Beginning a New Year

So far we have had a mild winter here in southeast Arizona.  The temperatures were in the mid 30s this morning, which was tolerable.  The sun didn't come up until about 0730, but since the stables are in the shadow of a ridge line, the whole valley was lit up with sunlight before the sun hit me while I was feeding the horses.  

The Wonder Horse helping me with one of the frame poles.  

After feeding the horses I went downtown to pick up some hardware for a pen renovation project I'm working on.  A bad storm had destroyed four of our horse shelters last summer, making the pens unusable, and restricting where I can put horses.  I decided to rebuild one of the shelters with materials I had on hand, but was running out of metal screws.  I need to get the shelter finished so I can bring in the new horses, Khyber and Boone, who are living at my house at the moment.  Unfortunately, I couldn't finish the project today as the wind kicked up and was blowing the sheet metal around as I was trying to screw it to the shelter frame.  

The rebuilt shelter frame.  

Instead, I spent the afternoon spreading manure.  I'm  making some progress in reducing the size of the manure pile, but it is so old that it is like an archaeological dig.  I may find some mastodon bones in there.  

We brought all the horses in from pasture tonight, even though it is Thursday and they will be going out again tomorrow for the weekend.  They have been out for two weeks and they were more than ready to come in.  My two, Blade and Duke, stood at the pasture gate and watched me the whole time I was spreading manure.  I bought them and the Wonder Beast in and they happily dove into their feeders.  There will be no leftover hay in the morning, I'm certain.