Winter storm

There wasn't much going on today, except the rain, which started at 2pm, and is expected to continue until Saturday.

I dreamed that the reason my car (the TA) wouldn't work is because of a fan belt, and I was so happy that it was an easy fix. In the dream, I kept driving in the wrong direction to get to the mechanic.
In real life, it's not the fan belt. Anyway, that one is new... Maybe the Toyota? The TA once had trouble stalling like that, among all the 1001 things I had fixed on it. I just can't remember why. I think it is something to do with smog equipment.

It was a strange feeling to have the front tires break loose in the rain instead of the rears. I miss having those hair raising moments with the TA.

I also did go to the barn. Denise had put up tarps everywhere.














There's a large public arena in a park on the other side of the dry lake bed.
(This is facing the dry lake and mostly land the city might use to make their arena.) A week of rain means a month of mud at the big arena. For some people who keep their horses in their backyard, it is all they have to turn out their horses for excercise.

If this tarp works, it'll be the largest dry turn out space all around. People are already bugging to use it, but it's private property. Since Denise moved here last year has been unable to give lessons due to a lack of permit, or something, mostly because the place was built fairly recently. If that changes she will be happy to give lessons here at last.

The property owner has a deal with a tree man, who dumps extra wood chips and they get spread around like mulch. Most of the property and driveway are covered with this mulch. Only the finest chips can be mixed with dirt in the arena. Larger chips float to the top and make the dirt slippery. Because it may contain toxic plants it is not used as bedding in the stalls.
(Because of pollution laws, horse poo can't be composted and the city has to take it away in trash cans.)


Here are some old mulched christmas trees that they dumped earlier this week, turning into compost. We were sitting around in the rain, and all of a sudden they just started to smell, and steam was rising up. Compost can get up to 170 degrees, and everyone came around to see how hot the piles were! With the rain there shouldn't be a fire danger. The heat helps turn the wood chips into dirt.