Coyotes Beware

I haven't wanted to own a gun. I've been to the shooting range with friends and it was fun, but once I handled them a few times in real life I decided I did not need or want one.

That stayed true when I got married and became doubly true when we had Shane. 

I felt safer not having a gun in the house. Kids get into things.

I remember finding some WW2 guns in Papa's closet when I was a kid. I knew they were trouble and I didn't want to get in trouble, so I didn't tell anyone. I peeked through the scope at the ceiling and marveled at how close everything look. They were there a couple more times, but eventually disappeared. 

Now our situation has changed. 

We live further out from support services, have large animals, and I've seen bears and coyotes. 

Carrie and I talked it over and we decided to purchase a rifle. She used to be a rifle team captain and state champion shooter in high school, so she sighted the rifle while I was at school and sent me a picture of her final grouping.

Saturday, while Shane was out with a friend, Carrie and I took a few practice shots.

We've seen the coyote walk through the arena and along the fence line several times, so the log pile made a good backdrop. (The last time, the coyote walked the whole line and then down the highway!). 

Our sliding glass door is our stand. It's elevated which is great for safety (shots will hit the ground rather than continue if they miss).

We went with a bolt action, small caliber. The hope is to either kill or scare off predators.

We took six shots total. Three each. No surprise that Carrie's the most accurate. She's got the most experience by far and was annoyed with her last shot. My first shots were too far left and I over-corrected right on the final.

The animals handled it well enough. The horses started a little on the first shot and then went back to grazing. Bucket normally runs when I sneeze, but she stayed in the kitchen after ducking under the table.

Loki? He was sleeping in his pen and we scared the piss out of him.

It feels weird being able to safely and legally have target practice in our backyard. Maybe the noise taught the coyotes some caution and we won't see them again....but I doubt it.

UPDATE: We haven't seen the coyotes at all since the two times we had firing practice. Coincidence? I like to think "working as intended."

Bath Time for Puppers

Loki developed an odor. There's a solution for when that happens.

He's not a fan.

It's pretty funny watching him tear around the house afterward. He'll drag himself across rugs, roll around, and run like generating enough speed will air dry him.

Carrie caught him and gave him a second toweling off this time!

Loki was back to his natural poof after a short while. He's almost 12 lbs now!

My Soccer Frustration and Words That Build

Shane arrived late to his soccer game last Saturday. He was wearing blue jeans and a wet team shirt.

This has been a rough season for reliability.

We missed the first practice at Carrie's request. We missed two more due to Parent-Teacher conferences at my school and another when someone came over to buy the truck. Traffic and Shane dragging his feet made us late to several others and Halloween will probably be rained out.

We've missed several games, as well. Maybe it was three? There was one where we were at the dump for far longer than planned and another where Carrie as anxious and wanted me on property with introducing Nibs to the herd. That was right before Patrick's wedding and I spent much of my time building a spreader. The games we have made it to, we've mostly been late. I haven't been as good with rustling Shane out the door and timing the longer drive. Sometimes the game has started late and it worked out okay, but being late has still annoyed me.

There have been 8 or 9 practices and 7 games, so feel free analyze the stats. We're doing poorly by my calculations and it frustrates me.

That's the backdrop that led into the following story.

Zombie Kidz

There was a great sale and I caved. Two new Halloween themed games have entered my collection. 

For the adults, I got a co-op called Horrified about the old Universal Monsters (Wolfman, Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc) that we haven't played yet (Fingers crossed!).

For Shane, I got a small co-op, legacy game called Zombie Kidz.

It's a fun little game. Definitely for kids. I wouldn't recommend it for adults, but I like how you level up and unlock new things!

Shane's enjoyed it so far, too! He likes to come up with new super powers and sound effects for what's happening.

Loki only ate one corner of one envelope that I suspect a cat knocked on the ground.

When It Finally Rains, It Pours!

Lake Wannagutter reappeared Tuesday as another storm rolled in. I came home from work before getting Shane and we hooked up the pump yet again.

I took pictures to help measure the pump's progress. I used the black hose line as my reference point.

The hose kept at it for hours. I picked up Shane at the usual time and brought him home to check out the waterworks.

We could have left it and let it drain on it's own, but Carrie had a potential boarder coming by the next day. The boarder's side has no issue, but the flooded side is what you see as you pull up. Carrie didn't want a potential boarder to see Lake Wannagutter and immediately assume we had flooding issues.

That meant: Keep the pump running.

Carrie left me in charge while she drove all the way north of Cville to the T-Mobile store (She tried THREE times over the weekend, but their system was down and they refused to sell a SIM card unless they could log it). I kept the horses stalled, watered, and with hay and made bagel bites for dinner.

There was some progress by the time I came back to feed the horses. The hose was no longer fully submerged.

The sun is going down around 7 PM nowadays, so it was long since dark when I came out the final time. The hose was still pumping out clear water, so there weren't any issues.

The hose was further revealed and islands appeared within the lake.

The shores originally went past the fence, but had receded into horse territory.

It was good enough. We didn't want to leave a pump out for horses to step on, and the ponies needed to be turned out for the night. If Puddle Pond didn't further dissipate by morning, Carrie could run the pump more tomorrow. She has people coming out to quote the cost of gutters Thursday, so hopefully this will be an issue of the past.

Cloudy Monday

We see more fog out here than we saw in the city. I took some pictures when Loki was doing his morning marking.

I took a picture as we went down to the barn. Carrie was already feeding the horses (We woke up early).

The sun was up around an hour later when Shane and I walked out to his bus stop. The horses saw us and came running in from the mists.

Shane is quick to make an announcement every time he gets on the bus. He'll shout to everyone what the horses are doing or what the dog is doing.

UPDATE: There was a pretty rainbow when I got home later!

Rainy Horse Friends

We got our first real rain in two months.....and it didn't know when to quit! We discovered that the barn really needs gutters, because a lake formed right outside the house-side, stall doors.

There were some leaks in the barn from nail pops and mistakes made during construction. Carrie called the electrician, Jason, for a quote on what it would take to fix (He's the one professional contractor we've met throughout everything).

Jason came by while Shane and I were at church. I talked to him when we got back and he'd already told Carrie he knew someone who did gutters.

Carrie and I divided and conquered the afternoon. She ran into town to get some supplies and take care of errands. I stayed at the house with Shane, so that Sam could come over and play!

Sam's dad dropped him off and went into town to work at the coffee shop while I kept an eye on the boys from 2:30-5 PM (basically, when the coffee shop closed!).

We stayed electronic free for the first two hours. I had the boys walk down with me to the barn to take care of chores.

The thirsty ground sucked up some of the water, but the lake was still there.

Shane's been a willing (if loud and hyper) participant in barn chores so far. He's more likely to be scolded to go back to the house than to get off his butt and help!

Sam hadn't been around horses before.

I gave some pointers. Horses are great and ours are very friendly. It's important to remember that they're large animals, though. No one wants a finger nipped when taking a bite of hay or a foot stepped on.

Carrie and I had brought the horses in early morning, because they were all soaked, shivering, and cold. We blanketed them and got them comfortable in their stalls to wait out the rain. She had me checking on them off and on while she was out. I decided to break out the slow feeder bags, because the pigs either porked down their hay too quickly (Nibs and Sam) or spilled it all over their stall (Maddy).

I put Sam to work with a small task. He dumped a water bucket.

Shane filled it back up and I hung it in the stall. It was a team effort.

The boys were fairly helpful and it was a novel experience, at least!

They said, "Goodbye" to Nibs and then I brought them inside. They played hide and go seek at one point. Shane told Sam to count and then locked him out of his room. I picked the lock to the guest room and Sam decided to hide rather than sneak up and scare Shane (I would have done the latter!)

A little while later, Sam came out and said that Shane was waiting for me to go find him. "He's going to be waiting a while!" I said. "I'm working. Would you like to play some Super Nintendo while we wait for him to come out?"

Shane did come out a little later and was very surprised! The boys played for the last half an hour before Sam's dad picked him up.

Carrie came home not too long after. She'd picked up a small pump. It was my job to wade out into the lake and set it up.

A couple of hours later, our lake was demoted to a pond but just barely. There was enough of a land bridge for the horses to walk back out into the fields without wading.

We survived the first big rain when it was all said and done. The ground should absorb more water over time and we'll be back to normal. Shane had a lot of fun with Sam and the grass will hopefully start to grow now that it's had a drink!

Poop Spreading the Fun Way

Horses are big. Their poop is big. 

You can think they're cute, but don't think they're neat-nicks by nature. Our fields are littered with poop piles after a month of grazing.

Tonight, we did something about it. I flipped the arena drag over, so that the tines pointed up. I hooked it back up to the gator and drove out into the fields.

Then, Shane and I went for a joy ride!

It was a little like a video game. Steer over the poop at full speed for full points and the biggest 'explosion.'

I thought going a little slower spread more evenly, but Shane swore full speed was the way to go!

When Carrie came home, I pulled over to let her and Shane go for a spin (Nothing like family bonding!).

I went by the barn to check on the horses and take care of chores. The horses' eyes were all glued to the crazy gator tearing around their fields.

The fields looked a lot better when we were done. It was supposed to (finally) rain, so I'd wanted to spread the poo/fertilizer to help the grass grow again.

Rough Friday

It was a rough Friday morning. Carrie needed me to stay home, so I did. It made me a little anxious to use leave, but that's what it's there for. 

Besides, the priorities were easy enough to sort out: I want to work until I can retire, but I want to be married until I'm called home. 

I spent the morning supporting Carrie and doing physical labor. We went on errands to Lowe's and Walmart and enjoyed Arby's for lunch.

We had a visitor in the afternoon: Jenny! Carrie hired her to ride Samwise and Madison to get them back in shape. All of the horses have started to act like they think they're retired. Carrie would like to work them back into shape herself, but with her foot and knee she needed outside help to start the process.

It's good to see an old friend, too. The ladies horse nerded out.

Jenny took Sam into the arena first. The fence vexed Loki at first, but he found a way to slide in after!

Jenny worked Sam and Loki trotted after.

He'd run back when she got far enough away from where we were.

I sat in the corner with Carrie and practiced some photography.

Samwise and Loki were breathing hard by the time Jenny was done.

Maddy was next, but I did't get any pictures I felt like saving. I spent most of the time watching and talking with Carrie. Riding is not 'my thing,' but I'm thinking about learning more to help out.

We made some progress. There's still a lot going on and new challenges will always pop up, but we're still moving forward by God's grace!

Afterschool

Just when I got caught up on the blog, I got way behind again. I think I remember what these pictures were about, though!

Shane showed me a scorpion he made with beads and pipe cleaners. He wasn't ready to call it quits when I arrived, so I helped him look for a few more beads.

Shane loves after school. He makes a face and whines if I show up 'early' (which  makes me feel great).

In other news, the kid really needs a haircut.