This retirement thing is exhausting

Last week, I began what I thought would be a fairly straightforward but long-delayed chore:

cleaning all my tack. I got the small stuff out of the way first, then moved on to the saddles.

Since I store them on racks in the garage, covered with saddle blankets, how dirty could they be?

I was appalled when I uncovered Hank's and found
 footprints from mice I didn't even know I had.

Drastic measures were in order.

 

The once-over with the leaf blower didn't do much,

but I could at least take them into the sunroom for a thorough scrubbing

without tracking most of the desert through the house.

I painstakingly dismantled each one so that no speck of dirt

would escape my wrath or rags, but not before taking lots of "before" pictures for reference – 

I wanted to be sure I could put them back together.

Several days into this "fairly straightforward" chore, I couldn't help thinking,

"why am I going to all this trouble, only to return them to the garage

where they're going to get all dusty and the mice might borrow them again?"

And that's when I realized, "Ahhh...so this is how retirement works."

One project leads to a bunch of others because there's time to do them!

I'll save the "after" pictures of the saddle-cleaning

and the bunch of other projects for tomorrow.