We spent our break diving into a few COVID postponed maintenance work around the center. Of course it was like tackling your own home to-do list, it grew five minutes after starting and as soon as you open the wall you realize that the job is going to be bigger than expected!
First project was our weathered, well-worn mounting ramps! Thank you to Jim T, Brian, Scott, Charles, Linda, Lisa, Joan and Penny for all your help making our new ramp a work of art! Jim T redesigned our ramps from the bottom up and fabricated a new metal top which will withstand weather, wheelchairs, volunteers and hundreds of participants, for many long years into the future.
Next up was our Round Pen. Thanks to our amazing donor Sandy Johnson, we were finally able to replace the old footing with layers of fabulous materials, each layer packed down, and a top layer of silky sand…all designed and installed by Thad Carr and Sons! No one is going to mind lunging in there…or is it lounging?! This gives us space for our Veterans and our more advanced students to increase their horsemanship skills.
Eagle Scout Danny chose us for his project and did a great job excavating a hillside, adding a retaining wall, and packing in several layers of base material for a new outdoor space for Stall #7. WOW! This will be the luxury suite every therapy horse will want after a long day working with our students, alumni, and veterans! Thank you also to Linda, Charles, Theresa, and Jim T.
Fresh sand everywhere! We had extra sand after completing the Round Pen so Thad spread it around to our covered arena and the lower arena, which ended up being our “bigger than expected” job. Yep, dug down to reinforce the wall and found lots of rot. Hands on hips, we have some re-evaluating to do while checking our maintenance budget. But we still continued our projects with fresh paint and trail cleanup, mulching, & weeding. And at the end of the week Ivy & GoGo felt they too had helped out enough to join the lunch table! Thank you to our inspiring and hard working volunteers who made a daunting list of projects disappear! Linda, Jim T, Brian, Charles, Cindy, Lindsay, Jen, Penny, Theresa, Eagle Scout Danny, Scott, Lisa, Joan…and our 4 legged gals, who are also inspiring & hard-working!
