More Work, but Inside

With the growth of my wife’s training business, we’ve ended up with more horses. As you might expect, they don’t all get along. We ended up separating them in different pastures, which brought about another problem.

Water.

We had one of the buckets freeze during the cold CO winter, and when we dumped it, we had quite the blog of ice.

Fortunately my wife had started me on a solar water heater. I used a plan from Gary at Build It Solar. Here’s what I ended up with.

We filled it one morning, had a 25F day, and overnight the temp dropped to around 4-5F. The next morning there was a thin layer of ice, but not much more than was in the tank with the 250W heater.

A success, which is good, but just sends me on to the next project.

The Honey-Do List is Growing

It’s almost time for winter. We’ve had a few cold nights and I blew out the sprinklers, but this year I’ve got more projects to do, and because of horses.

My wife is working full time with horses and horse people, so that means more horsey-related activity at the ranch. Apart from the normal fence breaking the horses keep us busy with, I’ve been handed a few improvement chores.

My list this fall is a new track, and a new shelter. I’ve started on the shelter, and fortunately had a little help.

Unfortunately that also means I need to find time to measure the sides for metal, order it, pick it up (way up north), trim it (sparks are always fun) and then screw it to the frame.

Fortunately this is 9 feet in the air, so a tumble won’t be too hard.