8-31-01; Heavy Work Day! All but one of the remaining panels and all the gates arrived on Friday afternoon. It was time to hang gates on the paddocks, build the fourth paddock and assemble the round corral... except... On Saturday morning we discovered that we had a problem. The bow gates were 10 foot across on the inside of the bow posts, not to the outside. As a result the bow gates were about eight inches wider than the panels. We had constructed all the pens using panels in place of the missing gates. Thus the gates wouldn't fit in the openings. Furthermore since we were placing gates at each end of the alley, Magic's whole pen was eight inches too close to the others and had to be moved. Tami haltered Magic and led him to an old "sick bay" area inside the hay barn where she groomed and fly sprayed him as well as combed out his matted mane. We dismantled and rebuilt Magic's pen and constructed an extra pen next to his. The gates were very heavy so we "hung" them from the bucket loader and used the machine to set them in place. Spirit and Dusty watched curiously as the towering monsters crawled by right next to their pens. Once we had two pens completed and a gate at the end of the alley, we moved Spirit and Magic to the completed pens while we partially dismantled their pens to install gates.

Tami fly spraying Magic Taking down Magic's paddock Reconstruction! Finally!

During phases of the construction project when all hands were not needed to move and set panels, the volunteers continued to work the horses and burros in spite of the commotion taking place.
Beth and Eva with Dusty	Pose for the camera!
Beth with Belle	The "last holdout" is getting tame
The complete pen layout	Another view

Continue to Part Nine

Meet the Animals!

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