Horses and Camping

Two weeks ago Matthew and I went camping at another endurance ride about 70 miles away.  Many of my endurance friends were also there and the weather was perfect for camping.  Unfortunately, Mow got a leg cramp after 37 miles (out of 50) so we were not able to finish our race. We had fun anyways and I can't wait for the next ride!

 

While talking to one of the vets about Mow's leg cramp (and getting him a chiropractic adjustment) we decided that it might be beneficial to x ray his front feet in order to make sure that the angles of his hooves are correct.  I took Mow to the vet the following week and here is one of the x rays.  He is standing on some blocks of wood (you can see the screw) and the white circle is a penny that is used to tell left vs right.  Luckily, his angles look good so he's all set!

 

 

As some of you have heard, our older mini, Spice, hasn't been doing well for about the last year.  He hasn't been able to drive for a couple of years now but Peanut still needs some exercise so I finally got him out to drive him by himself.  We have been taking him jogging with us whenever we go but driving him is so much easier!  He didn't really like going out by himself but I'm sure he'll get used to it.

Kittens & Cats

One of our tenants found some orphaned kittens after the hurricane.  She wasn't able to care for them so the rescue group that we foster for, Tabby Tales, took them in and I bottle fed them.  They were about 12 days old when we brought them home and now they are almost ready to find their forever home.  These were my first successful bottle babies and, although it is very rewarding, it is quite tiring as well!

 

Stormy, the boy, about three weeks old.

 

Gale, the girl, also about three weeks old.

 

Gale now, about 8 weeks old.

 

Stormy at 8 weeks.  This guy is super snuggly and loving.

 

And a few photos of our cats, lest you forget what they look like ;)

 

Zia enjoying a morning pet and drooling on my pants.

 

Bagheera supervising our work and not looking too pleased.

 

 

Louie stopping to smell the flowers.

Anniversary & Halloween

We had planned to celebrate our five year anniversary by hosting a get-together at the house for games and fun, but hurricane Matthew spoiled those plans.  It took us a week or so after the storm had passed to finally make it out for our traditional dinner at Elizabeth's on 37th.  It was well worth the wait as always.  (We did make our hurricane guests watch parts of our wedding videos on our actual anniversary but we had to do so on a laptop since we had no power!)

 

 

For Halloween this year we went as this season's villains from The Walking Dead, Negan and his barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat named Lucille.  Not many people understood it, but it was easy to create! We went to a dance party at the same place where we were married.

Hurricane Damage

Although our house was relatively unscathed by Hurricane Matthew, the same cannot be said for Savannah and the Islands.  Thousands of trees came down and two thirds of Savannah lost power for several days, up to a week.  The islands flooded due to the record 12.56' tide and wind speeds reached 95mph on Tybee Island.  Mandatory evacuation orders weren't lifted until Sunday (the storm came through Friday night)  and schools stayed closed for the whole next week.  We were able to go into Savannah on Monday morning to check on our rental houses.  Most of our tenants evacuated and most of the houses escaped damage.  This is the first house we checked on.  We couldn't even drive up to it because of the massive tree across the road!

 

Thankfully, the tree fell between our house and the neighbor's.  It did take out the power lines and knock the transformer into the passenger seat of the car next door though.

 

The back house at this property just had a few little trees laid over in the yard.

 

This house had several limbs down, including one on the roof.  It had a small hole in the roof that was easily patched.

 

Our old house had a limb on it and a couple of small holes as well.

 

More limbs at this house.  One landed on the roof in the back but it was also laying on power lines, so we left that one for the professionals.

 

Can you find the house in this photo?  Once again, this tree fell without damaging either house.

 

Different view of the same tree. We let the professionals handle this one too. 

 

Nothing on the roof at this house, just this tree that fell harmlessly in the backyard.

 

After surveying damages on Monday we brought back supplies and started repairs on Tuesday.  Here's Matthew patching the roof of our old house.  I swept roofs while he repaired.

 

We were very lucky to have such minimal damages to our properties.  As you can see from this photo of the local fish mart, not everyone was so lucky.

Thanks, Matthew!

As I'm sure you're all aware of, we recently had a strong storm come through Savannah.  Hurricane Matthew was a category 2 storm when it came within 30 miles of Tybee Island, making it the strongest storm to hit this area in over 100 years.  Luckily hurricanes don't move very fast so we had plenty of time to prepare.  We secured all of our outdoor possessions and took down any dead/suspicious trees around the property the day before.

 

I also picked all of the veggies in the garden.

 

We took in several evacuees during the storm, including Windy (below), 7 cats (in addition to our 3 cats and our 2 foster kittens), 2 dogs, and 3 people.  It sure was a house full but it was nice to hang out with everyone.

 

The storm came through at night and the eye passed at about 2:00 am. I don't think any of us got much sleep!

 

The power went out around midnight on Friday night but we didn't have too much damage from the storm.  We lost one shingle on the house and two trees that fell without incident.  Mostly we just had a lot of little branches and leaves littering the yard.

 

We really gave our new generator a work out keeping the fridge and freezer going during the five days we were without power.  Meals got creative using the grill and microwave but we made it work.  We are very thankful that it wasn't worse!

Fall Activities

Our fall activities have consisted of a little bit of fun and little a bit of work.  Here Matthew and I are at Dersty Holiday over Labor Day.

 

Afterwards we enjoyed some delicious snacks at Baconfest in downtown Savannah.

 

The first big storm of the fall, Hermine, caused some delayed damage at the farm.  Luckily we moved the horse trailer beforehand!

 

We also did some fall cleaning around the property, including powerwashing the house and barn.  It's amazing how fast the siding turns green!

 

We finally got around to some inside projects as well.  Here are the new photo prints in our bedroom.

 

Our dining room chairs needed a little facelift too - the seat covers were old and stained.

 

We put new feet on the chairs and I recovered all of the seats with new vinyl.  Not only do they look better, they are easy to clean and won't collect cat hair!

Back to Tennessee

I left home on Labor Day this year for my annual fall trip to visit my parents in Tennessee.  The weather was a little warmer than normal but it felt a lot nicer than Georgia!  Mom and I did a lot of riding during my 10 day stay, including the 50 mile endurance ride I participated in at the Big South Fork park.  Here Mow and I are coming in after our first loop of the competition.

 

Getting checked out by the vets before resting.

 

Ready to head out for our last loop. 

 

It was a long day filled with a few troubles but somehow Mow and I made it through the 50 tough, steep miles in just under nine hours.  We finished in 14th place out of 28 starters.

 

In between neighborhood Happy Hours and working in the garden, we ended up riding another 60 miles during my visit.  To celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the National Park Service the Big South Fork offered a centennial challenge:  if you ride/hike/bike/paddle 100 miles in the park you can earn a patch.  My goal was to earn this patch and we were easily able to add up the miles.  We even rode some new-to-me trails like the one that took us to the O&W railroad bridge.

Mow and Santana patiently waiting on us to eat our lunch on the bridge.

In order to get to and from the bridge we had to cross the North White Oak.  Every time I've visited this river has been too deep to cross.  As you can see from this photo, it was finally low enough! 

 

Mom and I also volunteered to take down the ribbons that marked the trails for the endurance ride.  Here we are in our matching Volunteer shirts.