Building Fences, Pasture Management, and Driver's Ed

Ready to hear about how the last 2 weeks have been????? I feel like our pony situation has been all consuming and I've been left both mentally and physically exhausted (Frankly, I'm using this blog post as an excuse to sit down for a few minutes without guilt). We are still trying to figure out what's next for our man Sparky but for now we are in a bit of a holding pattern until we come up with a plan. In the mean time, I decided it was a great idea to find a different pony for the kids (I'm insane 🤪). We are going to meet a little 41" pony named Polly on Friday and I pray she is better suited to our needs. She has more whoa than go and is owned by two 4H kids that ride her bareback in a halter... apparently getting her to trot is a full time job and right about now that sounds pretty great. In light of this new fabulous hair-brain idea, we've had our tails on fire to get ready to bring a pony (or possibly ponies) to our farm.

Step 1. Add pasture drainage

Our pasture has a tendency to pool water and stay wet for long periods of time. Dave tried a DIY fix by digging a small trench with the tractor but it wasn't enough. We don't have a backhoe so we hired an excavation company to come dig two trenches and lay culvert pipe to give us better field drainage. It killed us to pay someone else to do the work but we didn't have the equipment to do it ourselves and it was done in two days. Hopefully this will keep our field drier and help prevent any livestock from standing on constantly damp ground and developing hoof issues.

Step 2. Build a fenced-in horse pasture

We have about 7 acres of land where our barn sits and it had a fenced-in pasture with field fencing that was in various stages of disrepair. Horses (and eventually cows) will need high visibility, high tensile, electric fencing so that means tearing down the existing field fencing and replacing it. It doesn't sound like that big of a task but it is labor intensive. I'd like to think I'm in pretty good physical shape but I'm down right exhausted every night from pulling wood posts out and then putting them back in. We are lucky enough to have a post-hole digger to make the holes but you then need to use a 20 pound (not exaggerating...it weighs 20 pounds) digging and tamping bar to compress the dirt that needs back shoveled around the post to make sure it doesn't shift or move. It's a full body workout to say the least and it gives a whole new meaning to arms on fire. We've made excellent progress but there's still a lot left to do.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/0430e8_9ac3c39a1f014d2d92b149d974668402/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Step 3. Adult Driver's Education

Almost a year ago, we bought a real gem of a 2 horse trailer to haul livestock for butcher. We NEVER intended to use it to pull horses around but hey, plans change and I have to use what I've got. Dave replaced all of the floor boards in it over the winter and got all of the lights and electrical working properly (he really is a jack of all trades). Let me start by saying, I've never pulled anything behind a vehicle. Never. I don't like being reliant on people to do things for me so I asked Dave (very sweetly) if he would teach me how to pull the horse trailer 😬 This past weekend, we hooked up the trailer to my expedition and off I went for a test drive. I managed to navigate a bail of hay in the middle of the road and figured out how to back up and make turns. I drive like a turtle but I did it! As an added bonus, I scored some serious street cred with my kids...there's something oddly satisfying about my 4 year old son telling me I did a good job with a task he previously believed only dad could do! There's only one way to learn and that's by doing so Black Beauty is making her maiden voyage on Friday with 3 kids in an expedition and a new driver. Everyone pray for me. I need it. Good news is, if she breaks down I can just throw Polly the tiny pony in the back of my Expedition and leave the trailer on the side of the road. Again, please pray for me 😂

Aside from all of the horse preparation, Dave's row crop garden is doing very well! He was able to harvest our first small batch of green beans! They were absolutely delicious and the kids were all fighting over them at dinner. There's nothing better than fresh vegetables picked straight from the garden. Soon, we will have bushels of beans and that means I'll be logging some long hours pressure canning. Long summer hours means easy meals in the winter. I'll have to remember this in about a month when I want to cry over the plethora of beans, corn, and tomatoes I have to manage. Feast or famine.

Ohhhh, I almost forgot... because what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger...David got Lymes Disease 😭 What started out looking like a small patch of poison ivy on his knee ended up being a full blown bullseye in less than 5 days.

Thank the Lord he was asymptomatic and we knew enough to take him to urgent care. I had to put my pharmacist hat on for a minute and make a difficult decision of what antibiotic I wanted him to be on. That's a whole long story but I'm thankful I have the medical background I do to be able to make educated decisions when things aren't black and white. I'm happy to report that the medicine worked and within 2 days his rash was almost completely gone. We need to keep a close eye on him but with no initial symptoms except a rash and early treatment we think everything should be just fine. This is a cautionary tale to ALWAYS check yourself and kids well for ticks. David did not have a tick that we could see but they can be SUPER TINY and fall off before you notice. If you see a weird rash, it's better to be safe rather than sorry.

Ohhhh... Ohhhh...and we finished butchering the last of our Cornish Cross chickens!

I hope you'll check back next week to see if Roberts Family Farm has a new friendly face neighing around and see how my adventure pulling the trailer will go!!!! See yinz next week!