Weeds and weedwacking

This spring has been pretty cool, maybe since I'm working from home I'm just enjoying it more and loving the weather.  There seems to be more weeds in our pasture this year and that is our fault.  We didn't spray for weeds at all last year and didn't do any liming of the acidic soils.  This year we plan to do a little bit of reviving.  All three pastures have been sprayed with a horse approved pasture product.  I still like keeping them off sprayed areas for at least a week or more.  We have tons of buttercup but not as much in past years.  There are other weeds to: curly dock, henbit and dead nettle (good elsewhere for my bees but I don't want that in my pastures!), wild onion, and then a handful of others.  

So while off the pastures for a week or so Steve and I did something we've been talking about doing forever, temporarily fencing in a portion of the back yard that isn't over the septic field.  It's essentially the side yard that we kind of use for a through pass when getting hay deliveries but otherwise is just a place we have to move.  We also have our sort of fenced in vegetable garden in this area and the trailer and truck parked next to the house.  It took maybe twenty step in posts and about 500 yards of electric rope to enclose the area.  We left a path around the outside for us to be able to walk from our backyard to the wooden fence pass through and get to the barn yard without navigating the electric rope.  It's working nicely so far, I spent yesterday at the patio set with my laptop working to hang with the horses and enjoy the weather.  It did much for my mental state!  When we aren't home I don't like the idea of the horses being in a section of fencing like this so once work from home occurs less it will most likely be that we do this on the weekends.  

The grass is so lush in this area since it hasn't been grazed as much as our pastures. It's nice to have an alternative place to graze them while we are resting the pastures for a few weeks.  We need to do a better regimen of fertilizing, liming and spraying.  One pasture I spread a ton of orchard grass seed this fall and it's taken pretty nicely.  We'll do that some this fall in all three pastures and probably have the horses off the pastures for a few months from September to January or February.  I have to do some more research on the best way to revive the pastures.  

Still they are better than when we first moved in and I often have a neighbor making that comment to me which makes me feel I'm at least doing some things right!  I just continually want to improve the ground.  Our soil is very acidic and the clay gets compacted easily making it a great place for weeds. We want to have good pasture in the summer months for the horses since it saves on hay costs.  My easy keeper mare doesn't like her muzzle when we have nice lush pastures but she can deal!

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!

Projects, Slobber and Pastures

We've been very busy with mowing of course and random projects.  We still need to finish the run-in shed, and some fencing projects but honestly with the stifling heat we've had this summer it was hard to want to go outside.  Thankfully it is starting to cool down a bit and fall will start to set in giving us some crisp days to enjoy.  We already are feeling some nice crisp days.  Luckily the Hurricane didn't cause us too much rain or flooding in our area, that's more southeast of us.

The horses have been doing well and recently we passed our 1 year anniversary of living here in NC!  I love going out and watching my beauties grazing in the fields or going over for a quick kiss.  The nickers and whinnies of happiness when it's feeding time is always a welcome sound.  I love watching Chance's Arabian flag tail fly up as he trots in from a field.

I think this summer was a little overwelming for us, all the work that goes into owning more land and maintaining it for horses is a lot.  It's even more when you don't have the right equipment to accomplish the tasks!  We are slowly getting the equipment we need with a big purchase of a tractor in the plans for next spring.

Our manure bins are overflowing and having grasses growing in from the sides of the pallets.  We will be creating a better set up in the next year that will be more easily rotated since we'll also have a tractor!  In the meantime though I have a small spreader that I purchased for lime and seed and will hopefully be able to make it work for dry composted manure.  I'm not willing to pay $1,000 for a manure spreader at this time!

One project we'll be working on starting this weekend is pasture rejuvenation.  Two of our pastures have a decent amount of clovers growing in them.  We have a couple different species and apparently they are infected with the fungus Rhizoctonia leguminicola, from what I've read it appears in humid regions and will often induce heavy slobbering in horses.  My horses seem to really enjoy the sweet taste of the clover and then I get to enjoy buckets full of slobber and dodging splashes as I greet my horses in the stable yard.  

On really hot days Dani and Chance hang out at the barn to keep cool by the fan.  There they stand the drool.  Dani will have puddles in her stall that my husband often mistakes for urine on the ground.  She will fill up her feed bin with several cups of drool as well.  It's so disgusting that I often can't help but retch when dumping it.  I can't stand saliva in such quantities.  At least they drink well and there is no harm eating the clover but I want that plant gone!

Oops

It's been a busy week and a half.  Started my new job and in training.  Loving what I'm learning though!  This past weekend we spent catching up on mowing.  We are over run with buttercups and other weeds, so are the neighbors.  

I had a little mishap with the mower on the hill in one of our pastures.  It's a scary hill that I don't like to ride the mower on and from now on will have the hubby do it.  I was going straight down but then slipped in mud.  At least the board already got a mark from us to be replaced and the mower still runs.  Ugh!

I'd like to post more but just don't have the time.  I'll catch up soon!

Latches and Rides

There are many things we want to change about the way a couple pastures are laid out and how the Wormhole fencing would make more sense to us.  All that in time.  For now we are using certain gates and getting rid of others.  The gates that are being use are all being converted to an easier latch system.  

One gate just had a rope holding it closed, some others have a slide bolt type latch.  There were a couple that had a "thumb" latch that is a chain with a hook on one end and a flip up round chain link that prevents pony lips from opening it.  These I like and found at Tractor Supply and Southern States  (here's a link with the name) I certainly love heavy duty latches too like this one but these hook and chain ones are more simple and work quite well.

One configuration in the wormhole that leads to Gallifrey are the two gates perpendicular to each other, it's obvious that there was another set of electric wire from the middle post to the outer property edge.  Each owner used the property differently and has things set up to separate horses etc.  We just use the one gate and have the other one chained shut using the rusted chains that are still attached.  We'll get to re-configuring this in time.  It's nice to have all the gates I use set up nicely with easy latches I can open with one hand.

And now for a fun video I made riding Dani around the property.  I set it to 2x speed so it wasn't so long, I sound like a chipmunk but you can see how much I talk to my horse when I'm on their back.  Chance was neighing and my dogs were barking at times on the video.  Too funny.  Sorry about me messing with the camera.  Just that tiny amount of weight was making my helmet press on my forehead painfully.  I will need to figure out the best mount for when I'm riding.

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!