Judy lives on a beautiful piece of land just half a mile west of our place, a twenty minute walk through the woods or thirteen minute stroll along the road – July 5 and 11, 2015
TEAM WORK
There’s always something to do when you own horses. Judy walks out to the pasture to check on Aaron. Her husband, Bob fills the stock tank, giving Yogi an excuse to play with the water.
HANGING OUT
It’s what horses do a lot. Eat and hang out. Judy has four horses, a grey and three bays, two young geldings and two older mares. Yogi is the grey, a 7-year old Thoroughbred gelding. Aaron, the other gelding is a six-year-old thoroughbred/Cleveland Bay cross. Elma, a fine-boned Thoroughbred mare is the only horse with a star, and Mary is a full blooded Cleveland Bay.
FIND THE GUINEA
When setting up the stock tank for water, we nearly tripped over a camouflaged guinea hen sitting on her nest. Can you find her?
ELMA LOU
Elma Lou is as pretty a horse as one can imagine, with her delicate legs and bright star.
GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD PASTURES AND GOOD PASTURES MAKE GOOD HORSES
The new fence, and Mary, grazing at golden hour.
The secret to healthy horses is good grass, which means pasture rotation. This goes for any type of grazing animals, even goats which are often mistaken for lawn mowers, but can ruin a pasture as quickly as a horse.
Judy recently installed a deluxe four-strand electric fence which splits the pasture in half so that the horses can graze one side while the other side rests and regenerates. It is also a good practice to mow the pasture at some point during this resting period. Mowing knocks down the weeds to grass-height, giving the grass the upper hand. Grass will choke out anything its own size but loses out to taller weeds that have been ignored by the animals.
Pasture that isn’t rotated soon becomes “horse poor” which means that their favorite forage is eaten into oblivion and only the unpalatable weeds flourish. If the pasture is small enough, the animals will eventually eat everything out of boredom, not only the stuff they don’t like but toxic plants like dogbane and cherry. At this point the pasture turns into a “dry pen” or dusty wasteland.
Obviously, the other benefit of the new fence is it keeps the horses at home. No more breaking through rusty old wire and wandering out onto the road. Fortunately, Judy’s old fence wasn’t barbed wire which would have been an even better reason to bite the bullet and get the pasture re-fenced.
AARON
Aaron is a beautiful young horse with a kind eye and gentle disposition.
GOLDEN HOUR
Judy and Camille stole out to the pasture during Helen’s Party and ran back for their cameras when they saw the sun playing in Yogi’s tail.