Life's A Beach

So I went a little overboard with the arena sand. Not in an "I've definitely messed this up!" sort of way, but more like I exceeded the scope of the current project. I was planning to put down maybe 1/2" of bedding sand to compact, mesh and settle with the base for a bit before adding more for footing. 

Two giant dumps trucks weren't quite enough for that plan, so we ended up with a third truck and suddenly what feels like so.much.sand. The amount makes some sense -  dump truck loads are a rather large measurement for our little space and the reality is I wasn't going to pay time and delivery for 25% of a truck, when eventually I was going to need more anyway. Smart financial choices, right?

Bring me all the sand. Seriously, load that thing to the brim.

The critical mistake I made here is not booking a bobcat or tractor to spread such a large quantity of material. In my little budget conscious mind, raking and dragging a thin layer of sand is a doable thing and I was saving money for later. Future Me could not feel guilty about hiring the fancy truck that sprays the sand around evenly once we were talking footing. Now we're kind of in a middle realm where it's not quite enough to be the 'forever footing', but also it's too cushy to just be part of a base layer and I might as well plan to ride on it as soon as it packs a little.

My current reality is that with the extra almost a full truck and the fact that a lot of it ended up at the north end of the space, me and my little landscape rake plan seems laughable.

Going to have abs and arms of steel, at least

Being a crazy and determined and poor horse girl, I did rake an entire thin layer covering the gravel base. Eventually though, faced with a significant amount left, resorted to google and youtube (literally "how do I spread and level sand without a tractor" and found a multitude of how to videos - mostly involving middle aged white guys obsessed with having the perfect level lawn, but also a few nuggets of wisdom from handy people who built their own arena drags and DIY levellers.

Welding is beyond me, and I don't have scrap metal laying around. I do however, have a bunch of wood from house renos. And a truck.

Behold, my thing of beauty, made from old window trim and two old front entrance stair treads. Two gate chains to attach it to the bar from our regular chain harrow:

I noticed the nosy neighbour creeping my latest crazy idea and was fully prepared for him to have some great dinner conversation with his wife about my latest failure once it imploded. 

But NO! It works!  

looks like progress to me

I mean I could dive in and improve it, but it's getting dismantled and returning to the parts shed when I am done, so my commitment level is not high. It works and that's literally all my aching arms need at the moment. 

getting closer to being rideable!

I won't lie, I see all the horror stories online of all the multitude of ways ring building projects can go wrong and I'm having a bit of anxiety about how uneven it is...but also, we're not done spreading it. And worst case, time and a tractor will fix it.