Thanksgiving...and a whole lot more

For some reason my Thanksgiving post never published??   Not sure what happened but I will never be able to recreate it so I will provide the edited version now...a week late!

HP Haven was blessed with guests for Thanksgiving dinner.   My folks, family friends Wendy and Mark and their daughter Cathy and her husband, Derok and daughter Emily.   Emily was a delight to have on the farm for a ride on Emma.   It turned out to be a family affair and Emma took almost everyone for a ride that afternoon!

Here is Emily...

I tad blurry but here is the Thanksgiving Buffet!

DH spent some time on Thanksgiving fixing one of the low spots in the base of the arena footing.   After removing the sand last fall we levelled the base but we think there has been some underground settling and this corner sunk.   One other spot is a bit "mushy" that we will test ride and then decide about a fix.

You can see from this picture that this corner dropped several inches. 

(note the shadow under the board)

Thanksgiving was also a weekend with some rain so the "boys" spent some time inside the lower bank barn starting to fill in the old manure trench.   At this side of the barn it's about 2 feet deep...at the opposite corner it's about 3 feet deep for the flow.   This barn was previously used as a hog barn.

Moving on to the current weekend...We had a day of cold rain on Saturday.   I got half of a 12K run in but got totally soaked on the 6K return home.   Oh well...it was worth it!   :-)

This was also the first weekend for a fire...nothing like a wood fireplace.   (Nothing like the dust they create either!!)  :-)

This weekend also marks the arrival of a little surprise from my folks!

A second tractor and a manure spreader.   Both in excellent condition.

Thanks Dad and Mom...it's going to be very handy having 2 tractors...cuz I find I never get any time anymore on the Kubota!!!

Since a lot of my life revolves around food and when I get to eat next...I made cabbage rolls for the first time.  Thank you Kim for sharing your recipe.   They are delicious.

My second load of hay arrived this weekend.    It's beautiful grass hay.   The horses will love this in the dead of winter.   DH and I put the full load in the barn and moved the first cut that will get fed first to the lower barn for easier access and to make room for the final load that will arrive in the next week or so.  That will be enough hay to get us to spring grass in 2014.

And as I was up on the top of the wagon to through down the load, I couldn't help but be intrigued by how the change in elevation changes the perspective of the arena.   I was high enough to stand between the roof trusses.

DH spent the afternoon organizing the upper bank barn and cleaning the elevated loft area so that we can start using it for storage.   Looks good.   Slowly but surely we are getting all the buildings cleaned out and filled back up with our own junk!