If you happened to catch My Stable Life last week, you may have seen the first part of the adventure I’m about to finish off for you today. If not, you can check it here.

And if you don’t feel like more reading – to sum it all up, my husband and I had planned a big party this past November 18. On the morning of November 17, our riding arena (the place where we planned to host the party) was still torn up. We had a bunch of portable stall panels occupying our stock trailer – piled on top of some crucial Hi-Hog panels required to finish up the last 2 sections of our daily turn-out pens. And the portable stalls needed to be built in our shop in the next 24 hours. They were for the overnight stabling we needed to provide clients coming down to attend the clinic Clay was conducting on the following Saturday and Sunday.

By 8 pm November 17, our arena excavation was finished. Phew! But November 17 quickly turned into November 18. The hours were ticking away: At 7 pm, Clay and I would be hosting a party, regardless of how much we had accomplished by then.

Did I also mention that at this point, we were still living out of boxes? Finding things like extension cords and paper plates was a challenge. We also had no front entrance sign erected yet. There were the daily chores of stalls to clean and horses to look after. Babies to feed. Hot dogs to cook. And a barn to set up and organize with tables and food.

By 10:oo am Friday morning, it was all looking like an impossible feat.

I swear, the barn cat actually laughed at me when I walked into Clay’s tack room and pondered about how to tackle the organization of it:

Nonetheless, Clay and I tackled one thing at a time. My mom came by to help me with babies. And our wonderful neighbors, Heath, Kim and Shaylynn – whom we had only met the day before – came over and spent hours with us, helping to carry fences, clean barns and organize various other things. That Friday was cold and unpleasant and the fact that our neighbors were willing to help people they barely knew, made us realize we had moved to a fabulous community.

The stalls in the shop barn were built:

The main barn was cleaned and set up with tables and food. Clay and I each got a shower. And by 6 pm, our front entrance sign was put up. By 7 pm, we had ourselves one heck of an evening! I hope a good time was had by all.

Our musical entertainment was provided by Lance Loree.

Lance Loree.

The rest of the evening went off, pretty much without a hitch. The following Sunday morning however, was a different story…. since Clay and I had to move our buffalo closer to the arena for the remainder of his clinic.

But I’m happy to report the buffalo only busted through one fence – not two – on the way to the arena. Plus, no humans were hurt in the process.

A beautiful dawn sky: I thought I was waking up to another typical, rural Calgary day. Today was anything but.

Last time I blogged on My Stable Life, I detailed the drama of our arena excavation and eluded to a big party we were hosting in new home. That blog was Part One of a two-part series and can be found here. And although I have the second part of the story coming to you – as promised – I decided that the crazy weather we experienced here today (as did many southern Albertans), merited its own blog.

I mean, a day that is soooo windy your porta potty blows down – definitely merits its own blog:

I’ve never wanted to take so many pictures of a porta-potty before…

My husband’s gonna have a great time flipping this thing back upright. What a great task to do on Monday morning…

And a day that is so windy your friends wear googles everywhere they go, is definitely worth blogging about:

(Dear friend: My husband insisted I post this picture…)

But all kidding aside, the Calgary area experienced some crazy windstorms today. And Sunday at Twin Corozones Ranch was no exception. This is what our cow fence looked like this past Friday morning:

This is what it looks like now:

And this is what it looks like with the ominous sky of more high winds-a-brewin’, behind it:

Luckily, nobody was hurt – or blown away – in today’s weather, thanks to the quick thinking actions of our staff and our goggled friend. All paddock horses were brought inside the barn and bedded into tie-stalls, to wait the winds out.

Hopefully tomorrow is a much nicer day!