Carbon River Glacier Hike

Biked 5 miles uphill on the mountain bikes from the Carbon Ranger Station to Ipsut Campground, tented it over night, hiked 5 miles uphill to the glacier. 

WOW.

Hiked back down to camp, rode bikes back to car & rewarded ourselves for the 30,000 steps with burgers at the Wilkeson Saloon.

Halterless gus

Gus without his halter loose in the arena for the first time since April 4th.

He's got a handsome face.

Now that Shadow/Laddie is gone, Gus really loves to play with his treat ball.

Lan has the outside runs just about finished. The electric rope is up, tape along the tops but there needs to be a bit more rope inside.

This was as he was taking down the old wooden fence.

Another view

And with it getting cleaned up and mowed. The pile of sand is buckshot, it will be the top finish in the runs. We need another 6 trailer loads, about 36 tons.

This is out back, there's still a lot to do out there too

Shadows New Life

Shadow

The other day I spent 20 minutes chasing his little bugger in a very small round pen and 

THAT WAS IT.

It's a small area but he wasn't letting me get anywhere near him. Gus wasn't so hard, he let me catch him easily enough.

But Shadow was a little fucker so I gave him away.

Found him a nice knowledgeable lady in Poulsbo that's had a similar horse before. Shes going to gentle him & teach him to be a productive member of society.

His new name is 

LM (Little Man) Laddie

From the Lost Boys movie

Whales At Work

I have an amazing job that just gets better and better every single day I go there.

Yesterday after the boat off loaded the Mate radioed that there was a whale outside. 

I RAN onto the boat and THERE IT WAS. It was amazing to see. He put his head down and flapped his tail a bunch. WOW!!

One of the crew got video but I can't figure out how to share it here.  

I've been waiting 8 years to see something like this and this guy didn't disappoint.

Later, I saw a Harbor Seal between the slips. 

We also had a gorgeous double rainbow

and a huge thunderstorm.

All in all, it was one of my favorite days at work, ever in my life.

Waiting

I've been waiting all day for a reply & none is coming. They do this all the time, then say their phone was dead. Tired of it.

Ripping & Tilling

The arena was ripped 4-6 inches deep today

The footing is all clay so it came up in big hard chunks

After a few hours of circles, it looked like this

Then the helper came & the rototiller was attached

It took a few runs each direction to get it good

Looking better already

But its just going to compact again so Builders Sand will be added and mixed in. After its compacted, more sand will be added on top and I HOPE to add 1 inch rubber crumble to the sandy top for better footing.

This morning we turned the big horses on the front pasture 24/7 while the back pasture is sprayed for weeds. All of them napped together.

First Wifi stood guard.

Then she laid down beside Joey for a while

And Mack had a good snooze

I signed up for the FINAL SEASON of Tribabes and last Saturday was the first BRick; 5 miles bike/1 mile run. I took my mountain bike because my shoulders/back/neck were very sore with a big lump in my muscles. 

I guess I'm going to need to spend time each day running or riding. I'm not thrilled about the swimming, my wetsuit fits someone that's 20 lbs lighter than I am now.

Calling In Sick

Today I called in sick to work. I didn't want to but my shoulder has a huge knot in it and its killing me. I was supposed to go in for the Night Watch, midnight to 9am; 4 hours of watching the boats and 5 hours of selling.
These shifts KILL me and I'm ruined for the rest of the day.