What else is new around the farm….
So far I have updated you on the horses. They are happy, they feel great, they look great. Check back to Overdue Update Part 1.
Next I discussed the changes I’ve made to my feeding routine in Overdue Update: Part 2. The horses are still doing great on this method.
It’s been a long time, however, since I’ve updated with any changes to the farm itself. The horses are great but work doesn’t stop just because they’ve arrived.
I barely had the first paddock up when Happy and Blade came to live at their new home. The paddock was fresh and green on day 1, but after only a week or two it started looking tired. Fortunately I had been working diligently to get things squared away to help solidify my vision for the second paddock.
The original plan for the farm was to have two paddocks to rotate with (and a third added much later). I purchased 150 T-posts and 10 corner posts for this purpose. I used 3 of the locust posts for the first paddock leaving me 7 for the second. This is where I began. I started by placing the first two posts for the gate. We added the next five over the course of the next week.
I am fortunate to have some outstanding neighbors; one of which had allowed us to borrow an ATV. We were planning to purchase it but ultimately decided against it (someday!!!!). It certainly came in handy when we were hauling the posts out though!
Zac spent a rainy day off to help me slam in the T-posts. I had done about 8 but he finished the whole paddock with me adding the caps and clips behind him. Once the posts were up we strung the line and paddock 2 was official.
The round pen interfered with paddock 2, so I decided to add 2 panels up front with the gate, and we walked the rest to the far end of the paddock to loop around. By doing this we penned in the lane between the paddocks. Blade and Happy happily helped “mow” down the grass in the lane (which is 16′ wide).
Since the second paddock took a little while before completion it had time to grow up a bit. I began the horses on a couple of supervised hours per day. This grew to a full day and nights in the original paddock. Currently they are out in the second paddock 24/7 to allow the first paddock to rest. It is now very tired so I’m hoping it’ll come back healthy again before the hot season arrives to burn the short grass away.
The Green Horseman 