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.

A Shrinking Herd

Have you ever heard of such a thing? Having less horses?

Barring some accident, it’s not something I’ve experienced in the last six or seven horses. Ever since my wife got her first horse, she’s been finding ways to increase her herd. She either buys them, is given them, or boards them.

However this past week we ended up losing two boarders, going from eight to six horses.

Good to see, from my perspective since it’s less work. For either me or my wife. I was actually surprised to see her mention it a few times, but in a good way. She’s OK with it, and I’m glad.

At the rate she was going, I thought that we might end up with 50 by the time I retired.

Manure Movement

I came in the house the other day smelling of horse manure. It was on my clothes, in my hair, and a shower was the first thing on the agenda.

How did I end up in this state?

My wife has been feeding on the west side of the barn all winter. We set up three large tubs for the 8 horses and we would put hay in them. If you're familiar with horses you'll realize that they tend to poop where they're standing with the urge comes over them, and with them standing near the hay in cold weather, there's a lot of droppings nearby.

Not a hug big deal as we harrow it down to break it up, but across 3-4 months, mainly because I've done a lot of feeding, we have about 1-2" of manure dust on the ground. I didn't realize it until the last snow storm when there were clumps of old manure appearing.

I've been meaning to scrape it off with the rear blade, and putting it off, but this past weekend, with my wife hurt in bed, it seemed like this was the time for me to do it. I know, I should have done something else, but I needed to be close to home and she usually has other chores for me. So I hooked up the rear blade and started scraping.

It's a little challenge to get the manure and not dig into the dirt, and I seemed to hit and miss (too high or low) regularly. But the 1 ft high x 6ft x 3 ft pile of old manure grew to one that's 5-6ft high in places. I didn't get all the manure near the barn, but I got a lot of it and it's down to dirt in places.

Good for preventing thrush, which results in me spending more time near the horses' feet helping my wife soak them than I want.

Now I have a new chore. Get all that manure spread out on the pastures as fertilizer.

Taking My Wife Away

My wife left yesterday for California. She’s going to be gone for eight days, which is a double whammy. I not only get to be alone, but I also get to manage hay, water, and shoveling duties by myself for that time.

She didn’t go for work, or for vacation, but for horse training.

I suppose it would be no different than if I went somewhere to learn how to better work with wood, or drive a car, or something like that. I haven’t done those things yet, but they are on my mind. That’s if I can get the time and money given this horsey habit my wife has.

I’m glad she gets to go, since she was excited to go out there. I know she’s excited because even though she likes traveling, she doesn’t like wasting time. And the drive from CO to CA is a pretty big waste of time. Can’t get much done on a horse when it’s in the trailer and you’re 25 ft ahead of them behind the wheel. She could have flown in a few hours and borrowed a horse, but that wasn’t in the plan. She has an Arab she’s working with and a young horse she’s training, both of which she wanted specific help on.

Me, I would have left my 911 at home and borrowed one at a track if I went to learn, but that’s me. I figure anything I learn can be applied at home. I started to argue that with her, but realized that it might no go over as logic. Likely I would have been called a few names and I’d have missed spending another day with my wife after an argument.

She did think about it, but in the end decided the 16 or so hours in the truck were worth it, so she left at 5am in the morning, me helping load hay in the trailer and waving good-bye as she pulled away.

I’m happy that my wife has something that she enjoys so much, but sad at the same time.