the day I open the barn up for boarded horses, I've missed it. Here is what the new barn will look like, similar to these barns.

 

The lower barn was Ellies, now belongs to Jessica.

 

Lan & I looked at this farm but it needed a lot of work. The land was very wet and too much was unusable, wasted space. It couldn't even be used for dogs.

The house looked OK upstairs but the basement has a history of flooding. There wasn't adequate parking and the fences were incomplete so we would have more projects there than here.

Training is going OK

Lans Ironman training is going well. This week he is taking a break and getting a LOT of work done around the house; electrical right now, prepping for the wood floors.

For a month he was very serious about his training and now hes slacking off but that's OK, I built slacking time into his training plan. I'm very proud of his efforts and hes trying hard. His one downfall is pain in one calf so he can't run but hes been swimming and biking to his hearts content.

 

It seems like a lot now but the days will fly past and soon hes going to be thinking

'Shit man, where has all my training time gone? I'm not going to be ready!'

 

But I'll keep him on track as best I can.