Fall chores have a sense of urgency that spring cleanups never do. “Before the snow flies” is the deadline on many maintenance tasks, because after that point…it gets much harder.

Last weekend, Mom and Dad moved 4 tons of “grey breeze”, a gravel fill dirt, into the turnouts for the horses and alpacas. They took a few rails out of the fence and backed the truck up to the turnout. Dad dumped the fill dirt over the fence into the boy’s turnout.

“Wait. We had this all uneven and dangerous, just the way we wanted it.”

When he let them back in, they had some serious investigating to do. They weren’t sure what they thought of the whole thing.

“We are not amused. We are over here, and you are over there, and the entire situation is wrong.”

But the girls were really miffed when they were cajoled into the far paddock while Dad did their turnout.

He’s got that I’m-driving-a-tractor smile.

After a couple of pickup loads, some alpaca herding, and a whole lot of driving the tractor around, everyone had nice and level turnouts to enjoy.

Tulip: “I’m still not entirely sure what I think of this whole ‘level ground’ thing.”

Wow. I love the animals and my family, but sometimes I’m really glad I live 2 hours away from the ranch. It looks like a lot of work.