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Monday, September 22, 2014

where there's smoke


All weekend riding and outdoor activity was curtailed by the terrible King Fire. While about 40 miles away, the smoke is very bad, leaving ash on cars and the air not suitable for man or beast. 
Major on Neighborhood watch, mouth full of hay. Can't do it on an empty stomach!
So Major got a little handwalk, and that's it. I did some housekeeping. (No, not actual house cleaning, that's even less fun!) I had picked up some alfalfa, Major helped himself to the food truck.

This food truck serves alfalfa hay, grass hay pellets and beet pulp!

I reorganized the trailer. How can one short camping trip make it such a mess? Plus, there was sap everywhere. The pine trees had been dripping all over, and I tracked it all over the place. Now a clean trailer, less sticky!


I even cleaned my saddlebags! Only one bendy carrot, not yet moldy, quite an improvement!
gumby carrot

Then I customized the bags a little. The little white pulls were fraying (ok, two were fraying, after many years of service. I just wanted an excuse to orange it up a little!) so I changed the pulls to orange. Every little bit helps.
serviceable white

now orange, or a halloween saddle bag!

At the end of the day, Major helped with the food truck cleanup.

just one more lick, please!

I needed to find somewhere inside to hide from the smoke. My house is was already filled with it, so how about the thrift store? I'll search for a costume (never too early for Halloween. Managed to find about 80% of my costume!).

scary black stallion, tiny foundered zebra, encephalitic white horse

unloved unicorn

ahhh, so damn scary! This is fully half of the toy isle.

One more stop, a mecca of sorts. It still had an odd smell, like the fire and also the thrift store, but I think a delicious one: used books. This store is crazy with ridiculous piles (maybe they should stop accepting books?), but if you have the time, you can find some great reads.

this is just part of the sci-fi/fantasy section!

A small pile of books in hand, I hid elsewhere the rest of the weekend, watching football and barely checking on my horse. I feel bad for him out in this air too, there will be no riding till it clears. I saw some cyclists and runners out exercising, that's crazy. The Lake Tahoe Iron Man was cancelled, but of more concern is all those firefighters, more than 5,500 on the fire lines. The fire isn't expanding as quickly as before, but it's still actively burning, 87,000 acres, only 18% contained.

All those acres, all those trails, all those animals, all that destroyed. My small weekend is petty in return, but it's all I can do to hope for the fire to quiet and the horizon to clear.

smokey sunrise

11 comments:

  1. I'm mostly being good at just being grateful the fire isn't physically closer, but yep, totally smoked out of horsey fun this weekend as well. Seriously grateful for the firefighters battling all over the state. did you read that Liz Stout's bf and crew had been flown out from Virginia to fight the King fire? It is reaching smoky tendrils near and far.

    I love your orange zipper pulls!! your color coordination skills are impressive, I think mine are officially out the window but I'll blame that on the pony collection. :P

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    1. Wow about flying folks from Virginia, I had seen photos of some crews from Wyoming. Hot, hard work, very grateful it's not closer too.

      I think if you coordinated zipper pulls you might look like a circus with all your cool different horses and colors!

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  2. I really really wanted to ride tonight. I haven't ridden in two weeks and I won't have another chance until Friday. But in smoke so thick that it makes me sick to my stomach to just be outside I finally decided that it just wasn't the best thing for me or the horses. :(.

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  3. Smoked out here too. Smoke is thick enough that I don't feel good being outside. I really wanted to ride so bad tonight. Finally had the time and I won't have another chance until Friday but I just couldn't ya know? I'm even wondering whether I can get away with running? Really should with a race coming up in less than three weeks but I'm just not sure. Just working with ml in the rounden in Saturday left me really wheezy the rest if the night,

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  4. Major's no dummy - he knows that food trucks are all the rage now! Mmmm - smoked alfalfa, smoked pellets, smoked beet pulp...

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  5. Tell me more about changing saddle bag pulls! Did you purchase the new pulls or improvise with orange rope? One can never be too color coordinated!

    Major may be onto something: food trucks for horses! ;)

    Those thrift shop horses are scary...and I laughed out loud at your caption! The used book store looks AMAZING!!!

    Hope they can get that fire under control soon. :(

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    1. The pulls on my saddle bags (stowaway brand, very happy with) have a little clip at the end of the string part. I was able to put a flat-head screwdriver in there and pop them apart. They have little "teeth" that grab the string, then snap together (I'm sure there's a real name for it!). I just bought similar-sized parachute cord from the craft store, trimmed it to size, burned the ends just in case if raveling, threaded it through the zipper and done. Maybe a 20 minute project? Silly fun. I hope others copy me, yet another way to add color!

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    2. OMG I have rolls of different paracord color combos that match my tack! This is awesome! Love my Stowaways too! :D Totally copying. Thanks for sharing!

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  6. Hopefully the smoke is subsiding. I started to drive up today and ran in to rain around Roseville. It was so drippy and looked like the rain was there to stay in the East, so I decided to window shop instead.
    Your trailer looks great...I will give you the keys to mine! :P

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    1. the smoke is better, the rain has helped. It didn't drip for long or much this weekend, I figured it was just a little bit compared to what we will hopefully get this winter! I'm getting out there while I can!

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  7. Nice work on the trailer and the added orange "bling" on the bags. I drug out our blaze orange paraphanelia since its hunting season here.. but that is the only time you'll see me use it.. I love that you made this "your" color.
    Hope the smoke continues to clear and things improve so you can get out for a ride.

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