Conquering The Fence!

I finished creating a fence that was approximately 700 feet long on Wednesday of last week. It was a dividing fence to make one big pasture two. It started by using a Bobcat to auger the holes in. The operator did a great job and only was off on about 11 holes out of 88. That meant tuning those holes by hand with a rock bar and post hole diggers. I soon started setting posts using a string line to keep them in a straight line. I had a little help from a community service worker, but all in all I figured I did 90 % of the work. Hanging sixteen foot boards was a chore by myself, however once I discovered a system it was it easy. I used a cordless nail gun which was a blessing to have. Here’s a few pictures of the project.

That being done… moving on to the next project: The Porch Roof.

Washington D.C. Visit

We had our first trip to the Capitol of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! We were soooo excited to be there! I don’t know how many times Joe and I looked at each other and said, “Dude!! We are in WASHINGTON, D.C.!!”  :o)

It took us an hour to get to the subway station from the ranch – THANK YOU Jim and Ginny for letting us use your vehicle to get there!! Riding the subway was really cool and a little bit freaky. It was my first time and reminded me of the trams at Disney, except these were more wobbly and when they took off it sounded and felt like an airplane taking off.

      

The subway also reminded me of a roller coaster because of the sound and the jerkiness of it. I did get nervous when we were up above the streets and trees because it felt so unstable – which I know is not true.  Going underground was like being in a sci-fi movie because of the way the lights of the tunnel zoomed by. Oh….and all kinds of different movie plots kept going through my head as we were riding, from terrorists to thugs. You wouldn’t know it by my face though – I looked calm and happy.  :o)

    

I had two missions for my visit to Washington D.C. – see the White House and see if I could find the flute Native American astronaut John Herrington took into space with him. I thankfully accomplished both.

                                 Joe, Jadyn and I at the White House.

I wanted to find the flute because I had the matching one. I even thought about bringing it with me, but I didn’t want security taking it away from me and locking me up thinking that I stole it. :o)

     Here’s the picture of John and I playing our flutes together.

                        

 

We got off the subway and went to the Castle. I LOVED the architecture of it! Inside I was surprised and happy to see part of the Space Shuttle Columbia on display and Joe was excited to see a part of the Hindenburg. And I thought it was neat how they displayed a flock of ducks in flight.

                 

    

We went to the Smithsonian Castle, Air and Space Museum, American Indian Museum, Natural History Museum, National Archives, and Hirshhorn Museum (got yelled at for trying to take a picture of a naked blue man sculpture).  The best part of the National Archives was seeing THE Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It was totally surreal to be there. And I thought of the movie National Treasure. I’ll have to watch that one again. And we saw the National Monument and Capitol (Jadyn says she wants to be a politician so she can work in the Capitol). Here some pictures of theses places.

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I also loved all the different flowers and plants around the Mall area. 

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The different sculptures on the buildings fascinated me. I am curious to know what they represent. Some good movie and book plots could involve these statues and carvings (or maybe they already do?).

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My legs and feet were sooooo tired by the time we got down to the Lincoln Memorial that I decided I couldn’t walk the length of the reflection pond and still be able to make it back to the subway. As we were leaving the war memorial and heading back towards the National Monument I was groaning and grunting every few steps   -  maybe as a way to encourage myself to keep going on some basic kind of cavewoman level. I didn’t even dare sit down for fear I wouldn’t be able to get back up! Despite all that I am pretty proud of myself for walking all the way around the mall and seeing as many museums as we did. I am sure thankful I had a stroller to push Jadyn in too! And I really, really enjoyed sleeping in my bed after we got home – that felt like heaven.  ;o)

Working and playing at G.E.C.

It’s been almost two weeks since we arrived at Graham. The weather has been hot, however not as hot as our last place (Green Acre Organics). The atmosphere is relatively laid back here and everyone is very friendly and nice. I have finally learned all 16 19 horses names and can identify them most of the time. There are ones that stand out from the rest, like Storm who is a rather large grey draft horse, and Star, who is a draft mix and she has become my favorite girl.  Here is Star and me in the arena playing some games and getting to know each other.
Then there is Charlie  who is an old draft that is missing most of his teeth. He leaves little wads of chewed grass all around. And a young gelding named LJ who likes to bully the rest of his herd of nine. Here is LJ on the left playing with his buddy Julius. All the horses are very special in their own ways, even Woody who seems depressed about something all the time, however is very friendly. One day I was emulating grooming him and he tried to return the favor which would have been a bit painful for me since they use their teeth to groom. The work has been fairly easy stuff like trimming trees, mowing, feeding horses, running fence line and typical ranch stuff. So until later, peace!

Yogi Bear and Horses

The last campground we stayed at before arriving in Maryland was Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park in Emporia, NC. We were very pleased with how clean everything was and how friendly the staff and even the other campers were. I think we might stay exclusively at these campgrounds if possible on our travels.

        

We arrived at the Graham Equestrian Center in Glen Arm Maryland later in the evening. We were advised by almost everyone we talked to NOT to drive through Washington, DC during rush hour. We stopped in Dale City on the south side of DC and spent three hours hanging out at a mall there until the traffic died down enough for us to go.  We had to go through a freaky little narrow tunnel that was way too long for me AND went underneath a body of water. It was pretty recent that the earthquake hit the Baltimore area so I was really trying not the think of any potential weaknesses that might have developed in the tunnel as a result of the quake. I’m not too keen on confined spaces anyways so that trip through the tunnel was pretty tense for me. The picture below is of the tunnel. It’s obviously not a good picture, but hopefully you can get an idea of how narrow it was – and our bus is pretty wide.

                                 

The Graham Equestrian Center is a beautiful ranch located in the Gunpowder Falls State Park. It’s a nonprofit ranch and has 22 horses that roam, run, and play on about 22 fenced acres – along with a bunch of deer. We went for a hike in the park our first day here to do a little exploring and it was so beautiful.

 

This picture was shot as we were coming out of the forest back onto the ranch.

                          

After the hike we spent the day meeting horses and watching them play.

Ginny showed us her horse Storm’s sweet spot (where he liked to be scratched.)

                         

The next day Jadyn and I went down to the lower pasture to say good morning to some horses, then we went to help daddy make an oval pen round.

         

We saw a little baby snake and a dead hummingbird that had gotten trapped in a building and I guess starved. He was still very beautiful.

               Jadyn had fun helping us any way she could. :o)

Joe and Jadyn relaxed under a tree and played while I made dinner for everyone.

                                 

And while I was making dinner I looked up from where I was standing cutting vegetables and saw a family of deer out the window. That was the coolest thing for me. :o)

                        

I am so thankful to be here experiencing this now! Soon we are going to take a trip to DC and check out the sites. That will be fun! Until then, I’ll post some more of what we are doing here.