I figured I had this one all sorted out. But again, I'm learning nothing is ever all sorted. Donovan had proven that home, Indian Pond Farm, could support equine residents. Even better, a friend, Cathleen, brought her menagerie to join him. This includes Dutch Boy, the Dutch Warmblood (shocking, I know), retired from a snappy hunt career, Donker, the mini-Donkey (even more shocking, you don't have to tell me), never to be retired from position of king of cuteness, and Myma, the pot-bellied pig, with a squeal she'll let you know about.
When Cathleen decided to make Indian Pond Farm the menagerie's home, she decided to bring the home along with them, in the form of her (their?) stall and tackroom barn. After some fencing was put up in the upper pasture, the barn was added!
They love it, as you can tell. Even though Donovan usually tries to hog it and EZ entered it I'm pretty sure for the first time today, when I dragged him inside to untack in the pouring rain. Which brings up the next point--if all three horses, the donkey and pig, oh, and these new additions, Joey and Petey:
...if they all are going to pastured together, how will they all have shelter when Donovan is so cranky and hoggy (no offense, Myma)?! Of course, we did still have the run-in that dad built for Sheena and Rosie, the my sister's childhood horse, in the lower pasture, and we thought maybe we could connect the two:
But, as you can see, Duke, the Great Pyrenees, lives there now sometimes. That, and there's a bit of a hill that we were concerned about in the icy snow. Aaaaand, handily enough, Cathleen has another barn! Coming soon, so stayed tuned. It took a very long dinner date to figure out exactly how it is to be placed to maximize weather-protection and horse enjoyment, and it's bound to be great. Aaaaaand water and electricity in the upper pasture. So seriously, stay tuned.
I am seriously lucky to have so much help and this enterprise wouldn't be nearly as EZ, or maybe even possible without it. Dad building sheds left and right, Cathleen hauling them over every other day, not to mention cleaning the water trough like 42 times a day, this menagerie is COVERED, and I couldn't do it myself.
So with accommodations almost worked out, I wanted to figure riding venues. Small detail. I had ridden Donovan all over town (and by "town," I of course mean "neighboring farmland"), but right as I was looking for horses of my own, the neighbors decided it was better if we weren't trolloping around. Not that I ever trollop. So, although it cut down quite a bit on rideable land, we still gots plenty in the Indian Pond Farm parts. A lot of it is woody though, or actually, you know, farmed, with crops and stuff, which get in the way of my riding. Someone, I can't take credit, noticed that one of the overgrown fields behind the nextdoor house on the property was pretty flat, so I started wheedling dad to make it my new fancy arena. FANCY. Well, at least mowed. I staked out the corners, like 20x50ish meters, and dad complied, as good dads do. Here's the result:
Not bad, right? EZ obviously is really loving it. Look at those ears. If you are super-observant, you may notice the pile of wood at the upper left corner of my fancy arena. A large willow is right out of frame to the right, and was cut down, and those are the remnants. They were also scattered all over my fancy arena. Dad showed me how to drive the tractor so I could load the sticks I picked up in the bucket. And by "showed" me, that's all he really did, of course he actually ended up driving, and by "I picked up," I obviously mean, "we picked up," because he was all over that with me. The thing about picking up sticks though, and then mowing, and then riding, is that you just find more sticks. So a few days ago I went on a solo mission, and these were the results.
Check out all those stickies! And that tractor I drove all by myself! With just a sliiight scraping along the floor/wall while pulling out...(don't tell dad) (Hi, dad!). And you'll notice, they're still actually on the tractor, I haven't attempted the unloading part of it yet.
With the fancy arena, the fancy barn, soon to be barnS, we're pretty psyched. There are still some issues, like this scary number in the pasture:
Terrifying, right? What do you do about giant hunks of metal clogging up your fancy pasture? Other than get it removed, novel thought, but one we're still working on, hoping that the kids stay wise in the meantime. While working on that, and the never-ending stick supply in the fancy arena, you've got to remember this:
...the cuties that make it all worth it. Them, and this:
the ring looks great!
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