Summer at Diana's 2017

It's been interesting getting to know Diana's arabian, Pumpkin.  She's put her nose into many of my handyman projects around the property.  A few weeks ago, I decided to put better latches on the barn door, which holds her food and hay.  She would often nose the door open and help herself, and have to be helped out of the cluttered area.  This day, she watched my work intently.  When she tried the door afterwards, it didn't budge.  I said to myself, "Job well done", and moved on.

The next day I was having a pleasant walk around the yard, and Pumpkin followed me around, "nosing" me into things.  She does that occasionally, but this time she was persistent and annoying.  I thought, what is going on with this horse?  Then it clicked.  The first thing she pushed me into was the newly locked barn door.  Mystery solved.  She had her own opinion about my handyman work.

I've never really gotten to know a horse before, though I've started riding lessons a couple of times.  I didn't feel comfortable with the horse or the instructor either time, and quit them shortly.  Since I've gotten comfortable working around Pumpkin, I decided to have another go at horse riding.  And I wanted to do it bareback and really feel the horse.

Diana treated me like a first time rider, walked us around on a lead, as she has done many times with young children.  She told me to loosen my hips like I was belly dancing and move with the horse.  Perfect instructions.  I settled in quite comfortably.  After walking several times around the pasture, she handed me the lead and we walked and briefly trotted.    It was the nicest horse experience I've had.  Trotting did not feel like popping corn.

After our ride, Pumpkin let off some steam and trotted and cantered around the pasture.  Fun to watch.  I'm going to have to ride her some more next year!!  It was a blast

Last months Lyme medications.  The cure is Almost worse than the disease

Jean has struggled this summer with Lyme disease, which she caught in late spring in a Missouri state park.  Since we were lucky enough to find a lyme doc in Colorado (they are few and far between), our travelling plans were cancelled and we came down to Canon City to stay with our friend, Diana.  That has suited us just fine - an attractive rural setting, fun animals, and a pleasant and undemanding friend as our hostess.

Our front window view.  Pumpkin enjoys the corner fan we put up for her - and my poor sailing kayak is beached

We continued our pruning project this year.  The property has a large variety of mature trees, but many were planted too close,  causing die offs of limbs, and sometimes whole trees.  So we've been cutting out dead wood, thinning and shaping the trees.  It's a fun, artistic process to spot the symmetry and beauty in a tangled, half dead tree.  Creating space and light in a dense overgrowth.

So many nice copses, each dominated by different varieties of trees - ashes, junipers, maples, walnuts.  Diana's brother Pat used dead juniper limbs to create a rustic garden path fence

Pumpkin can graze the front yard now, where it was difficult even for a person to walk, due to low hanging branches

All good things must come to an end, and our summer here is wrapping up.  About a week ago, I had the inspiration to put a new motion light on the back porch, and a new barn dusk to dawn light, so Diana could navigate better coming home in the evenings.  Didn't sound like too bad a job on the list  "Diana porch and barn light".  Uh huh....

While working on the light, I noticed the garage/barn had 220 volts and a 100 amp circuit breaker.  What!?  That's enough juice for a small to medium sized house full of appliances!  So I began tracing the generations of cable hiding behind storage boxes and cobwebs.  And found - 100 Amp hot wires clipped off and hanging loose, open grounds, wiring connected only with tape, fraying insulation...  

I couldn't sleep that night.

The next day I ripped out all of the garage wiring.  And the next 2 long days were spent creating one 20 amp outlet circuit and 15 amp lighting circuit.  Diana will no longer be able to arc weld in her garage, nor hopefully be electrocuted.  It's turned this last week into a bit of a marathon - not my favored pace in retirement.  But today, I finished, and everything works and checks out. 

 Ahhh...  I can sleep again.

My favorite piece of wiring- the stuff of nightmares.  1940s wiring here, I'd guess.  Like in many old farm houses and barns.  220V - 100A (enough juice to weld) -  joined with tape, and one end of the wires hanging loose in the air.  That couldn't be a problem, right?

One half of wiring done with Diana's cleaning help

Other half done, but still slightly cluttered  ;-)

We'll be leaving in a few days for a park in the foothills east of San Diego.  We have a new lyme doc for the fall through spring there, and hopefully this chapter will be behind us.