This morning Travis Perkins delivered the blocks and mortar for the wall to divide off my little feed store and tack room in the stable shed. The driver was a bit later than they’d told me to expect – which turned out to be because as she turned into the narrow road leading up from Mintlaw, an idiot tried to overtake the lorry on the turn and coming into a single-tracked bridge! The lorry driver had had to stop to retrieve the driver from his car, which was upside down in the river under the bridge.

Unquestionably the best reason for being a little late on a delivery that I have ever heard.

The horses were quite interested in the delivery lorry and came over to watch for a bit.

This evening I played delivery agent on my own account – a friend needing her elderly mare moving from one yard to another but too nervous herself to go and load the horse. She was only moving the mare 6 miles, but got Eric Gillie’s to come fetch her, I loaded her up and made sure the box driver had the passport, followed the box over and unloaded her safely, and then the owner arrived to hug and kiss everyone, especially her beloved horse!

Now to pick up the dogs from my mother’s, take them home to the croft, feed them, go round the horses to check they all have enough hay and water, then to bed. Tomorrow I want to move a bunch of flagstones out of the way in the front garden…. Hannibal won’t approve!

This morning was a routine hoof trimming session for the horses, or at least for Abe, Poppy and Dancer since Odette, my trimmer, doesn’t yet fancy having anything to do with George. She did get close enough to give his face a stroke and pat his neck today and he kept his ears forward, which was a big step forward in his behaviour. Last time she saw him he went for me with homicidal intent!

George tried to assert himself over me when I was bringing them all back in for Odette – as I walked towards him with a rope, he gave a little bounce on his front hooves and waved his head, ears back, in my direction. I collected Abe and walked off with him, leaving George by himself. His tough post lasted until I hooked the gate shut behind Abe, then suddenly he was heading our way looking upset.

I walked Abe into his stable and went back for George, who by then was waiting at the gate looking like he’d been abandoned for months, and he behaved beautifully all the way in. He was right on Abe’s heels tonight, though he then blotted his copybook a bit by biting Abe’s ribs as they came through the gate together!

Poppy’s feet are improving nicely, with the odd growth disturbance rings nearly grown out now and a lovely smooth shape replacing them. Abe was a bit of a fidget but his hooves are less unbalanced than last time, so he’s not box walking so much – that’s excellent news! Dancer’s feet are still very much a work in progress due to her age, of course, but she allowed them all to be trimmed and her hind hooves went on the hoof stand for the final shaping, while the front hooves were just gently placed on the stand while we praised her extravagently, so she accepts this strange new behaviour as a Good Thing.

I noticed through the day that Lucy Goose kept vanishing under the holly tree. It would be exasperating if she decided that was where she should build a nest! She was sitting on a small ring of dust and a few stray feathers in the wash house next to their shed this evening, however, and when I went and looked under the holly there was no sign of a nest or any eggs, so fingers crossed she chooses somewhere more convenient!

Yesterday we completed a sort of round-robin of gates.

Way back (last month) before I brought the horses to the croft, I pinched a 12 foot gate out of the field to add some reinforcement to the horse barn doors.

This left me without a gate on the field and after Dancer’s happy darting in and out one evening without regard for the electric fence, I then pinched a 12 foot gate off the north paddock and hung it in the field gateway.

This left us with a 12 foot gap in the north paddock gateway, of course.

Yesterday I took the horse trailer down to the local Harbro and brought back an 8 foot gate, which will replace the 12 footer in the horse barn, which I will then drag round and rehang in the north paddock….

Which will relieve my mind of the worry that George may decide to ramble off that way one night and fall in the cesspit.

In other news, there’s a bloke from the local chainsaw specialist shop (also known as the village hardware and DIY place) who’s going to come and turn the huge tree trunk in the yard into firewood for me. Sculptural and magnificent as it is, its also a hindering great nuisance that blocks the big dairy shed’s access and distracts George into exploring that way too regularly!

Most of today was cold – in fact there was quite a sharp frost that didn’t thaw until well into the morning – but dry. I did end up bringing the horses in an hour early when the rain started, but they’ve had most of the day out in sunshine on fresh grass, since I moved the paddock fence along twenty feet this morning.

The fencing contractor came, admired the horses and measured up for giving me a quote on the walkway – a gate at each end and a length of post and stock wire with two plain wires on top and an electric to top it off. He’s in the middle of lambing at the moment but will get back to me with the quote asap. Nice young bloke and brought his offspring with him, so I supplied the nipper with the bin lid for fending off geese. It worked – the geese sat at the far end of the garden and honked at us rather than coming close.

After that it was over to Mum’s and some rabbit work. That Rabbit, also known as Blue, originally lived in the top half of a two-storey hutch. She then dug a hole through her floor and landed on the very surprised but delighted Copper, one of my bucks, who lived downstairs. Two days later the enterprising Blue had tunnelled through the floor of that section too and since then Copper and Blue have been living free range in the shed together. This caused quite a lot of disruption as it’s hard to clean out Dexter, the other buck, when it’s vital he doesn’t leave his cage and pick a fight with Copper (last time Copper tangled with another buck he picked a fight with an entire litter of adolescent New Zealand White bucks and needed £150 worth of microsurgery from the vet). Equally, of course, I don’t want Dottie, Tiger and Nightshade, the other does, enjoying liaisons with Copper all over the shed either. As it is, Blue has had at least one litter under the hutches, which I think the rats have eaten, and because we didn’t know where she’d built her nest, we didn’t dare clean out anywhere!

Today that changed. We dug out the shed and cleaned that hutch thoroughly, though there’s more hole than floor in it, and tomorrow we’ll find a way to incarcerate Blue and Copper while we dig out Tiger and Nightshade’s cage.

As soon as possible I want to get the rabbits up the the croft anyway – cleaning them out thoroughly and keeping them tidy will help in that. I could move both the other hutches up there anytime, but it’s been a case of not knowing where Blue’s nest was – now we know she’s lost the litter, I’d like to get them shifted up there before she has another litter!

The horses don’t mind windy but bright and dry – they’ve spent most of the day grazing along the top fence by the road, where there’s most shelter from the westerly winds, but they’ve been quite content out there, not begging to come in. It’s great for them to choose to be up there by the road because they’re getting exposure to traffic, both foot (joggers and walkers) and vehicular (tractors, artics, cars). Learning to be calm and unworried close to traffic is a superb activity for a young horse! They’ve been completely unreactive to some pigeon-shooting in the field over the road today, too, which is also excellent bomb-proofing for them all.

I’ve ordered the blocks and mortar but they only deliver, they don’t allow customers to collect that many breeze blocks themselves – probably ‘elf and safety regulations – so I’m waiting on hearing when they can drop things off. John will happily come and give a hand for a couple of hours once the materials are on hand, which should be all we need for a wall that’s only 7 blocks high and 9 blocks long! I’ve decided which of the stable doors to repurpose for the new wall, so that’s all in hand.

Lynn gave me the name and contact details for a fencing contractor she knows does a good job, so he’s coming round to give me a quote on the horse walkway tomorrow. I’d better take some sort of shield into the garden with me when he comes, though, because Hannibal was quite persistent about nibbling the bin-lid I offered him as an alternative to my leg this evening! Righa tells me he gets more persistently nibblesome and defensive when Lucy’s coming into lay, so maybe that’s the reason.

Hannibal and Lucy now have two baths – one is a flattish wide horse feed bucket that holds one goose at a time – Hannibal hogs the bath, I’m sorry to say! – and this morning I put out a big indoor rabbit cage base by the pampas grass, which allows both geese to sit in it at once. They don’t seem to mind the wind, though they’re careful to graze head-to-wind or it ruffles their feathers up backwards, and they’re making a visible impact on the grass now. Once the horses have their walkway I’ll rearrange the fencing for the geese so they can go further round the side of the house onto fresh grass, too, but for today I put out a few extra handfuls of feed for them, since they came and honked plaintively at me a couple of times.

 

 

I’ve decided what to do with the horses, the stable shed and George’s absent-mindedly destructive tendencies. I had plenty of time for thinking while mucking out this morning, given how much extra time the horses had been in yesterday! 6 large barrows’ worth of consideration later…

I’m going to push on hard with the fencing. I need that front fence between the yard and the road urgently. I also need to get the walkway for the horses to take themselves in and out of the field urgently.

As a consequence of giving the horses free range in and out, they don’t need stables, they need a run-in shed where they can all go in, eat hay and snooze out of the weather, so I’m going to wall off the south end of the stable shed, just the other side of George’s stable wall, and then pull down all the partitions (before George knocks them down anyway!!) That will give me my feedroom and tackroom, once the partition at that end is removed and the window fixed.

I’ve just done the calculations for a breezeblock wall across most of the shed’s width, with a doorway for access, and I can get the materials from Travis Perkins tomorrow. I happen to be meeting up with Lynn, whose S.O. is John the builder, and with Righa and Michael, who are farmers not too far off, tomorrow morning.

I want to ask John to come help build the wall. I do know how to build a breezeblock wall but more hands makes light work and breezeblocks are hefty old things.

I’m also going to ask Michael if he could bring a tractor down and drag that huge treeteunk out of the big dairy shed doorxway! The thing’s a menace and distracts George into the big shed every time he goes past it. Once that’s out of the way, I can haul all the rest of the junk and rubbish into the north paddock for now, put a gate back up to keep the horses out of there, and get on with their trackway through to the field behind the house. Lynn and Michael may also be able to recommend a good, local and fast fencing contractor for me, too!

All the horses were good today, however. Everyone got a groom and feet up, they had a full day’s grazing and came in tidily all round, so well done them!

Alarums and excursions again… they happen!

Yesterday’s wetness turned into dank fog through the evening, and this morning tried for blustery and bitterly cold, with a vicious thin rain from the north. I put the horses out first thing and mucked out as fast as I could, then noticed George’s stable wall is out of true. He’s been leaning on it and shifted the timbers (remembering the amount of bashing and levering it took me to make any impression on the thing-!)

The wind had also ripped a loose sheet of wriggly tin over Abe’s stable and the leaks in Poppy and Dancer’s barn have made a large puddle on the floor on one side – though their hay and bed is on the other, which remains dry and calm.

By the time I’d taken the dogs down to my mother’s for the day and Mum had come back up to help me with the loose tin sheet (she steadied a ladder while I climbed up and lassoed the thing with a rope, then we pulled it off since I couldn’t get it back in position or secure it where it was) the horses were all desperate to get back in. Both Poppy and Dancer were shivering and even George, who has twice the bodymass to hold heat, was looking chilled and miserable. Poppy didn’t want to be caught because that meant facing into the wind, but eventually she conceded and we made a bolt for the barn together, leaving Dancer to keep up in her own time.

She was right on Poppy’s heels.

Abe came eagerly for his headcollar but George didn’t want to have his on, so I led Abe in and crossed fingers George would follow! He did, sort of, but then diverted right instead of turning left into the stable block and went exploring into the big dairy barn, getting all the way to the small dairy shed and spotting Poppy and Dancer there before I caught up with him again! Having seen them, however, he didn’t really want to go back into the dark, water-dripping big dairy shed, so I abandoned his halter and went back for his headcollar.

He followed me, and I steered him into his stable at last.

They’re all in, dried off, warmed up and eating hay for the day. I shall have to order more hay tomorrow….

These are some pix I managed to get yesterday morning, before the weather closed in. As you can see, Abe and Dancer are now allowed to play together unsupervised.

I’m not sure why George was trying to look winsome!

The last photo is some fur that leapt off Dancer when I scratched her a little. I groomed all the horses this morning before they went out and threw out heaps of brown, red and grey fur as well as more pale foal fluff!

 

My Gaelic teacher used to translate names of bands into Gaelic as a fun bit of practice for us. I’ve not been able to say ‘wet, wet, wet’ without thinking ‘fluich, fluich, fluich’ since (the same happens with ‘gabh sin’, too…. take that, in English!)

I mention this as it’s been a dreary wet day – dreich, in local dialect – and I ended up bringing the horses in early because they looked so miserable in the field! The other three were warm enough but Poppy has a particularly thin coat and was shivering when I brought her in, so I made a wisp of straw and wisped her dry and warm again – good exercise for the human and apparently horses like it. Poppy certainly stood with pricked ears and a happy expression as I dried her off.

Interestingly, Dancer is golden when wet, though she’s drying pale again. She’s moulting very fast though and all the way across her chest is now gold. I’ll get some photos when dry weather returns!

Not for me, though it’s nice to get a good night’s shut-eye! I was pondering on the subject with regard to the horses because I spotted them all lying down in the field this morning – alas, too far away for the phone to be of any use in taking a photo.

It started off with the two babies, George and Dancer, going ker-flop, as they often do, while Abe and Poppy were standing up dozing in the sunshine. A few minutes later, Poppy was lying down – and that’s very unusual! She’s normally on her feet and vigilant for any danger to her baby, so seeing her lying down with her chin on the ground was lovely!

Better yet, a few minutes later again, she was flat out.

Next time I looked, there was Abe, on his chest with legs curled up tidily, while Poppy, George and Dancer were all flat out.

The reason I’m mentioning whether they’re lying stretched out on their sides or resting on their chests with legs curled up is because horses – like everyone else! – need their dream-sleep, REM sleep, and they only dream when they’re flat out. Horses need a minimum of ten minutes of dream sleep in every twenty-four hours, and seeing the herd all trusting the look out (even if Abe lay down, he didn’t go spark-out on his own account until Poppy was back up again) is a great sign of them gelling as a real herd. Poppy still hazes George a bit and Dancer can be a little monster bossing the big boys around, but for Poppy to trust both her safety and her foal’s safety on Abe’s guard-duty stint is a big step forward. Dancer sleeps a great deal – I’d say she’s down about five to six hours through each day/night cycle, and spends several more hours asleep standing up. George, being a bit older, sleeps a little less though since he is still very young he does sleep much more than the older horses, I see him lying down most days. Abe I know sleeps lying in his stable every night and he often naps on his feet in the field but I only see him lying down outside every couple of days, and today was the first time I’ve seen Poppy off her feet at all since she came to me last October!

To my great amusement, I spotted Dancer at one point scratching her ear with a hind hoof while still lying down!

I know they all lie down in their stables at times, since I find wood pellet dust on their spines, but it’s lovely to see them enjoying the sunshine like that, clearly feeling secure together and in their field.

In terms of my own sleep, I’ve switched my super-light down sleeping bag for a 5-season synthetic one and now the dogs can walk off with my duvet at night as much as they like – I get a good, warm snooze regardless! I was woken up last night by the geese suddenly having a conniption in their house right outside my bedroom in the small hours, but it was presumably just Hannibal seeing off a mouse since nothing was stirring as far as I could tell.

I had a trip with the horse trailer today – a friend had some trees thinned a couple of years ago but no longer uses a woodburner, so there’s tons of wood free to uplift! I brought home about a ton… it felt like a lot when we loaded it, it felt like an awful lot when I unloaded it, but it looks such a small heap in the big dairy shed…! I’ll be back over with the small trailer at regular intervals until I’ve snaffled the lot.

Dancer, incidentally, is changing colour. She’s shedding her dense coat of magnolia-coloured foal-fluff and coming in a beautiful rich gold underneath. I’ll get some pix tomorrow.

It’s an important art!

It’s been non-stop go-go-go ever since the 8th February, when I got the keys for Cairnorchies, so today was a slow, quiet day to watch the horses in the field and think, rather than hare about the place madly.

George feels relaxed enough now to lie down in the field in the sunshine – not a great photo but snatched through the kitchen window when the chance came!

He’s settling in nicely, though Abe has decided to be jealous of him and keeps nipping him over the stable wall!

This evening George went straight through to the little paddock at bedtime, though I had to catch Abe and put a headcollar on him before he followed, then I hooked the wire gate across to the fence next to the metal gate, caught Poppy and Dancer and took them in, then went back to collect Abe and George.

Abe came straight to me but George was busy grazing and ignored my calls. After a minute or two, I decided I’d risk it – I opened the gate and led Abe out, which brought George hurriedly along to join us… though he stayed out of reach. I walked Abe into his stable, with George following, and just got Abe bolted into his stable in time to catch up with George as he went exploring into the big dairy shed! He was, fortunately, amenable to being captured and turned around, though then he spotted the feed buckets and I had to tug a bit to get him away from them and into his own stable.

Tomorrow I’ll try harder to catch him before we leave the paddock.