I’m often told I remind people of this person, or of that actor. Last night the Wendy’s drive-thru lady actually went and got a fellow co-worker and said “Lord! Don’t he look like Steven Segal! You look like Steven Segal!!” and they were whooping and hollering. It got us all laughing, even my daughter Chloe, who thankfully has no idea who they’re talking about. Since Steven Segal can’t manage a smile I thought I’d affect a Segal-like glare and take this photograph. I suppose I could pass as his love child but I have an overbite and good ‘ol Steven has an underbite. We’re distant cousins at best  Oh well, I suppose I can’t complain. The drive thru lady could have said “Lord! Don’t he look like Woody Allen! You look like Woody Allen!!” lol

That’s what I’ve affectionately named our 2008 Ford F-350 Lariat. Here Ferdinand proudly shows off his new Leer cap. After 1,200 miles in the new truck, we are very, very pleased with its towing characteristics and ride quality. It is so much nicer than our 2005 Dodge 1500SLT Hemi.

This truck rides on monster 20” rims and heavy duty tires. Without a person standing by the truck it’s hard to get a sense of scale, but the truck is huge. The roofline is about 6’8” tall. The roof rack is probably 7’. Before the cap was installed the truck could BARELY fit in a car wash. With the cap installed, I’m not so sure

Oddly enough we’re getting better MPG with this 7,300 pound truck then we were in our half ton Dodge. It’s still a far cry then the 47mpg we enjoy in our Toyota Prius…. but then, we can’t tow horses with our Prius

Even though there is still an enormous amount of landscaping and pasture renovation left to be done, I’ve made enormous progress over the past two years and its nice on sunny afternoons to just sit back and admire the views.

A maple tree hugged by creeping periwinkle is in the foreground, while in the background at left, masses of leafy azaleas and blooming butterfly bushes. At right are my large boxwood balls, crouching along some wildflower volunteers. Behind the wildflowers are three waning purple plumb trees that are the last of a dozen such trees that originally followed the line of boxwoods towards our Wisteria trellis. In the fall, I’ll be cutting them down and planting a dozen young purple plumbs. We considered replacing them with something like Crepe Myrtles, but the purple plumb leaf color is the perfect counterpart to the cool tones of surrounding plants.

This is our 8 acre hidden valley field. Unused except to admire during trail rides or gator rides, or family hikes. I bushhogged this field several weeks ago and cleared hundreds more encroaching young undesirable trees. Each time I visit this pasture with the bushhog I leave it a little larger than I found it. By next year it will be returned to its original size.

My little balls of boxwood goodness, thriving despite being chucked up out of the ground with brute force and help from my backhoe, and transplanted in a neat line following the brick path. Hopefully before long I’ll be able to get something started in the garden beds behind them this year, but I suspect I’ll only have time to prep the beds this Fall for next year’s Spring plantings.

Our evergreen mound, lately overrun by weeds has recently been given a trim around the ears. In the newly mowed areas, I can see in my mind’s eye a zen rock garden that I’ve vowed to get underway this summer. Visible in the background, down in the valley, you can see the road being graded that will become Deerberry Lane, one of two roads in the upcoming Cahas Green subdivison. If you’re looking for gorgeous 5 acre horse friendly lots, then give Cindy Loyd a call (540-344-7765). Ask her about the Cahas Green subdivision and tell her that the mad scientist Sean Pecor led you in her direction!

Recently I’ve been renovating our outdoor Dressage arena. This project first began a few months ago when I went online to Premier Equestrian’s online store and ordered up a Plantation style ring. The boxes were delivered promptly and sat for months while I worked my way around to this project.

Pictured directly below is the outdoor BEFORE renovation. The original outdoor ring around the arena was of solid wood construction. It was about 13 years old and it looked about 20 years old. Furthermore, wooden posts make for particularly hard landings should horse or rider suffer a fall.

Pictured below is the fully renovated outdoor ring!  

The project wasn’t easy. The first task was to pull the old posts and gather up the debris and load it into a 30’ garbage container. Next it was staking the new boundaries for the footing. Both the short and long sides of the original arena were shy of regulation size by several feet. I also wanted to add 4’ to each side to create a 2’ buffer around the arena where the ring would ultimately be installed. There was ALOT of sod in the way of my goal. So once both sets of boundary corners were staked (the arena corners and the ring corners), I set up masonry string on the outside stakes and painted a guiding line using landscape marker paint. With the masonry string removed, I was able to guide my edger along the line to cut the sod all the way around the arena. Then I used my larger tractor’s FEL to cut back the sod from the edged line. This was the easiest part of the entire job, on account of me being able to sit on my arse and feather peddles and levers for a couple of hours. Then the laborious task of plucking up chunks of sod and hauling tons of the stuff away began in earnest. With that task complete, the grading began. With grading complete, I was then able to set the ring up around the arena. Installing the ring took an entire morning in the hot sun but the final product was just awesome. What an improvement. Thumbs up!

Recently I’ve put some work into improving both the boarder tack room and Nancy’s tack room. Pictured above is Nancy’s tackroom. I installed the dual cabinet countertop this morning. It was my first countertop installation from start to finish and it turned out surprisingly good. The only thing I managed to mess up during this job was my thumb.

My right thumb, jammed last weekend by a 24’ ladder as it slid in my wet hands (it was raining out, and I was in a hurry, OSHA be damned!) was almost done with being tender and in a twist of fate and irony I nearly managed to skewer my left thumb with my 18v Bosch driver. If you look closely you can see a star shaped phillips pattern  This will not be my first star shaped phillips patterned scar. I think I need to hang up my big ass 18v Brute tough Bosch driver and stick to my standard Bosch drivers. They’re better balanced in my hand.

Nancy and the girls left for West Virginia on Friday and – as is tradition when I’m left alone to my own devices – I start outside work shortly after sunrise and continue working until shortly before sunset. With Nancy preparing for and managing SWVADA’s recognized Dressage show in late May, and various end-of-school-year activities. It was impossible to keep up with basic landscape maintenance.

We’ve had a few gully washer rain showers during the past two weeks and each rain has – frustratingly – brought an inch of water into the horse barn aisle. I didn’t have time to investigate until Friday. What I discovered proved to be a lesson learned. Roundabout January I had cleared out the 600’ of rain gutters encircling our three barns and had assumed I was done with that chore until the following year. Not so. A late frost early in the Spring that had wilted many leaves – and a subsequent windstorm – had clogged nearly every gutter completely. So on Friday – in between thunderstorms – I hustled around the barn with my 24’ aluminum ladder and hand shoveled gobs of leaf debris out of the gutters. I love having mature trees provide protection on the northern exposure of the barns; cleaning gutters is a small price to pay for the beauty and protection of the nearby trees. I just need to keep in mind that I may need to clean the gutters twice annually instead of just once

After cleaning the gutters, I lawn mowed around the barns and the farm proper and finished up outside work at roundabout 8pm. Saturday morning I was up at 6am and outside by 7am, helping with AM horse chores. After leveling the indoor arena footing, I cleaned up some debris around the barns and started mowing the +/– 4 acres of lawn surrounding the house. As usual it’s alot of yard to mow but it takes less than 90 minutes on my John Deere 2210 w/ 62” deck. Then it was on to weeding and edge trimming around the barns and the house. This being the first such chore of the season meant the weeds were profuse and mature. It took 4 hours. I’ll tell ya, I’m in pretty good shape and have a healthy serving of “country muscle” but 4 hours non-stop is a long time to grapple with a commercial duty weed trimmer. When it came time to run the leaf blower, I was happy to be finished yard work for the day!