One year on

A year ago yesterday we moved all our worldly goods and chattels two miles up the road in two large removal vans, a Land Cruiser and an Ifor Williams trailer to begin a much anticpiated (not to say rather costly) new chapter in our lives on a small and only partly formed farm project.Getting to that stage was in itself a triumph of optimism and an eye on the main prize over a sustained set of setbacks, stresses and tribulations that would have tested the patience of a really rather patient person, let alone that of an irascible Frenchman and a woman for whom tolerance has been only recently discovered country.

The first order of business was to get set up for the boys to arrive on the day we completed ownership, and to that end,  once we'd exchanged contracts we got Pheel in to do industrial levels of post and rail fencing. This in itself required a lot of juggling and negotiation in terms of access to the land and the order in which things had to be done, but we got it done because we had to, and that's one of the best drivers I know to get something done.

The day arrived; we moved all our worldy goods and chattels as discussed... and then spent several hours waiting for the previous owners to finish moving out while people hung about outside and got increasingly jittery, not the least of which was the gaggle of removal men whose task it was to assist us and whose prime driver was to bugger off home asap, as the clock ticked on towards 5pm, dark encroached and for extra effect, it started pissing down.

Unfortunately the weather had turned consistently wet and rancid in the weeks prior to our arrival and the yard as a consequence looked something like this when we moved in:

The whole circumstance of the move took place under rather freakish conditions, in that the previous owners stayed on at the yard with their horses; the deal being that they took care of the boys in return for the use of five stables over the winter. This suited us fine at the time - it was a big help on the one hand but also awkward on the other, for all concerned.

Meanwhile, we faced the immediate choice of kayaking up to the yard several times a day or getting in some hardstanding, so we went for the latter option and beat a path with the aid of several tons of hardcore, thus:

You can still see the sea of mud surrounding the hardcore, but it was a start.

The next priority was to install, as a matter of some urgency, an area in which we could work the boys, so once again Pheel was called in and set to to build us a picadeiro on the cheap (cheap being a relative term), which doubles as an all weather turnout that pretty much saved (a) our bacon, and (b) the boys' sanity during periods of sustained ice and snow when it wasn't safe to turn them out.

The picadeiro under construction.

Winter came and went and with it a great deal of snow, during which coping was the main activity. Some days the weather was so bad that beating a path through the snow and wind to the yard was bad enough, let alone anything else, and we got through heroic quantities of hay, haylage and carrots. Not to mention road salt, beating a path to the picadeiro from the yard. This phase will henceforth be remembered as our Path-beating Period.

Spring
With the arrival of spring, we faced a number of dilemmas. Lots of things needing to be done but we couldn't get on with any of them until some significant changes took place. The previous owners still had a couple of mobile stables on the yard, which was to be the site for the new muck clamp, and it really needed to go before the rest of the hardstanding went in. A date was set for them to move their horses out; March 21st, the spring solstice.

This was a typical scene from the bedroom window prior to the departure date. 

The mobile stables are there on the left, behind the straw bales. Notice also the 

giant molehill that has appeared from the first batch of hardstanding.

Alone at last

It was always going to be tricky, sharing a property with someone who once owned it but no longer does. There were things we could all have handled better but didn't, so it was quite a thing when the date itself loomed and they began packing. It was surprisingly emotional for me and I did feel for them, leaving. It also meant that we could crack on with all the work that needed doing.

Also, the boys at long last started their 24/7 turnout, something I have wanted for them since time began.

First things first, the hardstanding. Quickly followed by...

...the muck clamp. Yay!

Spring Arrivals

Then there was the small matter of cats arriving on the scene, quite obviously homeless and hungry. Sid was adamant that he didn't want any more cats and I was adamant that I couldn't let them starve, so I started feeding them. There was a ginger tom, still with orbs attached, and a smaller black cat whom I initially took to be a boy but her swelling belly soon gave the lie to that and revealed her to be a pregnant queen. She was terribly shy while he was much more friendly; I named them Binky and Ted. 

One day while I was at work, Binky had one of her babies on the patio. Sid rang me all in a lather, wanting to know what to do. The upshot was that Binky and her new family were brought into the house so that she could raise them in a safe environment...

This is the sort of thing that happens when you take pity 

on a stray cat who turns out to be a pregnant queen :)

We've kept two of the meehoos (Jim and Little Miss, the latter who famously turned up mewling piteously in our kitchen roof one morening in late spring) and of course Binky and Ted are still with us, now suitably divested of their reproductive equipment, and we are back to being a five cat household.

Fencing, Round II

A second batch of fencing was needed to prepare for the mares' arrival. I did have a rare old time riding Q around the large paddock prior to this, but we could not postpone the inevitable and so the next thing was for Pheel, his giant Massey and bevy of helpers to descend once more upon the homestead and install the next lot of fencing. The stallion paddock was divided lengthwise into two and the mares' field was divided up into two decent sized ones plus a smaller one which would serve as an access point for Q between his winter and summer paddocks, the point being that the boys could always gain access to their stables for shelter, whether from summer or winter paddocks. 

Pheel hard at it with his Massey

We also had to do something with all that top soil that was scraped up in preparation for the hardstanding going down, and took the decision to spread it at one end of what would be Q's access paddock and the mares' winter grazing. We then spent some while considering that this might have been an error, but in fact nature takes its course and with a spring roll and reseed of the paddocks, things started to happen, grass began growing over it and all was well after all.

The boys enjoying their summer turnout

Summer work - the arena
The next big project was the much-anticipated arena, and a giant loan to fund it. It took approximately two weeks to complete and was ready in the middle of July. Noboy mentioned that I would have to then sit and look at it for two weeks while it settled, or that we would be waiting weeks and weeks and WEEKS for a decent shower to help bed it in. I can say with some authority that attempting to do this with a garden sprinkler is a fool's hope and no good can come of it. One thing we've learnt about having a place with land is you really need tools appropriately sized for the task at hand, or you mightn't as well bother.

One newly minted arena with flexiride surface

Raised beds
One idea we had to use up some of that top soil and also to add some much needed greenery to the proceedings was to create some raised beds around the car park and plant loads of hawthorn (by loads I mean 100) around it. Hawthorn particularly because it is one of the few hedging plants that is not toxic to horses. So we created a range of raised beds around the back and along the sides of the car park, one giant fuck-off bed along the side that borders with our neighbours, and three raised beds in the front garden which will be used to grow veggies, but which we didn't quite get around to this year.

One giant raised bed, with leylandi along the fence line.

This will be given over to wild flowers and grasses.

A small selection of the many hawthorn bushes, compost and 

railway sleepers that went into creating all the raised beds.

The mares arrive!
In the late spring we received the glad tidings that both Xacra and Alfama were confirmed in foal, so we could instigate arrangements for them to begin their journey home from Portugal. This necessitated the purchase and construction of a field shelter in preparation and a great deal of running around going "wheeee!". This was the third time I have been on tenterhooks awaiting the arrival of a John Parker lorry delivering its precious Portuguese cargo and I'm not sure the excitement ever gets any less, particularly as we hadn't seen them in a long time. The morning dragged on interminably but eventually they arrived, walked off the lorry calm as you like and settled down to graze as though they'd lived here for years:

Finally, all the horses at home together :)

One year on

So it's been a year of  quite phenomenal (a) activity, (b) expense and (c) excitement. We've undertaken more than I ever thought possible and the view from the bedroom window now looks something like this:

It's true that the trailer still needs a swill but hopefully we can be forgiven that minor transgression in view of the large amount of doings that have been done. It's no small matter doing all this in one's spare time (that and earning the money to pay other people to do it) while simultaneously enjoying (!) a more than three hour daily commute and a full time full-on job, but somehow we have been doing it for a year.

We've turned our hand to many things, from fence-fixing in the bitter cold on the darkest nights, to building a run and a shelter for the chickens, and all sorts of things that happen on a daily basis when there is land and horses to take care of. I can't pretend it's not hard work; it is. There are many sacrifices to having the horses at home and sometimes I am so tired I can hardly see straight. But is it worth it? Absolutely. There is nothing on earth that I have found so fulfilling as having everyone at home and being at liberty to manage them exactly as we consider to be the right way. If something needs doing, then it is up to us to do it and if it doesn't get done then we only have ourselves to blame. There's a lot to be said for that.

Looking forward
In many ways the adventure is only just beginning. Knickers is now living with us and proving to be a huge help, we have six chickens laying six eggs a day like clockwork, and next spring there is the small matter of our two new arrivals to look forward to, and decisions to be made as to the next steps for breeding. We're thinking, all being well, of breeding Q to Xacra and T to Alfama, and have some decisions to make as to whether this will be live cover or AI. We also need to start promoting the boys as stallions and I really, really need to get my arse in ear to get out there and do some competing. I'm having weekly lessons on T now and my dear hope and ambition for him is that we can develop our relationship to a state where I can take him out and compete him as well as Q.

So it's not as if having done all this work we can sit back on our arses and take it easy; no way!


To Dancing Green, and all who sail in her.