Lots to share today.
Before going into the day-to-day info, I have an observation.
It's hard to tell from this picture, but this truck is caked in dirt, grease, and grime.
I come from Southern California. Cars there seem to be an extension of the person (something, by the way, I've never personally understood at all). You judge yourself by the kind of car you can afford and drive. And, worse, other people judge you the same way. A lot of your status and place in the social pecking order is based on your "ride."
Compounding the insanity, you are also judged by how clean your car is. Many people will spend a small fortune having their car(s) washed, waxed, detailed, etc., weekly.
The exact same thing is true in Chromo, Colorado.
Except...the opposite.
Here your status is established by how filthy and grimy your truck is. If you wash your car or truck your neighbors will wonder what's wrong with you, look down on you, and talk about you behind your back. You have no credible social standing in Chromo if you have a sparkling clean truck.
So, by this standard, here in Chromo, Jim's truck is dirty enough to keep him at the top of the social pecking order. Way to go, Jim!
And, Debbie's Lexus is pretty filthy, too. So that's great. Except....well...it's a Lexus. That's a bit of a problem in these parts. Oh, well.
Next time you decide to spend your valuable time washing your vehicle or your precious money having someone else do it for you....remember Jim's truck. It gets him where he wants to go just fine.
One big step in the winterizing process to get the horses winterized. All of the horses will be moved to ranches about 1,000 feet lower in elevation. Believe it or not, at just that small change, the weather is considerably milder down there.3 of Jim & Debbie's horses need special supplements every day. Those 3 go to a place where they will be fed their daily meds. The other 3 go to a place where, as Debbie said, the owner will "...check once in a while to make sure they're still alive..." In both cases, the horses winter outside on pasutre land.
Jim & Debbie have experimented over the years on what's best of the horses during the winter while they (Jim & Debbie) are wintering in Southern California.
Outside, in the pasture, is best. The horses thrive. After all, they were made as outside animals.
The above picture is when Deb is brining the horses up to the Shed beside the house where their farrier (you might know this guy as a blacksmith - the guy who shoes the horses) will remove their shoes for the winter. When the horses are being riden regularly, they get re-shoed every 6 to 8 weeks.
Sorry I didn't get any shots of the farrier working. I went over to do so, but one of the horses was acting up, the farrier was clearly aggravated, and I thought discretion on my part by not taking any chance of further agitating the horse was a good idea. Next time.
Oh, and here's why the whole winterizing process is needed...
My place, after a couple of inches of snow and a 7 degree morning.
This is down by the river...all frosty beauty and icy wonderment. The morning I took these, there was a good layer of ice on Jim & Debbie's pond and lots of ice dams in the river and irrigation ditches.On Wednesday, the day of the first snow, Jim and I had to move some hay down to the ranch where the 3 horses needing supplements were going.
When I say "some" hay, I mean 70 bales of hay.
The process is called "bucking." Having now, for the first time in my life, experienced "bucking hay," I thought I'd look it up so see exactly what it meant (just my nature to look up stuff like this). It seemed like a strange term. I'd call it "schlepping."
Here's what Wikipedia has to say: "A hay buck, or "bucking hay", is a type of manual labor where hay bales, usually 85 lb. to as much as 150 lb., are stacked by hand...the act of throwing the bales up to a higher level is called "bucking". The work is very strenuous and physically demanding, and is dependent upon using a proper technique in order to not grow weary too quickly."
Since Jim has done this before (presumably), since he cares so much for me and my continuing education, since he wanted me to learn the "proper technique" so I wouldn't "grow weary too quickly" as mentioned above, and since he has (alledgedly) a bum knee and bad back, I'll let you guess who did the lion's share of the work.
In Jim's defense, he's a good supervisor and teacher, and I learned a lot on Wednesday.
While it was snowing pretty good, we unstacked 70 bales from the shed, restacked and loaded them into the horse trailer, drove for an hour or so to the ranch where the 3 horses who need supplementing will be staying, unloaded the 70 bales out of the trailer, and restacked them on a big cart.
4-Horse Trailer Completely Stuffed - Before
(Note Jim showing me where he wanted the bales stacked.)
That's my jacket hanging on the the pictch fork....it was cold but I was sweating like a pig on a skewer over hot coals.If you believe Wikipedia and take the low end - 85 pounds per bale - times 70 bales, that's 5,950 pounds. But you have to double that because there is unstacking and loading the trailer then unloading the trailer and restacking the 70 bales, so that's 11,900 pounds of hay. Almost 6 TONS.
Jim's Big Job
I could not figure out how to either latch or unlatch the trailer gate....so that was really one of Jim's big jobs. You might also notice that Jim still has his jacket on. Hmmmm...tell you anything?Next day, Thursday, we started the day burning the dead trees and debris down by the river. Jim and Deb had some trees cut in the spring, their remains were dry, and everyone around these parts burns around this time of year.
There were 5 stacks about this size.
Fireman Jim
After that, we spent the rest of Thursday putting up fences to protect the trees from the elk damaging with their antlers during the winter. My camera was malfunctioning during that fence building process, It involves driving steel fence posts through solid rock. It would be a good activity for "hard labor" in any prison. It's difficult to explain without visual aids so I'll just say 2 things about it.
First, it was slightly harder, but in a completely different way, than bucking hay. Think of trying to force a 1/2" blunt square pole about 6 inches into a 1/4" inch round hole in sold granite. That's pretty much it.
Second, after showing me how to do it (it involves amost exclusively brute force), Jim suddenly realized he had to drive his loader down to the pasture to move some of the smoldering wood from the morning's fires around. So off he went to play with his loader and the fires. And, here's a really interesting coincidence. Jim finished playing loader driver and got back to help me finish the fencing project exactly at the same time as the last post had to be driven into the rock.
My jacket and hat had been discarded long before...his were still on. He was not sweating at all. Hmmmmm....???
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