Here's the Additional Pictures of the Carriage House

Louis got the one side to collapse by just pulling out one board on the side! I missed the "show" so only have pictures of it being lopsided.

To get the rest of the building down our wonderful neighbors, Mark and Joelle, lent their van to do the pulling. Louis wrapped a heavy chain around one of the corner support posts and then to the hitch on the van. It worked pretty good to get the rest of the building to collapse. It sent up a pretty good cloud of dust!

In the process of pulling it down.

Now we just had to figure out how to get the roof off the tree so it would be flatter on the ground. We figured the city would not like us to leave it so kids could crawl under it. So, once again we hitched the van to a corner and pulled. It didn't move very far, so Louis actually just split the roof ridge so it would fall to either side of the tree. It worked pretty good.

Before the snow and cold weather, we were able to remove all the shingles. Now we are in the process of slowly burning all the unusable wood of the structure. Since the building had been in a previous fire, most of the wood is badly damaged and not suitable for reusing to build Caisha's club house. Hopefully this spring, we will be the rest of the wood cleaned up and be able to start digging up all the bricks that were used as the foundation for the structure. I will be putting those bricks to good use as a border for my (hopefully newly expanded) garden.

As I am writing this right before Christmas I will wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope to get a few more posts done in the next couple weeks. Check out some of my older posts as I have updated a few of them with corresponding pictures.

Long Ways to Go!

Saturday I found out just how much I have to learn in my riding lessons! I attended a workshop at the riding stables Saturday afternoon where we got to learn a little more about horses, women's connection to horses, and the benefits to riding horses. We got to ride for almost 3 hours in the indoor arena. The horse they assigned to me was not one of their lesson horses. She is a 1st level dressage horse that they have for sale. I learned a lot by riding her, though. She was very sensitive to leg cues and shifting of body weight and tension in the reins. I found out that I tend to sit "heavier" on my right side, which caused Ginger, the horse I was riding, to shift her weight more to that side, making it harder for her to stay walking in a straight line. I also found that I am not very steady or relaxed in my arms and shoulders. Ginger was very sensative to the give and take of the reins. I need to learn to relax more and move my arms forward and back with the natural rhythm of the horses head when they move so I don't put undo pressure on their mouths when their head naturally moves forward. It was a lot to think about! I ended up mostly walking, just trying to get intune with Ginger. I think I needed about another 2 hours! We were doing pretty good towards the end and I trotted with her a little bit. I think I probably frustrated Ginger. *laugh* I also learned that I need some new boots for riding. The ones that I have just aren't flexible enough. I realized how forgiving my lesson horse, Emmitt, really is after riding Ginger. But now I know what I need to concentrate on to get the right cues to Emmitt so he will perform for me. I think I might have to go in and practice on my own every once in a while, too. Maybe while Caisha is taking her lesson...as long as she isn't riding Emmitt for her lessons. That is what Santa is giving her for Christmas this year. Riding lessons! She will be sooo excited! And I found out that for every 10 lessons that you pay for in advance, you get one free! So she will be getting more lessons than originally planned.
I had a great time meeting other women with the same interest in horses as me and maybe I will run into them at some shows down the road!