Stormy and my new Oldenburg filly, Presley became friends and in the spring grass did grow. The girls were happy to be able to romp and play like equines should. All was good. Time for shelters and trees!

Leroy Johnston, The Dirt Adjuster. I met Leroy Johnston about this time. His business, The Dirt Adjusters was an asset for the farm. Leroy, the honest man that he is, was quite frank when he told me that for what I was going to have to pay him I could buy a tractor. Unfortunately the funds never seemed to be available, so I saved up and hired him whenever possible. I watched and learned a lot from Leroy as he often told me to get on and use his equipment. In the mornings before he would arrive I could get on the backhoe and practice my skills at digging and moving things around. It was an expensive machine but a lot of fun, especially with the enclosed cab equipped with air conditioning and a stereo system, I was seriously turning into quite a farm hand!

Water Tank #3
	Setting one of the new water tanks.

In my spare time I continued my horsemanship skills with a local coach, Kevin Brutsche. Kevin was both a stunt woman and an accomplished equestrian having been long listed for the Olympics. I studied under Kevin in dressage and jumping for nearly 10 years. I her miss her greatly as she relocated to Washington State several years ago. After that time I became increasingly aware of natural horsemanship practices which I find to be a great asset to our training program. This is an old photo of one of our lessons. Secret actually hated jumping but she tolerated it until we discovered that daughter Story loved to jump.

Snow
	At 3500 feet in elevation we seem to get 4 seasons. Some winters bring snow which never lasts more than a day but we enjoy the scenery and the horses have fun when we turn them out to play in it. Below is Secret, Stormy and one of our boarders, a Holsteiner filly, Debut frolicking in the snow.

Snow Fun!

Sand for the arena!

Garage

In 1996 we had managed to save enough money to build a garage. As with all the projects at the ranch I became Builder Tam, designed some simple plans for a 1,000 garage and submitted them to the County. Soon we were the new owners of a lovely garage that would also be a place to live when we finally started making plans to sell and move the manufactured house that we had called home for nearly 10 years. I sure wish I had thought about adding a bathroom and plumbing to the garage!