Friday, November 13, 2015

Slowin' Down? What was I thinkin'?

You might could remember I thought I might be able to start easin' up and slowin' down a bit... 

Since I done that "Slowin' down" in the past few days I've;

Hauled Cora to the vet 50 miles away to get the sutures out (She's 100% OK) which is a good thing.

I've hauled water and hay.

Picked up three fresh corral panels...

And... toted a heck of a collection of rock in a Mexican Dump truck...

Also cut out some sage brush and mesquite to make room, flagged out the road and corral locations...

...and even worked the ponies very lightly... working to get them truly halter broke... which they weren't.

So now... all slowed down and chillaxin'... I'm sore an' achin' and wonderin' if I can survive all this easin' up! You wouldn't think living in a Horse Trailer would be so athletic!

The rock is to make this winter camp of mine a mite more livable. Thought I needed two things; A fire pit and a leveled out spot to put down pavers for a deck next to my Lakota LQ, to make the camp less dusty... or muddy when it rains...

*RV Boondocking with Horses??? :-) *

 The ground slopes away from where I wanted the Lakota parked... so, lacking any dinero to buy block, I opted to invest sweat and collect up more of the rock that is found right on the place to arrange a low "retaining wall" so that I can fill behind it to mostly level the ground to set down pavers for an all weather deck surface.


 The drop is less than a foot, so only a simple, low retaining wall of native stone is needed to let me level it back to the Horse Trailer... once I get that leveled and packed... I can spend a few dollars for concrete pavers to set me a proper RV deck.
*Lakota LQ with fire pit and deck coming along*

The fill came from around a mesquite. The dang gophers had piled up dirt around the base of the tree building their own quarters and it was being choked out. There's still green shoots on it, so I think with a lil' nurturing that tree will come back and thrive...

Sorry gophers... ya'll just got evicted by an un-sympathetic cowboy!


In the pic above I just started diggin' it out. You can see how deep they'd buried it...


All dug out and ready to shine... maybe...



Now shhhhhh... this is a "secret"... but I can't think of a better use for... ahem... "Shower" water... than...

Nurturing a gopher abused Mesquite tree back to good health!

That's one of the plans... an efficient "re-use" of some of my "resources".... but shhhhh... don't tell no one...

Efficient and responsible Re-use of precious resources is something govie frowns on... even here in the desert where water is more scarce with each passing year.

Starting to feel a mite more like a place to call "home". If even it is a part time winter camp or home base...




The mesquite fired biscuits and fire cooked beans is gonna have to wait for the fixin's to be bought on the next supply run... after some more dinero shows up in the bank account... and that supply run is a hundred and fifty mile+ round trip...

*Deck in progress for a Lakota Charger LQ in my Winter Camp*

'Till then I'll keep hauling rock and dirt from gopher mounds that's scattered all over this lil patch of cowboy heaven... I'll tell you what; LQ Horse Trailer Living ain't half bad.

Maybe I'll take a day off and go walkin' around over in the Chiricahua's... it's not like they're a long ways off...

*The Chiricahua Mountains off to the east*

Or__maybe the Dragoons, which lay the other way...

*The Dragoon Mountains off to the west*

At least... when I'm not with my ponies...


*Cody Jack and Cora*
 I feel like I've got a lot done. There's much much more to do... as well as a LOT of writing that needs to be whittled on.

So... I best quit palaverin' and get to it.

Brian


5 comments:

Steve said...

Good job. That's a lot of manual labor in a great location. Somewhere I must have missed what your plan is for these horses. Will you break them to ride and then sell them. Buy more and repeat the training? This is a 'non' cowboy asking.

Cindy Kingma said...

Is that a sticks and bricks place in the corner of your last horse picture? Hmmmmm?

Teri said...

Love your homestead! I hope to do this in a few years, but not quite so far from civilization.

Ed, Carol and Gopher the dog said...

Saw your pup in the background of one of the pictures. How's he doing these days?

Brian said...

Steve; Time will tell. There is a "Plan" to start them well, adding value and then sell... maybeso they'll lock on to tight to sell one or both, we'll see.

Cindy; Yup. There's an old gal lives about 2 hundred yards east. My only "Close" neighbor... there's a few more five or six hundred yards farther north east and two about the same or a bit farther to the west. Due north and south there's NADA..

Ed and Carol; Arlo is... well Arlo. He's a real difficult dog for me to live with. I believe he is NOT in fact pure Aussie. He shows too many Border Collie schizo characteristics... as well as his physical appearance has gone border collie. His "manner" is Hyper active Border collie on meth... This place here, where I can let him run around me as I work seems to have had a beneficial effect. Brought him slightly into the realm of manageability... He's supposed to get his masculinity modified in a few weeks. In combination that might slow him up enough to turn the corner... again, time will tell