Barn Maintenance (The Backlog!)

Carrie woke early to foxhunt. It was a teacher workday, so I went back to sleep!

She called and woke me up not long after. She'd hit a deer.

Thankfully, this was a best case of a bad scenario. Carrie saw the deer standing in the road long prior. She was hauling horses, so she couldn't break quickly. She had enough time to slow to ~20 mph as she approached. 

The deer was almost out of her lane and started to move across the road....before it doubled back. The truck's passenger side clipped its hind quarters.

Carrie was okay. So were the horses. The deer was possibly okay? The front of the truck was only a little scuffed up. The deer made it off the road and didn't get caught under a wheel. It might have avoided a breaking any bones, but getting whacked had to hurt. 

While Carrie was out galivanting across the countryside with her fellow horse, pomp, and circumstance nerds, I did barn chores. I timed chores to be outside for a delivery of stall shavings for the barn (One pallet! The delivery truck is leaving with 4 others to be delivered).

The big activity of the day (aside from a zoom meeting) was spreading gravel dust.

The guy was looking up, because he had to be mindful of the lean-to!

Carrie was worried about breathing in gravel dust, so she insisted on masks.

I was worried she'd overwork and hurt herself. 

We both should have been more worried about the rake!

The rake gave up the ghost early on. The contractor had a spare, so we were able to continue smoothing/spreading the load that way. 

The other side of the barn is much easier, because the Bobcat could drive down the length and level most of it for us.

The goal of all this was to build back up the elevation to channel runoff and keep the area around the barn dry.

I hooked up the chains and Carrie hopped in the gator to smooth things out to her satisfaction.

I ended up on horse babysitting duty. Lilly was either thirsty or annoyed her way into the lot was barred.

Carrie tearing around in a gator wasn't enough to deter her!

I ducked to the other side to scratch and placate Lilly the best I could.

Only Abby wanted to know what all the fuss was and joined us.

There was only a single line up, so I had to keep the mares distracted from doing anything daring.

With as flighty as Abby gets if I try to put a blanket on her in the lot, I'm surprised she didn't tear off squealing when the bobcat came their way! It's like the really believe the polywire lines are an impassable wall.

The moment the machinery was done, we raised the lines and let the ladies have their lot back.

Lilly went straight to drinking in a unique manner.

Abby sniffed the new ground...

...and went for a roll.

Shane stayed inside for nearly all of it. He's happy to hide when there's physical labor going on! I remember doing the same thing as a kid, but I'd go outside to avoid Pop handing out cleaning assignments in the house (Once I got busted hanging out in the hammock reading while everyone else was working, ha!).

New gravel dust is hopefully a once a year occasion. As long as Ernie or someone else doesn't dig potholes, the equines should be able to stay dry under the lean-tos for the near future.