Well chalk one up for Ed.

His idea of using the corral panels to create stalls in the barn was simply fantastic! Not only is graining time 100% smoother and less traumatic, but I discovered an unexpected bonus just now. These panels have two "loops" on them where a chained bolt attaches. You place the panels end to end and slide the bolt through. So he attached the ones at the walls with eye bolts and then created three 10'x10' stalls but had the foresight to make the end one 20' (two panels) long. So we end up with something like this...

Obviously this isn't to scale and it really does all end up nice and stright.

This arrangement works because Bull gets the larger stall and should we need to give them shelter we can have several in there. But here's where it gets interesting. Today is overcast with rain off and on but I wanted to work with Fire and really miss having that round pen. Wouldn't matter because the round pen is exposed to the rain so there goes that idea. So I realized that these are all portable and swing easily. With a few simple moves and less than a minute I opened the back stall up and ended up with this.....






which gave me a 20'x20' area to work in! And should I need more space I could even open up the next stall and have a 30'x20' area! I won't be able to lunge or anything but I can groom them and work on simple things. With the dirt floors there's no distraction of grass and with the tops of the dutch doors open Fire could still see his buddies. We just had a very enjoyable 30 minute session in out of the rain! The more I work with him the more he seems to want to learn and I just couldn't be happier. I think after we geld him next month he'll get even more cooperative but he's so much better at focusing on me and trying to please. Today he learned to move his hindquarters away from me no matter where I was standing, to come with a hand movement, and to back up when I say "back". I'm just thrilled with his progress. Yesterday I even gave him a bath by myself and he stood totally still the entire time. I'm sure it helped that it was 90' and the water felt great, but considering a few short weeks ago he was trying to go up and over Brian at just the sound of the water, I'd say he's coming along quickly.

Sparky is finally venturing out of the coop on her own and Moo has learned that she can graze a distance away from her without a lion coming to attack. She still hasn't gone away as far as her favorite mud hole or the pond, but she's doing just wonderful.

The hens are in trouble. After they saw the one hen hatch the 15 chicks there's about 4 that decided to go broody. They keep talking all the other hens into laying on there clutches, which leaves us with about 5 eggs a day. And one clutch is now at about 30 eggs!

Ed has spent the weekend doing cosmetic things to the outside around the house - he cleared away a trellis that was probably 40 yrs. old and cut out metal posts that were just sticking willy nilly in the ground all over the place. It's amazing what a difference clearing out some of that stuff and trimming tree limbs can make! The patio area looks so much better now.

Heaven help us, the boys have discovered climbing. Climbing HIGH stuff. Trees, basketball goals, you name it. I hope there isn't a broken arm in our near future.

Today is a rainy dreary day and I'm going to do some housecleaning before our BBQ porkchop dinner and the evening show. Tonight's the last night of Sopranos so we'll be tuning in for that.