Garbage Detail

I spent the morning today fussing with financial stuff.  Somebody came up with this new system for making purchase requests.  Must have been the same people who did the new national health care site.  It is a nightmare and kills countless hours that could be spent doing something productive.  Nevertheless, I managed to straighten out all our monthly purchases and reconcile our accounts. 

 

After that, I went to see the doctor who looked in my ear and said my head was infected.  He gave me a sack of pills to take.  Some of the pills make me happy, some make me sad.  Better living through random pill popping. Hopefully, this sack of pills will relieve the pressure in my head. 

 

I then spent the afternoon repairing garbage cans.  We use them as water troughs for the horses.  These cans are ancient, but made of really sturdy metal.  The new ones I bought are made of tin foil and don't last.  Plus, the wind blows them around.  I threw them all away.  I don't have money for new water troughs, so I got out a tube of Liquid Nails and resealed all the old cans.  Lots of fun trying to squeeze this stuff out of a tube.  My forearms are twice the size they were yesterday.  I look like Popeye the Sailor. 

 

I was able to spend a few minutes at the end of the day working with horses.  Pretty much the highlight of the day.  I spent a few minutes working on putting a bridle on Duke, who has always had a problem with his ears.  He doesn't like it when you pull the bridle over his ears, so I let the check straps out as far as they go and kind of toss it over his ears.  Today, we worked on that and made some progress.  I also was able to help Martina a little as she worked with Big Cal, who doesn't like jumps.  He had a bad accident years ago and has never really gotten over it.  Martina was real patient with him and managed to get him to relax and go through a course with ground poles.  He is teachable, but it takes a lot of patience.  Working with horses is much more rewarding than working with financial systems and garbage cans. 

Still Kicking

Okay, so it has been a little while since I posted anything, but what's a couple months?  I don't have much to write about as far as riding horses goes as I haven't done any riding since coming down with pneumonia in September.  The doctors cured the pneumonia, but I keep coming up with other illnesses.  I briefly considered giving myself bute today--just to end it all. 

Most of my time each day is spent coordinating something, fixing something, or complying with some bureaucratic requirement.  I'm continually asked to comply with regulatory requirements that are meant to be handled by a fully manned company, not a one-man horse operation.  I have to focus on keeping the horse detachment functioning first, after that I can worry about filling out logistics paperwork and completing training in sexual harassment (is it okay to pat my horse on the butt?). 

 

Yesterday, I caught a couple of environmental people checking out our manure pile.  They were responding to a work order to have the manure pile moved that was issued over a year ago.  Obviously, it was not a priority for them.  They seemed to think the placement of our manure pile was okay, but I'm almost certain someone above them will insist that it be moved or modified in some way to make managing it more difficult.  The funny thing is that no matter where you put it, it all ends up being washed downstream eventually. 

 

Today, in addition to taking a riding lawn mower in for maintenance (the maintenance guys didn't want to take it, but I whined until they did) and taking a truck in to get the plastic cap on the tailgate replaced, I spent about ninety minutes raking the arena for the riding practice tonight.  The barrel racers had been practicing in the arena and had left big divots in the footing.  Not good when troopers are trying to practice charges at a full gallop.  I wanted to wet the arena down before I dragged it, but only two of the sprinklers were working.  Thus, the footing is like brown talcum powder now.  I hope everyone rode with their bandannas over their faces.