The Green Horseman

2023 Escaped me. 

I fell behind in a lot of areas. Since my injury I was unable to clean paddocks as routinely as I normally do. My friend helped me keep the stone areas tidy but vacuuming the other areas was out of the question.  It is embarrassing how bad it got in some areas, but I only have 2 horses living on a total of 5 acres so they could get away from the worst areas, and the stone areas kept them from standing around in it. I’ve been to FAR worse situations.

My foot still has some pain, but every day gets better. Since the beginning of December, I was able to operate without a medical boot. I could get my foot (albeit painfully) into a muck boot. I was still VERY gimpy though. December was spent staying on top of the horses’ stone areas and filling my holiday orders on time for Wahbee’s Woodworking. Still not 100% but that’s about all I could do in addition to my return to work at my real job.

After Christmas I struggled to find decent weather during the days I had off. It was too wet or too cold. Finally, just this week after New Years I had my chance. The weather was reasonably dry and in the 30’s. The first day I took out 8 vacuum loads of manure. The second day I did 5 loads. In total it was a couple thousand pounds worth. I reset the rubber mats in the run-in shed that Nahe likes to kick around as he lays in his bed and threw down some lime. 

FINALLY. After six months I’ve finally caught up with my sacrifice area. The pastures aren’t terrible since they are large and have had ample time so I will drag those later.

My workshop…the garage…has also been a nightmare. When we first moved in we began to store bits of wood and scraps inside the garage. Over the years it has stayed there…. most of it not meeting my needs for what I do. Add to that the scraps that I can use but not right now….and the sawdust from all of my projects (I have no dust collection system). In short, the garage was a nightmare. I have been embarrassed of it for a long time. My plan was to get past the holidays and then spend a day tidying it.

This past week I asked Zac for a hand to make the cleaning process go faster. As a team we work a lot better and he also has things in the garage to put back in order. We went out there expecting to tidy….but instead, we went for an overhaul.

Over the next 8 hours we took everything out of the garage. All the tools. All the wood. We dusted the walls. We rearranged the location of everything. Reorganized. We removed 3 full trash cans of saw dust and unusable scrap. We started filling one of our wagons with burnable scrap. We stacked usable scrap in order of type and dimension.

We made sense of Zac’s automotive tools. We made my workflow space easier to use. Instead of cutting something on the miter saw and walking to the other side of the garage to the workbench I now can cut and turn around…and my workbench is right there. When we first organized the garage I wasn’t woodworking so as we added to it we put things where they fit. Now things have a place and purpose.

I still have to sort through my scrap material, but we can walk easily into the garage now. I only need to get a dust collector!

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My shoulders feel lighter already now that I have a better handle on my paddocks and my garage. My house still needs cleaning but that shall come. My next plan is to finally declutter and sell the horse stuff I don’t use so I can buy Stanley and I a saddle that fits BOTH of us!