Sock It to Me

Two days ago (Wed)  I went down to the Cow Corrals to clean up.  Gaah, what a mess. Dried cow manure absolutely everywhere, mostly in small chunks. Also some leaves.  Cody held the cows in the corrals for several days this summer and didn't clean anything up. Thankfully it was all really dry, but it took all day; on a day it reached 97F; to finish. The oaks are starting to loose their leaves as fall begins, so there will be more cleanup to do, but leaves are easy. 
While I cleaned I dragged the horse panels back into place.  The "horse panels" are lightweight panels that I use to divide the corrals up into sections  Cody always moves them around when the cows use the corrals.  There was baling string everywhere.  It was used by all kinds of people to tie things together, hang hay bags from the panels an who knows what else.  I ruthlessly cut it down.
As I was finishing the next to last corral (actually an alley) I untied more string plus a rope and stepped back from the alley fence. A big gust of wind hit the panels and knocked them to the ground, hitting my wrist in a very painful way.  I had thought the panels were pinned to the post, and even looked to confirm this.  The loop on the post was there, and the pin was there, but unfortunately the pin only went between two panels and did not include the loop to the post.
Yesterday Donald and I went back to the corrals. I repaired a couple of the chains that hold the gates closed. Those chains have brass snaps at the end which occasionally get broken. With the repairs done I began attaching more loops to posts so the panels would never fall again. We walked the heavy, heavy 20 ft panel back up so I could measure, tied it in place temporarily so I could be very precise. It was fussy work as the  loops on the post in the center had to end up exactly in the right place.  I didn't set the posts for the corrals, and whomever did wasn't very careful, so the posts going around the inside of the alley corner aren't quite in the right places. Happily I was able to make it all work.  In a couple of places this meant using the hammer to bend the loop slightly.  
While I was fiddling with the fences, Donald was pulling star thistle out of the side of the arena. He got quite a lot done before we got hot and tired and headed home for a nap. 
In the evening we went back down to the Corrals.  I installed two new water hoses, dropped two last pins into the alley fence and removed the last bits of stray baling string.  Donald went off to pet the tiny kittens at the Red Barn.  The barn cat  had 7 kittens who are still quite tiny, they just opened their eyes. They are all some form of grey tabby.  Sadly the light in the barn is so dim the pictures didn't turn out. 
Paul and Anna pulled it right after 7pm after a long hot haul from the Sacramento area.  They stayed the night, had a leisurely morning and left for Eureka this morning to attend a weekend endurance ride.  They were so happy that the evening was cool; it was a perfect early fall evening with crickets singing and an almost full moon.