Ranch Life

 I don't do a lot on the ranch anymore. With Tia's success, she has a few people she's hired, and the boys are pitching in since they live with us. That's great, and it reduces my stress. The boys have replaced trailer tires and the UTV throttle cable this year, which were a big help for me.

However, there are some things I still do. And some things that the boys don't know how to do. Today was a mixed chore day for me. Early morning yoga, then coming back and helping. An employee is out of town, so I had hay yesterday and today. A good hour of work there, and I noticed a few things, so that motivated me to fix a couple things today.

First was replacing a few of the threaded rods in the arena. These hold the fabric down by bracing a metal pole neat the bottom. Sometimes they get loose and the wind will wiggle them and snap one off. Learning to do this was an interesting chore, as I had to drill out the part of the screw that's in the base and then tap out new threads. Youtube to the rescue, and now I know to grab the drill, some oil, and the tapper.

I've replaced 5 this winter, 2 today. One was just loose and I could screw it back down. The other was quite a ways in there when it snapped, and I had to work to drill it out. Managed to make a nice blister on my palm, even with gloves.

Then it was off to replace a couple of the fence posts that were broken. We've started to fill them with wood rather than dig out and replace vinyl where possible. Two to fix today, dropping in wood and using some duct tape to brace the broken vinyl.

The last thing was resetting up my driveway markers. The ground is relatively soft now, but I do expect more snow before summer, so I picked up a few fallen ones and pushed the others deeper into the ground.

Not a huge day, but semi productive and I'm tired. Ranch work wears me out as I rarely do it and I'm not used to all the walking, bending, etc.