The other downside of horses

Horse are hard. They have to be fed every day, they need water kept warm in the winter, they break fences, all kinds of stuff. They are expensive, and need vet care.

However I ran into a new one recently. We had a bunch of snow and cold weather recently and the horses were being fed close to the barn in buckets. This resulted in a lot of droppings near the barn, which were too frozen to clean up. As the weather turned, and things started to melt, it was a bit of a mess out there, which made for some careful treading by me.

Not so for our dog.

He decided that a sloppy, melting, wet mess of horse manure was a perfect place to roll around on the ground.

I’ll spare you a picture, but a nice coating on his normally blonde fur added quite of bit of brown to the picture. Gross.

The only good thing is my wife has to clean him up.

Vehicle on the Ranch

I never really realized that the vehicles we have on the ranch are really required. I knew we needed them to knock down manure with the harrow or run the spreader, and I know the tractor has gotten us unstuck, cleared snow, and cut grass, but I didn't realize how important these things were until they were gone. My wife let me know multiple times that we needed them fixed for chores.

On consecutive weeks, the ATV and the riding mower died on us. The ATV went to the shop, since I wasn't sure what was wrong there. I've never worked with a belt, and when the belt light comes on, I take it in.

The mower was another story. Over the years I've fixed a variety of things on this mower and since it was running fine and then died, I figured I could fix this. First I checked fuel, and a steady stream out of the fuel filter onto my boot convinced me this wasn't the issue. Next was the spark plug, and when I held it in my hand and didn't see a spark while cranking, I decided to get a new one.

I did, and I held it up after plugging on the wife to check for a spark while I cranked it. I didn't see a spark, but I felt one. Just a hint, hold the rubber boot of the spark plug wire, not the metal of the spark plug itself when you check it. I think I grounded things out. Fortunately it didn't break when I dropped it as the cord held it off the floor, swinging back and forth.

It seemed to be working, so I screwed it in, and sure enough it was cranked up and back to chore duty that day.

Know Your Horses

A text to my wife: Gemini is in the middle of the track, so I opened the gate for him.

Back from her: Hmmm, OK

She was confused, and should have been since she was away at a horse clinic for a couple days, and she had Gemini with her. He's the black horse we have, and the only black horse. Or so I thought.

My wife had agreed to be a middlewoman between someone selling a horse, and someone looking to get a horse for a friend. When the lady number two saw the horse, she felt it was "too much horse" for her friend. So Starlet, the horse for sale, stayed at our place. I had assumed that Starlet would be heading back to the original owner any day.

Apparently I forgot what an assumption really means.

Starlet was in our pasture for a few weeks when I mistook her for Gemini. I know one's a boy and one's a girl, but I didn't check that closely. I was heading out one day, saw a black horse in the middle of the pasture with no water, and opened the gate.

I wasn't thrilled with us going from three to four horses, but my wife pointed out that we'd been dealing with it, and the chores, for a few weeks and I hadn't noticed. At that point I didn't have much of an argument left.

It pays to be able to tell your horses apart.

Nosy Neighbors

I’m sure you have had them, or still have them. Those neighbors that want to know what you’re doing, make a bit of a nuisance by injecting themselves into whatever activity you are a part of.

It might be curiosity or it might be a desire to participate, but in either case, I had some company while trying to cover up some barbed wire with welded wire yesterday.

I was working my way down the fence, and I had company from the next door neighbors. Close company, as you can see here. I don’t know these horses and donkeys well, so I was a little concerned as I reached around with pliers and clipped things together. Mostly it’s lip action, but these beasts do have teeth, so I was keeping a close eye on exactly how much participation they were trying for as I worked.

About 5 of them followed me along as I slowly moved along 100’ of fence. I guess I was more interesting than grazing for a few of them. Me scratching necks a bit probably added to that interest.

In the end, I finished, and we each went our separate ways.

Fence Man

I went out to help my wife get some fencing up recently. We have 3 pastures that are fenced off with various materials, one of which has a natural horse track. This is a 12-15ft wide track circling the pasture that should help to get the horses moving more often. It seems to work since not much grows on the track, but that's a topic for another day.

We bought some posts and ribbon to build another track on the second pasture, but first we needed to cover the barbed wire along one side. Our plan was to take down the barbed wire and install a mesh fence instead (and electrical wire), but somewhere along the way my wife decided we didn't need to take the barned wire down and we could clip the new stuff over top. Made sense to me, so we headed out there one Saturday with that in mind.

My wife had done the calculations, 29 posts, estimating 8-10 ft apart, and had purchased 330' of mesh. That would have been fine if the posts were that far apart. I think some were 14ft, and some maybe 16', but in either case, it meant we were fairly short. Not a big deal, and I was tired when we ran out of wire.

You see me wife is also trying to train horses, and while she is happy to do chores, they seem to have a lower priority than playing with horses. In this case, they had a lower priority than her helping her sister play with horses, so when we were about half done with the roll, she went back to see if she could help her sister. Not a big deal as I could have stopped and waited, but it was getting later, the sun going down and insects likely waiting up. Plus I have a bit of OCD and hate to leave something undone. If I had lost the momentum that day, it might have been  a week or two for me to get it back up and go out there again.

So I wrestled the slightly smaller, but still large and heavy roll along, clipping mesh to the t-posts as I went.

330' of fencing up, excluding posts, makes a good day of work.

Summertime Hay

Once again my wife's on the road and guess who gets to feed horses?

Yep, me.

It's easier, though, in the summertime. We rotate horses among pastures, and there's a decent amount of grass. I don't have to rush out before I've had some coffee, listening to whinny's and calls wondering where I am. I don't have to fight through a herd of horses trying to eat out of the wheelbarrow as I'm moving hay around. And I don't have to bundle up against the cold. Today I even took a conference call as I was walking around dropping hay.

On the flip side, I still need to change clothes. Jeans, boots, and I should have taken out gloves. That hay rubbing on bare skin, at least my bare skin, itches and irritates me. Pollen in the air, and hay dust, has me sneezing.

I guess it's never easy with the horses, and it's a chore if you don't enjoy them. But I love my wife, so I go out there and deal with it.

Pasture Cutting Delayed - Rotary Cutter Parts Needed

I usually start cutting the pasture in April, and it goes through May and June. The 4 pastures I cut on our 35 acres take me a good 40 solid hours and since I actually have to do other work for a living, this gets spread over a couple months.

This year I haven’t started yet. To be fair, things weren’t bad for April and most of May as they were dry months for us. So I wasn’t too worried. However things have sprouted lately, so it’s time to get going.

One problem. The rotary cutter doesn’t work. The blade assembly to the left here fell off the deck late last year. Not sure what happened, and honestly, I don’t know how it was connected to the rest of the cutter.

The company we bought it from went out of business, it’s a generic (we didn’t know better then) and I have had trouble with repairs before. Last year I managed to track down the guy at the old company and he had some old replacement blades lying around that he gave me, but he’s not there now. And there’s no one answering the number. Apparently he was closing out the bankrupt company when I called last year, luck I called that week), and now they’re gone gone.

So I took a picture of the bottom of the deck:

and I’ve sent these two images to a few people, hoping someone can help me get a nut or assembly to connect things up. If that works, then I’ll be in good shape for cutting.

If not, I’m out $1000-1200 for a new cutter.

These horses sure are trouble.