Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Light Bulb Moment and Blood Sucking Gnats

The fact that I am still working until this Saturday is really putting a damper on getting stuff packed and loaded. By time I get off work, take care of what ever errands need to be run, get home and do chores and fix a quick dinner it is after 8 pm and I am pretty much done for the day.

The only time I am truly motivated is in the mornings when I get up, and so I might get a few things thrown in a box, but then it is the morning chores and time to get ready for work.  So you can see that things are progressing at a snails pace.

When we didn't have any time constraints there was no pressure, but of course I had to fix that by asking one of my bestest girlfriends to fly in from Oregon to help us drive the horses and dogs down. She has been wanting to visit us, plus wanting to visit her son in Mesa, and this way she can do both. I, on the other hand liked the idea of having an extra licensed driver, one who can actually see to drive at night (which I cannot) and who can take the wheel if one of us suddenly feels like we cannot keep our eyes open. Plus one more set of hands to keep a hold of canines or equines is always a plus.

So with all that in mind, she is flying in on the 24th, but then she can only be gone a week and has already scheduled her return flight home from AZ.  That means that we have to be down and back with the second load before the 24th.  To top it off, rather than flying home for trip #2, TC has decided that he wants to bring one of the pick ups that we left down there, back to WY. It rarely gets driven, and if it is just going to be sitting, he'd rather it sat inside his fancy schmancy new garage (along with his classic cars) than in the worlds hottest sun.  It does make sense, but it means that we have to be out of here with load #2 no later than the early hours of the 16th. We are looking at no less than a 5 day trip now for sure.  Truthfully we'd like to be gone the 15th, but I don't see it happening.

MK will be here at 7:30 am on the 15th to trim everyone up, pull Killian's shoes, and probably pull Sassy's as well. (Still deciding if I want him to throw the clogs back on). So we surely are not leaving until after that.

So anyway, there we were drinking our coffee and discussing our "plans" and suddenly it hit me!  The light went on in my dark closet and suddenly all pressure was gone.

We are not selling our house in WY. We have a huge garage that already has cars and stuff in it, which our renter is perfectly OK with sharing with us. We totally trust our renter not to mess with anything of ours that is left behind.  TC will be making trips back and forth no less that every 2 months to check on his company.  Plus we have a 40 foot shipping container at his business that is specifically for storage of non-business related stuff.

IF I DON'T GET EVERYTHING LOADED, IT IS OK.  WE CAN GET IT LATER.  Duh!!!

(head towards the light Cindy, it will be ok!)

Now it was time to get moving so I went out to kick the horses out to their perspective pastures.  I have some fly spray I bought at the local feed store. It says it is good for 14 days.  So I sprayed them 2 days ago.  This morning when I turned Danny loose in the far pasture he ran straight to the loafing shed and hid there.  Trax followed suit. I tried to kick them out to eat. Then went to the grass took 2 bites and ran back to the shed being followed by swarms of blood sucking gnats. There were groups of about 20 flies riding on their backs.  I'm thinking that crap stuff doesn't work like it says. It works for maybe a day, but that is it.

I looked over to the redheads, they were having the same issues.

So I mixed up one last batch of spray and took a string out with me. I started with Killian. He acted like he was going to run, but then changed his mind. I draped the string over his neck and sprayed him down.  When I was done with him he just stood there. I turned around and there was Sassy asking for her turn. I draped the string over her neck and sprayed her down too. Then they headed out to graze.

I love how they believe that if the string is on their necks, they are stuck.

I went to the next pasture where Danny and Trax where hiding in the shed.  I figured I'd better do Trax first.  I draped the string on his neck, he moved as close as he could and dropped his head.  He didn't care for having his ears sprayed but he didn't bolt either.  When I turned him loose he made a beeline for the grass.  Danny came to me for his turn. I didn't even put the string on him. He stood there anxious to get some relief from the pesky bugs.  When I was done he looked back at me as if to say, "More please?" so I sprayed him some more. When he felt he was sufficiently saturated he bounced off to join Trax.

I went inside and looked at the clock.  It was 7:45, I have to be to work by 8.  I had just enough time to throw some make up on a brush my teeth.  I sit here at my desk now reeking of fly spray.

On the bright side, I won't be bothered by flies today....or people.

As I left for work I looked toward the pasture and this was what I saw


Happy ponies chowing down.

5 comments:

  1. Love the pic. Looks a wonderful place to live.

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  2. That is kinda nice to have a relief for not having to get everything done at once. Will be kinda nice to have a friend come down to, even though it will be kinda busy will still be lots of time for visiting.

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  3. That's great that you don't have stress too much to get stuff moved. But it still sounds like a lot to deal with!

    My fly spray says it lasts 14 days too, but it doesn't. I wonder if you're supposed to bathe them first so you're not spraying it onto dust and then the dust falls off. I'm not gonna do that. But I still love my fly spray, because it does work. Some of them seem to attract flies! And bees!

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  4. HATE the flies this year. No gnats, thank goodness, as it's been too dry, but that doesn't seem to stop the flies. I've been using Pyranha, which is reasonably effective - at least it's no worse than most of the ones I've tried, but they still need to be sprayed at least twice a day, and on still days they'd prefer to stay in the barn....

    Glad to hear you'll be able to take it somewhat easy moving and will have a third driver. Good friends are great to have :)

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