Finally !

Finally…. we have our new arena footing in the indoor arena. The project took 12 workdays and was completed on Tue evening November 13th. We are all excited to not only ride indoors again, but now also have top-of-the-line new footing !

Lessons will start up again on Friday the 16th, haul-ins welcome from Thursday the 15th and cattle work sessions will start up on friday evening the 23rd.

Every one, Thank you so much for your patience and understanding during the construction time, hoping to see you all soon in the arena !

Patricia Ruff, Ruff’s Ranch

Published in: on November 13, 2007 at 8:13 pm Leave a Comment

Arena footing

dscn1241.jpgdscn1228.jpg

Did you know that there’s actually a science to choosing the right footing material for a riding arena?

When we moved into our new facility we didn’t know how well the excising footing (wood chips ) in the arena would work for us, but our hopes weren’t very high. It gets dusty when dry and slippery when wet, and it’s not easy to keep the moisture content right in between. For now, we’ve just made it work, but we certainly don’t try to do sliding stops in it ! So finally, we broke ground and are getting our new footing in !

Some folks ‘design’ their own footing, but the end result isn’t always what they hoped for. It’s much more complicated then just spreading some sand. Learning from other peoples (costly!) mistakes, we chose to hire an expert in this area, Bob Kiser from Absolute Innovations. Bob offers consulting packages for almost any budget and will select the best soil samples for your situation and helps you find a contractor for the construction. Bob’s clientele list is loaded with famous horsemen and national & world shows.

We are anxiously awaiting for Whitworth Excavating INC to to get started on the project! 

we’ll keep you posted on the starting & finish dates, as the indoor arena will be temporary closed for construction during that time! We hope to have the project finished by 11/10/07, but no later then 11/15/07

—————————————————————–    UPDATES:

10/29/07- starting date,  11/1/07 -all old footing is removed, base material excavated, 11/3/07- piles of dirt are going through a screener, to remove all rocks and pebbles (see pictures above) 11/8 /07-All screening finished, clay base to be leveled. 11/9/07-packing and rolling clay base with steam roller, start of spreading screened soil. 11/12-13/07  sub-base & sandy top layer installed, rotertiled & harrowed. WEDNESDAY 11/14/07  ARENA READY FOR USE !!!

Published in: on October 19, 2007 at 3:24 pm Comments (3)