I HAVE AN ARENA!!

YESSSSS!!!!! Finally, my dream has come to fruition! Actually, it really hasn't been that long that I've been waiting for this, since I just got Caspian less than a year ago, but you know when you have a project that's just totally nagging at you? Well, this is just one on my list of many, but having this done (for the most part) is such a huge thing checked off my list!

May I now present...the evolution of my "mini arena".

When I had the opportunity to adopt Caspian last September, I had to immediately start planning out how I was going to contain him (at least temporarily). Then I had to execute this plan quickly...I certainly didn't want anyone else to snatch this guy up! At the time, we didn't have any fencing up. As I mulled over different ideas in my head, I eventually decided that I would build an enclosure on the flattest part of our property to contain him, with the thought being that I could add onto it (which I did) and that eventually when all of our fencing was installed, I could turn this enclosure into a riding area. It's about 60'x80'...not as big as a standard arena, but definitely big enough to get some good exercise in.

I worked my bootie off for two weeks straight getting posts set and preparing the area for the arrival of my dream horse. Unfortunately, the compost mulch that had been dumped in this area for my yard projects had to stay, as I wasn't quite ready to put it to use yet. I would have been, but my motivation to finish my yard projects got a bit interrupted when this guy came into the picture. Go figure. ;) Still, I knew that by spring I would be ready to use it (which I now am, thank you very much). It was a pain to have in there, though, because it was pretty much smack dab in the middle and the other side of the arena was completely uneven...not the best terrain for working with a green horse!

I knew I just had to be patient, though...the potential was there. In March, I started working on attaching treated lumber to the posts so that we would have somthing to bring the fill up to. This lumber will also help contain the footing. The plan was to have an excavator get started on it in April, along with some other work around our house.

Kritter Keeper, you're gonna feel my pain on this one...

We needed quite a bit of excavating work, as we wanted to remove some scraggly trees and extend our usable property a little bit, providing for more pasture space. We also needed to get our yard leveled out so that we could start installing sprinklers and our lawn (finally...now that we're in the third summer of living here!).

I ended up contracting a guy (who was licensed and bonded) to get started on the work. Well, it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. The only thing that he was able to do was the tree removal, because THIS is the only machine that the ding dong brought to do the job:

Turns out that contrary to what he initially alluded to, this is the only machine he owns. Um yeah...perfect for demolition; removing trees, stumps, piling brush, etc. BUT HOW IN THE WORLD DID HE THINK HE COULD GROOM A RIDING ARENA AND FUTURE LAWN AREA WITH THIS THING?! Seriously?! The tracks left huge marks all over our pasture. The area that he cleared that he was supposed to get all nice and smooth is totally uneven and torn up. Not to mention there are huge brush piles left over because he could not figure out that he should pile them loosely along the bank and burn them. Instead he tried to start them on fire in huge piles full of dirt...amazingly, he didn't have much luck. Gee, I wonder why. Although, he did manage to singe one of my cedar trees in the process. Nice.

On top of all that, it was supposed to be him and another guy working for the rate I agreed to. Well, apparently, the "other guy" happened to be sick that week. Then he didn't understand why I didn't feel right about paying him the same rate. Argh...he was so dishonest. Whatever. Ugh...I can't even stand to think about this anymore.

The GOOD thing that came out of this is that my awesome friend Patches came to my rescue and offered up the services of her dirt workin' boyfriend, who just happens to have a nice, big tractor that was perfect for the work that needed to be done in the yard and arena.

Here's another "before picture" to give you an idea of what the area looked like, prior to being leveled out. And to give you an idea of the resourcefulness of my chow-hound. ;)

Another "before" picture.

Here's a "before" of the back of the arena, where the ground also needed to be built up in order to "flow". Here, I had started tractoring dirt over with our small tractor, but as you can see, there was still a lot to build up!

Here it is after the "rock star dirt workin' boyfriend" tractored over buckets and buckets of dirt that came off of our yard when he was leveling it. Kinda hard to tell in this picture, but it made a HUGE difference!

Here it is, starting to look like an arena.

Now, are you ready for the finished product? Can you handle it?

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

TA DA!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!!!!!! Yipee!!!!!!

HOLY MOLY!! Can you believe how amazing this looks? It even got the approval from Kuntry Boy who was in town for a whole day yesterday. And that's a tough one...he's a picky guy! I totally can't stop looking at it...I check it out in the morning on my way to feed Caspian, check it out after work...I'm SO stoked.
I will still need to bring in footing, which probably won't happen until next year. In the meantime, I'm going to get a drag harrow so I can keep the area groomed. Thankfully, the native dirt in this area is virtually rock free and actually provides a pretty good surface, so this will definitely be a great area for getting some good training time in with Caspian.

This coming Tuesday, I have a trainer coming up to get started with us and I can't wait! I'm sure Caspian will have plenty to say about this on his blog...stay tuned! ;)