The 2011 project

It seems like every fall when things are quiet around here, we build something.  This year, after letting the horses run like wild things for four and a half years, the project is a small stable.  We're using the same basic design as we did for the first palapa and the kitchen/dining room palapa, but it's much smaller - just enough room for four small stalls for our four small horses.  In the US, with our big thoroughbreds and saddlebreds, I never would have considered such small stalls, but here, with the horses being ponies who live outside 99% of the time, the small stalls will be fine for bringing them in to eat, leaving them overnight if we want them to be clean in the morning, or containing one who gets hurt...although fortunately that doesn't happen much around here.  We're building the stable inside one of the pastures, so we will most likely just leave them in that pasture at night and leave the stall doors open so they can decide if they want to go in and get out of the weather...and we'll try not to let it hurt our feelings when they choose to stand outside in the rain and the mud.