Apple Picking Season!!

Yeah, not that kind of apple.....  :-(

The horses are now going to be kept in the Wormhole and The Shire for the winter while we work on the rejuvenating other two pastures (post to follow).  Since we cannot rotate pastures because of that nor let manure dry out for a couple weeks after being harrowed (dragged) we have to resort to picking the field again to prevent parasite issues in our ponies.

This means we get to pick the field every week!  We've gone a couple weeks without doing such and it took us a while to get The Shire cleaned up today.  It was a gorgeous breezy fall day so I can't complain.  We need to do a final mow too so it will be easier to rake the piles and spot treat any weeds until we can let this pasture rest and reseed next spring.  

Unfortunately our apple trees are still too little to get edible apples so we must be satisfied with pony apples. We are going in two weeks to get four more apple trees and a couple pear trees!  Can't wait to have our little orchard fully mature!!  I'm sure the ponies will benefit from it as well!

It's been a few nice weeks of fall-ish weather here in NC, some hotter than others and many trees are starting to change. We luckily avoided the flooding and other issues further south and east of us. The grass is becoming dormant despite the rains and I'm switching to hay...which means I am now able to get back into the feed room.  Two weeks ago the hay was right up to the door so the ponies had the task of eating our way back into the feed room.

It seems our house and property are unending with projects.  We have discovered mushrooms in our house windowsills so we need to replace our wooden windows, NOW.  The same company is going to put gutters on the barn so we will finally get working on our drainage project.  The shed still needs to be finished too.  We are in it for the long haul so it's good to get all this work done now and we can enjoy it sooner.  Being this is the second house we've owned with wooden and difficult windows to open I'm really excited about vinyl energy saving windows!!!  The ponies are happy and healthy and don't seem to care about any changes we make to our house or property. Fall is a busy time (like summer wasn't?)

I am happy with the weather being much more tolerable for outdoor work, fall has always been my favorite season.  Next summer I will have to just bite the bullet and arise early to avoid riding or working in the heat of midday. Even though I wish I had more time for the ponies I love having a property where they can be in my backyard and I can love on them whenever I desire.  Nickers in the morning is the best way to start my day!

Our Farmlett Name?

I was recently asked in the comments what I've named my little farmlett.  I had Blue Crescent Stables for my Breyer barn when I was a kid.  What a grand name filled with show horses.

Now I have a small 4 acre plot with two horses, a hopeful orchard and future bees....plus we plan to start a garden.  We've named our pastures The Shire, Gallifrey and Westeros after some sci-fi and fantasy loves.  We have the "Wormhole" that is the sacrifice paddock that goes between them.  

It just makes sense to name it....Geek Acres.  Yes.  I'm sure I'm not the first, nor will I be the last but it's my little piece of this world and that name just works for us.  LOL.

And with that said, I'll leave you with this......

Christmas Family Visits

WOW it's been busy around here!  We've been chugging along getting fully organized in the house and then the holidays arrived!  We had Steve's parents here for about 3 weeks and his daughter Cierra for just over 1 week.  Cierra is 20 years old, almost 21....she's counting the days and goes to school at Salisbury University in Maryland.  She took some riding lessons in high school and simply loves animals.  We were pleased that we had some nice weather finally during her visit where we could ride.  We've received non stop rainy days for several weeks.

These pictures are all from Cierra's phone either taken by her or my hubby Steve.  We started out grooming the two horses and getting them tacked up.  Steve and I hopped on first to get a feel for how the horses were.  It'd been a while since we've worked them or ridden due to weather so we wanted to see how they were feeling.  Steve rode Chance for the first time and was doing quite well.  Chance seemed to follow Dani around mainly, we rode in The Shire.  A couple times I circled her around and Steve seemed to do well with directing Chance.

Then Steve had some issues getting Chance to listen to him and what Steve says is that he sped up or kicked out or something like that.  I was in front and didn't see anything but Chance going one way and Steve going the other with the saddle spinning to one side of the gelding.  Luckily the ground was soft and Steve also wears a helmet so he wasn't hurt.  I dismounted and gave him Dani's reins.  I think Chance maybe had some beans pent up from the rain and lack of exercise lately.  I worked him from the ground and told Steve and Cierra that Dani would be fine to ride.  I think Steve rode her some but I know Cierra did and had a pretty good time from what I could tell.

I needed to have a good note to end on with the pony boy, he certainly was worked up a bit and when mildly asked to trot in a circle we was kicking up his heels and snorting a storm.  The soft ground at one point seemed to slip from under him and he actually fell on his side!!!!  Oh my goodness my heart nearly stopped!  I took nearly all pressure off him to see if he would just walk in the circle and he did with no indication of any leg issues.  I brought him into the smaller riding pen to work him in there so we wouldn't add more area that is torn up.  I have so much I need to do with this property to include getting a safe lunging area completed.  I didn't ask for anything more than a trot but the silly boy cantered at times and spun when asked to change directions or simply snorted and bucked on the line.  A couple times I reprimanded him for the bucks.  I knew he just had pent up energy and we haven't had much of a chance to work with him but I didn't want him to get so worked up he hurt himself.

Cierra on Dani enjoying a nice ride.  They look so cute together!

While Cierra and Steve played around with Dani I continued working with Chance to get him to use the thinking side of his brain.  He finally got to a better place so I asked Steve to come lead him around with me on top.  I was scared for sure but I breathed deeply and mounted up.  We walked around in a couple circles and then when I felt more confident I asked Steve to step back.  Chance was still a little hesitant to walk on-wards with me on top, it felt like I was doing most of the work to get him walking instead of just asking and him going at a steady pace.  I've had horses that wouldn't move under saddle and I know I just need to work with him; ground work and in the saddle.  The balking has a tendency to make me more tense and thus perpetuates the cycle and then the horse responds with either more balking or running off.  I'm okay with the former at this time but I need to find a place where I can mount up and be comfortable with Chance and he with me.  We'll get there.  This exercise just showed me that he's not really what I'd label a cold backed horse but he's not a horse like Dani that can sit in the pasture for several weeks and then go for a ride with few issues.  He has a more active mind and Steve and I have to learn how to work with him.  

Doesn't my step daughter have a nice natural seat??

Since then Steve and I went out in the neighborhood, me astride Dani and him leading Chance.  It's best to work from the ground up.  Steve did well and so did Chance.  I'll post about that later.  At least over the Christmas holiday ride no one was injured and I think there was some quality father/daughter time though not the quiet trail ride together for which I was hoping.

Curly Dock is the Bane of My Pastures!

The pastures need some love.  One in particular needs some weed control big time.  Curly dock is a broad leaf plant that is hard to control by simply pulling.  It has a large tap root.  I did some research and came across several recommended herbicides that are intended for use in grazing pastures, plus Chances mom gave me some recommendations since she's dealt with that weed many times.  The herbicides state that you can even let a horse graze right after you spray!  I've decided to give it at least a week or two just in case but the two pastures with the most curly dock are out of the grazing rotation at this time so it's really not been an issue.

Our property is laid out really nicely with a sacrifice area, named the Wormhole since it goes between the three main pastures.  This encompasses the paddock near the run-in,  the stable yard and an part of one pasture I enclosed with temporary fencing to make a "riding area" about the size of a large round pen.  The three areas interconnect with gates to make a larger sacrifice area when it's too wet to be on the pastures.  Below is our diagram, not quite to scale of course, of the property.  Steve and I named the 3 pastures: Westeros, Galafray and The Shire.  The stable yard and a pathway through the riding area is the muddy muck area we'll be working on soon.  The riding area I envision, far down the road mind you, grading it and getting proper substrate brought in to make a relatively flat riding area.

Anyhow, the Shire had the largest concentration of Curly Dock followed by Galafray.  The weed spreads by dropped seed hence the clustering of plants observed.  I spot sprayed both Galafray and the Shire (on Thanksgiving day actually!) with PasturePro using a 4 gallon backpack sprayer.  It just made sense to spot spray this weed for now.  

In the future to control onion or other more spread out weeds I may need to get a sprayer I can use with my mower. Onion seems like a problem in Galafray but there are also bald spots that need over seeding.  I've also read that sometimes balancing the soil pH and nutrients can fix an pasture onion problem.

You can see how the Curly dock grows in clumps and followed a small berm in The Shire.  There was basically a path of Curly dock leading from one end of the pasture the the other in dense patches.  Of course there were some micro-patches in other areas of the pasture too.

Westeros has a few bits of Curly dock here so I'll spray in the spring since the horses are grazing that pasture right now.  The forage is dense and Westeros has fewer weeds than the others so I'm going to focus my efforts on the Shire and Galafray.

Within a couple of days the weeds were starting to melt away.  Many more days later most of the weeds are brown and dead looking.  I'm sure I'll have to spray again in the spring since  I know missed areas or didn't fully saturate certain plants but I feel that at least we are doing something to get this under control.

We'll need to over seed with warm and cool grass species (so the pastures have more year round grazing availability), test the soil and apply lime as needed, aerate, and of course spread some compost when the growing season is back in full swing.  I want to get the pastures nice and lush with few if any bare spots.  Some areas look like they have been over grazed or perhaps had too much pony traffic during wet periods.  It will be a management task for sure to keep the horses off the pastures when they are grazed down to about 3 inches or when it's wet. If there are spots I need to have intensive restoration done I can always utilize temporary fencing to protect baby grasses for a season.  

It will take a few years to get the pastures less weedy and more forage-y.  Pasture maintenance is an ongoing task and on a smaller acreage even more necessary!  I will certainly document as spring comes and I can really assess what is going on with the pastures.  I'll also post information about pasture management as I learn more!