Quirks & Quips

I had a great ride on Ashke last night. Well, mostly a great ride. We did lots of bending and transitions to help relax and ease his tension prior to our canter departs. Once I got him calmed down a bit, we had a couple of really nice canters. Then we did the slalom with parallel poles once in each direction before being done for the night. He was still very spooky at the corner with the standards. I think the biggest issue is that the poles and standards change shape on a daily basis. We had a little bit of an argument about not bolting as we went around that corner, but it was short term. We ended on a good note and then he got a huge bucket of mash and carrots as his reward.

I thought I would share some odds and ends for the rest of this post.

1. Ashke loves it when I clean his stall and then empty an entire bale of shavings in a huge pile in the middle of his clean stall. Last night, he was eating mash while I was cleaning up the huge amount of pee shavings in his stall (boy is not dehydrated) and he shifted so he could watch what I was doing. Once the stall was clean, I brought in the bale of shavings and he stopped eating to watch me open the bale. I made a huge pile in the middle of his stall and then stepped back as he turned and began to move the shavings around his stall. I think my favorite part is the shavings sticking to the end of his nose as he wandered back to his bucket. It's all fiber, right?

2. The first part of December, just before the weather dumped into the sub-zero range for the first time this year, our furnace went out. No surprise really, since it was a low end model and was over seventeen years old. The problem started with a short that popped the breaker. Flipping the breaker fixed the problem for a couple of hours, until the short fried the control board. We knew at that point that we had to replace rather than looking at repair. So J and I gave ourselves a furnace for the holidays. Thankfully, we also had an unexpected windfall that paid off the furnace a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately, all of the plans we had for that windfall will have to wait, including getting the inside of my trailer lined with bedliner. Although, we were able to get the axillary lights for the truck ordered so we can hitch up in the dark. Now we just need to get them installed.

One of the side effects of a new furnace is that the company that installed it made sure it was working correctly. For seventeen years we have not used our walk-out basement room because of the temperature difference between the basement and the rest of the house. The new installers fixed the issues and balanced the temps in the house, plus created positive pressure which keeps the wind from howling through the windows and fireplace. Now we have an entire house we can use, no wind blowing in and an even balanced temp. Who knew.

3. Our dryer began to make noises on Sunday, while J was finishing up the final load. Horrible noises. It is seventeen years old and I guess it was to be expected. It's a whirlpool duet. J went on line and ordered a packet of replacement parts from Amazon Prime for $24 and last night while I was riding, J replaced all of the parts of the dryer that could be replaced. She cleaned out the dryer motor and vacuumed all of fuzz and hair out of all of the parts.

Inside parts covered with fuzz

The wheels were badly worn and weren't properly moving the drum any longer.

Thank goodness for YouTube videos and motivated home owners. The dryer is quiet and functioning properly.

4. Sitting in the line to drop T off and I was threatening to run my hand through his hair and give him a kiss (all of which is forbidden when you are a seventeen year old male in front of your High School) and he told me I better fucking not. I said, "your language is getting out of control" and he said "I'm a junior in HS, you have to expect me to say fuck". I said, "I never used language like that when I was in HS" and he stopped, leaned back in the car and said "that's cuz you were a goodie-two shoes when you were in HS". I laughed a lot. He tickles me.