I’ve been quiet for the past few days because I’ve been putting up a fence. Prize demolished the other one and it seemed like a good time to put up the new pasture we have been discussing since we moved here. The horses are incredibly happy with it. There is much running like crazy horses and bucking and kicking. When I first turned Prize out in it she took off full speed with me yelling, “There’s a fence up there!” at her. She considers fences to be just the merest suggestion of her personal boundries unless accompanied by an electric charge that could take the hide off an elephant. We had mowed a strip to outline where we were going to put the posts. The horses decided that this is their new racetrack. They can run around the perimeter and make screeching turns in the corners. It isn’t electrified yet so they can only go out with supervision. Last night I felt like such a hick because I was sitting on the lawn mower in my driveway with my feet up on the steering wheel while reading a magazine and watching my horses. Even the horses were looking at me like I’d lost my mind.

File this under why it might just be better to rent:

We’ve been having a problem with unexplained water on the floor of the bathroom. It started when Riley came so at first we thought it was a kitten not understanding the litterbox. Then I realized that the volume of water was larger than the size of the cat. Then I thought it was the big cat mad about there being a new kitten but water appeared when she was outside. Eventually I ruled out the dog and the husband too. The water didn’t come every day. It didn’t come gradually. The bathroom would be dry and then the next time you came in there would be a puddle. The puddle wouldn’t get bigger once it was there. No pipes were leaking that we could see.

Last night it started dripping through the ceiling downstairs. I went upstairs and could hear a drip. I traced the drip to the bottom of the toilet tank. There is a screw that had water dripping off. When I touched it the water started to pour out. So I cut the water to the toilet and flushed it several times to empty the tank. Then I went to wake up the husband. He tried to tighten the screw but it is hard because our toilet is in a separate little room from the rest of the bathroom. It is just big enough for the toilet. Maybe 4 feet wide. He didn’t want to lie down on the floor because of the other problem I discovered. There is mold growing on the baseboards behind the toilet. I hadn’t noticed it because you have to get under the toilet to see it. So now we have to pull off the baseboards and try to kill all the mold and possibly pull up the floor too. Then we’ll try to fix the toilet. Luckily we have another one so that one can be out of commission for a while. I would love to be able to call a landlord and tell them to deal with this!