Meh.

This has just turned into a "meh" day. Mid-morning the sun went away behind thick clouds. The wind came up, though it never turned into a real howler. The boys drove me crazy all morning, barking and carrying on as if scaring off Mongol hordes.

And the problem with that is, sometimes they're really barking at something I want to know about. Like the three riders who showed up in the wash.

Now, the washes have a sort of ambiguous status in our spread-out neighborhood. Technically, every square inch is private property and so should not be trespassed upon. In practice, though, a convention has arisen that makes them a sort of informal commons. Almost nobody finds them of use for anything except ATV/horse transport or as a source of sand, and so almost nobody minds when trespass occurs. I only know of one place where there's a fence across it, and ironically you have to cross that person's property before you encounter it.

I don't mind either...really. But as with the wash that passes through Landlady's property, the boys are an issue I wish more people would keep in mind. On their own territory, they will chase ATVs and hassle horses, and every time it happens I fear somebody's gonna get hurt. It's easier for everybody when people give them a wide berth.

So when three riders slowly made their way up the wash toward the Lair this morning, I was in for an extended period of barking. LB is loudest, but has proven so irresponsible that he spends most of his outdoor time cabled up and so wasn't going to be a problem. But Ghost took to the brush: He wasn't going to mess with three horses (which proves he has matured, because once he wouldn't have hesitated to cause all sorts of havoc) but he could still let the newcomers know they were trespassing. And so they prudently turned around as soon as they came in sight of the Lair, and though I think I know who they were (casually-known friendly neighbors) I never got close enough to identify them.

Having chased off the invading hordes, Ghost found himself a good vantage to keep watch.

I spent the time cutting wood and cleaning up around my increasingly-cluttered yard. Burned a bunch of firewood-related trash, moved some building materials from here to there, and organized my new chainsaw bin.

But all in all it's just a cloudy, windy, "meh" day - though the temperature is certainly nice. So mostly, except for taking the time to make a pot of killer spaghetti sauce, I'm just sitting around and letting Barbara Tuchman do my thinking for me.