A Fresh Start

Okay, so what do I know about running a farm?   Not much.   I somehow thought that, with the horses having free run, the ability to be in and out of their stalls with a huge pasture available, that their poop would be nicely distributed around the pasture.  I was set up to muck the stalls every day but that was it.  Having them poop outside the stalls was great because the work of mucking was light.  That actually worked for a while but it all changed with the arrival of winter.

Somewhere in November the grass in the pasture disappeared.  Without the grass the horses don’t have much reason to wander around the pasture.  They like to hang out by the barn.  The fact that we put the hay out near the barn was an added attraction to the paddock area.  Then, one day, it kind of dawned on me that the paddock area was looking like a poop-o-rama festival.  And it is only December!  Oy Vey!

Dan Hutt was here getting the foot print ready for the shed on the back of the barn and happened to have some heavy equipment with him so he dragged and shoved and moved that poop in a good pile outside the paddock.  He cleaned it all up!  Yay!

So now we have some new systems in place!  Just in time for all the snow and ice.  First, we pick out the poop from the paddock every day and bring it to the manure pile.  This can easily be done with a plastic sled!  I did this this morning as the ice storm was descending and the manure plops were all shimmery with a coating of slippery ice.  Secondly, we give the horses their hay WAY OUT in the pasture, in different places every time so their droppings are mostly spread around.

This morning I went out to feed just before light.  I put a bale of hay on the sled and then sat on it.  I sled out swiftly down the hill, able to steer by leaning this way or that.  Very convenient and fun!  The ponies are out there now eating their morning bale.  They’ll get another at dusk.  The paddock and stalls are all clean.

We wish everyone the very warmest of holidays and a really really good new year.