The Barn

No pictures yet, but as promised...

Right now the barn has no running water or electricity, but both are supposed to be turned on in the near future.  As for water when at the barn, there’s a creek alongside the barn (runs through both fields too) and an old bathtub that fills with rain water.  Lighting hasn’t been too much of an issue yet, other than in the very middle of the barn when I was picking up trash.  I used a flashlight (and gloves, the whole time) to make sure I wasn’t stumbling across a snake or another monster spider…or any spider in general.  (If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I hate spiders.)  We’re more concerned with water being turned on because of how hot it’s been, but if it’s a little while before electricity is turned on, I’m ok with that.  I’m planning on buying a couple of those battery-operated camping lanterns that you crank to charge up.  They should more than light any areas of the barn that we happen to be working in if we’re there a little later.

Structure-wise, there are 11 box stalls, one being a corner stall that is huge.  Seven run-in stalls (no idea what these things are actually called, but they’re narrow, open at one end, and have a feed trough at the other end), a wash stall, tack room, feed room, vet room, office, and a big open area in the middle that I think will be perfect to do some ground work in.  It’s not big enough for lunging, but it’s big enough for other things.  There’s also a small paddock and well-house (currently not working) next to the barn, and a little way up the driveway past the barn is a little riding arena.  Chelsea also noticed on Saturday that the paddock has the makings of a round pen at one end.  The posts are all there, and the paddock fence makes up the majority of it, so I would just have to corral in one side of it to have a fully functioning round pen. Hell yes!

There are two fields, one of which is up the road a little ways.  The other one has a section of fence knocked out at the moment because the electric company was recently working there and screwed it all up.  The BO is fixing it though.  For now, the field up the road is what we’ll be using.  They both have stream access. 

I’m really excited.    I really hope Orion loves it here.  I’m sure he will.  Oh, and I mentioned there’s miles and miles of trails, right?  I haven’t been on them yet, but at some point I’m going to go out there on foot with nippers to trim anything back that will block our way and to get an idea of what kind of terrain is back in there.    I absolutely can’t wait to explore!