Rubber mallet meet rubber mat

They say when you buy a home, everything costs more than you expect, and takes longer.

I am so grateful to my man. I don't know how single women have horse farms alone. Today he drove us to Nuembrecht again to get the bare essentials for our horse's homecoming on Tuesday. He keeps saying, "for YOUR horse" but I hope that soon he considers Baasha his too.

Today I had my first experience putting in stall mats. I assumed I'd sloppily lay them any which way, with gaps and such, but my man's German. Enough said. Measuring tape in hand, we were gonna do this right. I whined that it mustn't be perfect, but he inspired me in the course of the hours. Yah, hours it took to put in one stall worth of mats.

They are the delux, waterproof and very thick ones. I have to wonder how people manage to install mats in an entire barn when our one stall cost over 400 euros. *shudder*

But I got into it, finally, and it turns out I'm a natural with a box cutter. Box cutters (they say "carpet cutter" in Germany) are the way to make your super thick stall mats fit your space. My man even stepped back and said he likes admiring how I handle that box cutter to rip through that stubborn rubber material. A sharp knife really makes a difference! And, a little technique. Now I've got it. Oh! I see we don't have any pics of me cutting the mats! Dangit, I cut about 12 of them today, lengthwise or shortside, and was always impressed with my man's measurements, they always snapped down exactly where they should be, flush with the wall.

Don't worry, we won't be keeping grain in the stall, that garbage can is full of fishfood, and we'll have to find a new home for it soon. It's standing in the place I will build a hay trough. A floor-level, bale-sized trough, with a net over it to reduce waste.

My but we did good work. Even my man, I saw him smile as he came back to check the finished product. He said, "This is a nice stall now!" and I agree. It's truly a stall now. Every horse should have stall mats. It should not be an option.

Since the stall has to double as my grooming area, I want Baasha to be comfortable when I work on his feet. I also want to be comfy when I just sit on the ground and admire his gaskins. He has great gaskins. Isn't the gaskin one of the loveliest parts of a horse?



Before the sun went down, I installed our newly bought insulators for our fence, and then I strung one line of electric on it. I think the little "Qs" are supposed to point up, but I like the look of them pointing down.





It was fun for me to drill holes in my new fence, and have the drill smoking, cuz the posts are so hefty, and I could lean ALL my weight into it, and the posts wouldn't budge. Nice work guys!






Then I went down and made a temporary gate out of plastic step-in posts. The problem is, the rest of our Tposts won't arrive until next week, after Baasha is here. So we have about 7 step-in posts acting as Tposts for now. I used baling twine and tied them to the chain link fence behind them. I think it will be OK, cuz if he tries to get out that way, there's another fence, and then another, at the ponds. He'll be stuck with a bunch of baby trout and he'll just have to feel stupid until someone notices him. (BTW, I had to remove tiny little bits of barbed wire from the top of that metal gate. Tiny, little inch long pieces had to be cut out one by one. Agh, I'm so done with this task!

My man installed our "Electric rope connector" -- a little wire connector that links a top wire with a lower wire. Uh, I guess tying the bottom wire to the top wire is not acceptable? We need a fancy device to connect the two? OK!

We got our new fence charger, and I'm a little disappointed in the user manual. It does not answer all my questions. Agh. It's name puzzles me, "Euro Guard" - apparently it's concerned with maintaining the value of the Euro. Haaehh?





Last but not least we have this European style pooper scooper. It's called a "Mist Boy", Mist being the word for crap (yes, even as a cussword!) and Boy being English, and therefore cool. It hurts my wrists to use, but they really are great at getting poop out of long grass, which I expect to have. So we now have one. I'm still curious, what do you Americans use to clean poop from your fields? What tool works best? I have a normal American manure fork that I love, that will work great on flat surfaces like my new stall and our geotile area. But what do you all use in your fields?

So, Monday the rest of our wooden fence will be built, right by our barn, which is the only "hole" left and kind of critical. It might even be Tuesday, in which case, I hope the fence gets put up before the horse gets here. It's only a 3 meter gap, but I have faith they'll get it in on time.

On Sunday the hay man calls, and hopefully has good news, like, "Yes, I can deliver some bales tomorrow!" Geez, if not, I'll have to ask our current barn owner if she'll part with some bales.

My hands are blackish and smell like rubber stall mats.