Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Hay, house, horse

I got a ton of grass hay delivered today. Same stuff I've been feeding, from the same farmer. I traded back four of my five bales of alfalfa mix, too - I'm saving one bale for rides, but there's just no way I'll ever feed up five bales of alfalfa in a year! Much less in three months.

The farmer was perfectly happy to take it back and gave me full credit for it. He's got a real love/hate reputation in the horse community - I've met several people who can't stand him and swear they'll never use him again, but I've had nothing but good experiences with him and his hay. There's one moldy flake about every 10 bales, which seems like a fine ratio to me.

I still had this fall's receipt laying in the barn. My hay went up $.25/bale (100 lb bales) over the winter. Seems fair - if I'd had the money to buy a full year's worth (and wanted to take up that much space in the barn) I'd have saved a little money; as it is he kept it barn-stored all winter and I paid an extra $5. (I'm pretty sure the delivery charge went up, but that's to be expected with $4/gallon gas.)

I also had a realtor/property manager come look at the house. We should be able to rent it out for a tiny profit or a tiny loss, which is ok either way. There aren't a lot of small rental horse properties in Reno, which will help. I need to finish what I'm working on and do a few things I hadn't thought of, but nothing enormous. I'm painting the Dr. Seuss room, and I've primed the trim in the cat room. I need to replace the broken double gates with some new fence, and do something about the deck above where the pool used to be - which will lead to repairing/replacing a section of very rickety fence by that corner of the deck. Right before I vacate, I'll get some carpet cleaner guys in here - they can clean the carpets, stretch the lumpy den carpet, and patch the little hole by the door in the blue bedroom. Of course I have to get the bent garage door panel replaced. And the PM said, gasp, that I should replace the closet doors in the master bedroom!

When we bought the house we were appalled at the 8' sliding mirrored closet doors. We immediately referred to them as the Porn Doors and I had those things down and out before we even moved in. (Redneck admission: they are still leaning up against the side of the house. Keep forgetting to offer them for free on CL or take them to the dump.) I know I took the tracks to the metal recycling place, so there's really no way to reinstall the Original Porn Doors. What a pity. :rolleyes: I will measure the gap and price out sliders or folders at HD and install whatever sounds easiest in a couple months.

So what do you prefer? It's a wide shallow closet, not a full walk-in or a deep narrow closet. Mirrored doors, plain doors, folding doors, no doors - what would you do? We prefer having no doors at all, but maybe that's unusual!


Horse: Dixie is fine fine fine. She is getting curious about why I'm ignoring her. I haven't told her that we're going to try the 50 at High Desert this weekend! She's mostly shed out, and I have a Ride Slow Electrolyte Heavy plan. HD has an away vet check, which might help us - the 50s ride out for 30 miles, eat lunch and vet, then ride back for 20. I think that might work better psychologically for her than riding quite far enough thank you, coming back to camp, and then being expected to leave again. I'm going to keep an eye on my lap speed on the GPS and try to stay around 5.5 average and shoot to get to the lunch check no earlier than 1 pm - there's a shorter hold at 15 miles but I'm not sure for how long.

Since it's all away from camp, Cersei gets to stay home. It would be a very very long boring day for her - she might as well be bored on the couch. M will come by and feed her and check on the rest of the critters.

I have an equine nutrition video to review, but I just haven't had time. If it's cool I'll do a giveaway. I will probably be in the perfect mood to watch it on Sunday!

I have gone back to glamorous work to fuel my extravagant lifestyle of e-rides and broken shit around the house. Yesterday I folded 432 sheets of paper in a very precise fashion. (I didn't actually count, but I was so bored that I did the math to figure it out.) Tomorrow I get to fold more paper! Then a month long paralegal temp thing which I somehow landed even though I refused to work on Friday. Look, money's nice and all, but I have priorities.

18 comments:

  1. Commendable work! 8 foot sliding glass doors?Mmm?...Anyhow, are you moving? leaving Reno? Whats happening, I must have missed something!

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  2. You will sell those mirrors quick smart to someone with an arena that is even slightly dressage-y. If I were not on the opposite side of the world I would snap them up before you could say 'want some mirrors?'.

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  3. I would have gotten rid of the Porn Doors pronto too. Yuck!

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  4. "Look, money's nice and all, but I have priorities."

    OMG..LMAO...C.l.a.s.s.i.c!!! I had to tell them at that waitressing job that as much as I liked working again, Saturday's and Sundays just weren't going to happen until winter. They stopped calling (shrugs).

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  5. Wow, you've been really busy! Glad to hear that Dixie's doing well even if she has no idea what's coming. ;) As for renting/selling a house, it's amazing the things the realtors tell you to do/fix, isn't it? But hopefully it will rent out ASAP and you'll make a tiny profit, or at least break even. Also, keep track of all of your expenses, since they're tax deductible on rentals.

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  6. Oh...forgot...You can always buy replacement tracks for the glass doors. I've seen it at Lowes. I'd just put them back up if it's cheaper.

    LOL-Our other house had those in the master bedroom too. I guess it was handy...didn't have to have a separate full-length mirror, but I've always preferred folding doors.

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  7. Tell me more about folding 432 papers, like...why???

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  8. I'm glad you have your priorities in the proper place, gal!

    My (former) boss looked at me like I was NUTS for refusing to work Sundays (at the time, they paid time-and-a-half for Sunday shifts), but hey: Thursdays thru Sundays are for RIDING!

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  9. I dislike sliding closet doors because they always seem to come off the track with me. Having said that, I dislike bi-fold doors as I've pinched my finger(s) in them numerous times. The house we put an offer in on has doors that swing out, two to a closet. Would something like that work for your closet?

    And I agree with BECG, if you can replace the track, I'd just put the Porn doors back up. It'll save you money.

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  10. The new look on your blog...love love love it! Very peaceful. ~E.G.

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  11. I don't mind mirrored closet doors as it does make a room look larger and lighter. I dislike bifold doors intensely (though that's what I have) because, well, they just bug me. That, and the cat always jumps to the top of the bifold when they are open and then I can't close it without ending up with claw marks all down the wood.

    But if I was getting a house ready to rent out? I'd just get some new track and stick the mirrors back up.

    Definitely, I don't like closets without doors - I'm too much of a neat freak for that, and my closet NEVER looks neat!

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  12. way way way behind here.. my apologies, I do want to visit more but can't find the time to find the time it seems!! Your moving? Didn't you just move in?? What's going on? Where ya goin now??
    On the job thing.. I am envious. I wish I could choose not to work. I have not hardly done any riding this spring yet... too many hours behind the desk, on conference calls, earning that paycheck.. I like your comment on priorities.. maybe I need to reassess mine!

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  13. LOL!! I wish I could tell my boss to stick it... I work every Saturday or every Sunday. :(

    Good luck with the house and good luck on the ride!!

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  14. I'm with you on the porn doors. That's exactly how I'd see them too.

    Sounds like you have a good ride plan. I'm sure Dixie will appreciate not being confused by riding into and then back out of camp like that.

    I need to find a job even with my priorities and that really sucks. Folding paper precisely might just work for me though. LOL

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  15. We don't have closet doors at all. It's kind of nice to just stand there and look in the full light of day for something to wear. In fact we even have a glass door on our commercial refrigerator so I can stare at it without opening the door.

    I have NEVER gotten my home fixed up the way I want it until just before selling it to someone else.

    Bill

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  16. A friend is looking for mirrors for her arena, but it is pricey. Of course you are too far away, but like others said - I would Craigs list them with $$ attached.

    Is your house investment property? I thought it was a keeper?

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  17. Ok, finally got a minute!

    Chey & Tammy - we're renting out the Reno house and moving to CA and renting a house there for a couple years.

    Great idea about selling the Porn Doors for someone's arena! I think I'd rather just put up doors I don't hate that don't weigh 100 lbs each, even if I end up spending some money on them. Track doors are such a nightmare new in box, I can't imagine trying to find a new top track and wrestling those heavy awful things back in the house and fighting to reinstall them.

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes to look at one's clothing! It actually encourages me to use the closet, instead of cramming my 5 favorite outfits in oen drawer of my dresser, LOL.

    After tomorrow, I'll work Fridays til the job is done - it's 3-4 weeks. I just wasn't going to rearrange my life to work this Friday! After this job, I'll need a week or two off to put the fence back up, arrange a garage door dude, hang some closet doors, etc. The extra money will be nice, as long as I don't break anything else in the meantime!

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  18. Oh, paper folding - it was a 2 day job to help a mining support company get 18 copies of a truly enormous end-of-year report ready. Copies to the EPA, to the local community, to state agencies, etc. A lot of the appendices were 11x17 maps that needed to be folded so they'd fit in a 3 ring binder. Probably 1000-1500 pages by the time we were done, but I didn't try to count the second day!

    MiKael - check out Officeteam/Accountemps. It's not a lot of money, but you can make it pretty flexible - I can say "I can't work next Tuesday" or "I need a week off" and they're fine with it.

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