Ever so close...

So. Close.

Yep. That is right. We are closer. So much closer to having my ponies here! We had 32 tons of sand delivered on Friday, and they promptly dumped it in an area where it was not needed...thank goodness for having a tractor in the family. Because, I may have muscles galore (ha!) but I am not capable of moving 32 tons of sand in the allotted time. Just no.

Giant goathead free butt resting area!

Meatball Mountain!

But the dogs enjoyed the crap out of the sand mountain in the backyard.

Because hot fence and dead vines isn't a fire hazard....

So far, we have placed the boards up along the bottom of the shelter, so there shall be no slicing of legs on metal. I spent all of Sunday morning clearing old grape vines off of the hot wire fence in the back. That took a lot more work than I expected, and my traps were a burnin' but it was alright. Blake was busy fixing a part of the fence where the neighbor goats had jumped over. And then went to work digging out a tree that was trying to grow half on our side of the wooden fence, and half on the neighbors.

1950 Ferguson. Only falls apart sometimes.

Again, thankful for tractors. The only way to get that stump out of the ground was with mad tractor muscle. And it succeeded.

Oh, hello there Vlad. You fiery Romanian. 

We were later joined by other friends for added muscle. The tractor savvy Ross did all of the tractor work, while computer science boy Robby helped Blake with various other projects, and electrical engineer Vlad helped me with the sand. We got the pens filled with sand, and started to work on the arena, when all of the sudden one of the boys decided it would be fun to light the pasture on fire.

I was somewhat ok with this, because it was filled with tall dead grass, and the tractor could not drag through all of it. Robby had experience with controlled burning, and I had plenty of trust in him. It was the others I was worried about. College boys + torch and propane tank= NO. But, I let them do it.

Here is one of those houses from 2008. About 9 houses away from me.

Robby had it planned out, I had a mild panic attack (note: my house was in between a massive fire back in 2008, where 19 houses were destroyed) and realized it was going just fine. I even went out and supervised and added side weeds to the flames. And then we added all of the grape vines, and the wind picked up a little bit at the same time, and smoke rose, and then we heard some sirens....

Jesus fricken damnit.

I play in the ring of fire!

We all froze. And the fire truck drove right past us. And that is when I called it quits. I forced the boys to put the fire out, and they pouted, but I didn't care. Good news is, the tractor could now get a good bite of the earth and drag it around. Which will make seeding a heck of a lot better.

No more dead grass napping for the moo.

We then regrouped, and started adding sand to the arena area. My arena will only be about 50x50', but it will be better than nothing. My eyes started to light up, and all of the boys could see how excited I was for this to be happening. I worked on the arena until nightfall. And then turned on our super cool lights that may allow me to ride at night in the summer, and kept going. My arms and back hated me, but I didn't care.

Arena!

All we have left now is to finish up the sides of the pens, get the hot wire completely connected and working, bring hay, and bring two ponies! I have my fingers crossed that it will be this weekend!

YAAAAAAY!!!!!

And the endless sand pile is still being endless.