Sunny skies again

After about three and a half days' worth of rainy, cloudy weather, this morning is absolutely beautiful. Temperature at home was 49 degrees in the new greenhouse. Everything in there looks pretty happy, including the huge houseplant I moved down there over the weekend.

Things are busy at the barn too. Last week we got sand delivered, and with the rental of a Bobcat, its spread. It needs a bit more dragging but it is just lovely! The horses are enjoying their time out, because they can really cut up, play, and roll and roll and roll :) The sand arrived just in time for two other horses to start being worked regularly too, yay! One is a lovely young grey? grulla? mare who is beyond cute, and the other is a gorgeous young pinto gelding (who is spending a month or two) and both are smart youngsters, they will progress quickly I am sure. The trainer is the dressage rider for old Sully, and she has two horses arriving from the Lower 48 in about two weeks-and they too, will make their home with me, at least for a little while.

It will be nice to see more new faces at the barn :) It will mean some shuffling around when the other two arrive, but it can be managed easily enough. Sure am glad I reserved hay on the next van though! lol, boy wouldn't that be ironic-hay importer having to buy from another hay importer due to unexpected boarders, haha! It's been a while since I had a full house, but I am looking forward to having them. I don't know that I have room for another, without booting one of them to a temporary panel set up, without true shelter though. If I had to, I would.

The garden is finally planted as of last Friday night. Naturally, on Saturday we had a very nasty storm move through, with winds and hard cold rain. I lost about half of the zucchini sqaush and was forced to run to the greenhouse to pick up replacements.

Speaking of the greenhouse, I was totaling up what I had in there yesterday-pretty amazing, actually:

About two dozen tomatoes. 18 pepper plants. Half a dozen pots of cucumbers. Two pots of dill, two pots of fennel (which someone gave me and I don't really know anything about), two pots with a yellow squash each in them-another gift, they are very tiny and would likely never fruit if they weren't inside. Three roses. Nine pots with a bunch of corn in each-red kernel, Yukon Cheif, and two varities of sweet corn. Four small containers which I haven't managed to get hardened off yet-they will go on the deck of the greenhouse eventually-my leftover annuals which are pretty small at this point. My monster houseplant which is down there to be broken apart and repotted-it's easily four foot across. The topsy turvey tomato, and two small fuschia baskets with blossoms on them, just for pretties. And of course the leftover veggies and my pumpkins which I hope to get planted tonight.

All of that, and you know what? It isn't even crowded!

Last night the greenhouse builder showed up, and the fans are framed in and up, as well as the two shutter vents. My wonderful husband rigged up a direct power source for the largest fan late last night, and this morning I turned it on before I left. Obviously we have some electrical work to get done there, but apparantly I can purchase something called an "in line thermostat" which I would put between the fan itself and an extension cord, and it will turn on at whatever temp I set. So I will pick up one of those today, if I can find one. It will do until we get it wired completely.

Since we were renting the Bobcat for the sand, my husband also rented an auger for it. With a whole lot of cussing, sweating, and a great deal of hand work, we now have posts set for the woodshed. Oh my gosh we have a feild of boulders under there!! One post had to be moved over nearly a foot due to a huge rock that 25 minutes of working with the Bobcat could not dislodge. We might even have a line on some trusses, which would be much better than the shed roof we had planned on doing. The structure is going to be about 20x24, and much taller than I had expected. I am not complaining, one thing we have learned living here, is that you can never, ever have too much dry storage, lol! Poor guy, I had honestly thought that the barn would be half his.....but nope, it's completely horses.

So, I have an absolutely beautiful greenhouse. A sizeable vegetable garden, an arena with sand, space for four or five horses, a lovely home, along with a marvelous husband and a great kid too.

Life is good!