Fencing Project

One of the big projects on the farm this summer has been to get the former riding arena in shape to be another paddock for the horses to graze. The process started about three weeks ago when I sprayed the arena and west pasture for weeds.

Weeds be gone in the West pasture!

  The spraying worked as most of the weeds have become dried brown twigs.Once you spray a pasture, you have to keep the horses off of it for 30 days to let the treatment take effect and become safe for them to graze.

Now that the arena will be ready to let the horses loose, there are some potential hazards that need to be taken care of. The first of these is the area formerly occupied by a mechanical hot walker. Though the walker is gone, a concrete pad and electric wire (which isn't hot) still remain. Just to be safe, I wanted to move the fence panels that separated the paddock behind the barn from the west pasture to keep the horses away from the wire.

So, last Thursday night I got in the mood to take down six fence panels and replace them with two strings of electric rope. You can see the barrier of panels in this old photo below:

By the time I got finished stringing up the new rope, it was close to 8 p.m. and I still needed to eat dinner, so I called it a night.

The next morning I cranked up the tractor and moved the fence panels. (Tractor? What tractor? Yeah, I bought an old John Deere compact tractor a few months ago and still haven't featured it on the blog. I'll get to that one of these days). Four of them went up to the arena and the remaining two remained by the loafing shed, as they will be used to keep the horses away from the hay that will be stored there for the winter.

The barnyard looks much more open without all those panels, no?

Evidence that the mysterious tractor exists-- the tire tracks prove it.