It's time to get out my measuring tape and open up the Excel program to get new weights on the equines - my plan last March was to do this monthly but I didn't. I calculated weights last March and I did it prior to deworming, and that's it!
The hay analysis for the interim hay came in via email yesterday afternoon, so before I start doing the math, I want to make sure the weights are current and as accurate as can be.
The good news is that after studying and doing the math twice before, with this report I can scan the raw numbers and make some sense of them. This hay won't be hard to balance, and while the iron is a little higher than our local hay, it's still low, as are the sugars/carbs. Great for easy keepers.
The less good news is that I've decided to stop feeding beet pulp, which is going to shift my calcium : phosphorus ratio and especially with Salina's complete senior diet, I've got some substituting to do.
I may plug it back in if balancing w/o it is too difficult, but over the past six months I've seen the quality of the beet pulp decline considerably, and was getting more and more disgusted with the rinse water coming off the beet pulp as well as with the way the actual pulp looked upon close inspection. The smell changed too, and although the horses didn't stop eating it, I felt I was putting something less than healthy into their feed tubs every day. For now, I've subbed in Ontario Dehy's Timothy Balance cubes, which I've been using for the pony and donkeys. The cubes have some beet pulp in them, so I'm not getting away from it completely, but it's a start.
Just about the time I get over doing the math for this hay, it will be time to do it again for the local spring cutting! But my hope is that each time I go through this process, it gets a bit easier, a bit more intuitive, and at some point it will be No Big Deal to do the math.
There's actually a spreadsheet on my desktop that runs all this for me - but it is in itself overwhelming and does nothing to help me understand how to get from the raw numbers to final results. I've been playing with the spreadsheet a little but am not relying on it or using the numbers it pops up as I type in the values.
On other notes, there is a growing glimmer of green in the front field, which will increase over the weekend as we get sun after a day of rain.
And daylight savings time happens this weekend, which means more daylight after husband gets home from work, which means more time for outside chores that need both the husband and the light of day!
billie hinton’s camera-obscura:
life and lessons on November Hill Farm
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
impromptu riding lesson
Yesterday afternoon I was at the barn and had encouraged my daughter to get her rides in before the rain came. It was one of those unusual days where we were getting little bits of rain, then sun, then clouds, then sprinkles, etc.
I was so busy in the barn I didn't notice that she'd come outside, and only realized it when I noticed the pony's bridle was missing from the tack room. The next thing I knew he was in the barn aisle being groomed, and there was no sound, just a girl and her pony, going through a routine they've been through hundreds of times, needing no words to communicate.
They were there, and then they were in the arena. At some point I stopped what I was doing to watch. She was riding him bareback, as his pony saddle is now too small for her, and we keep changing our minds about what we want to replace it. We were initially thinking a dressage saddle, and now we're thinking a treeless Barefoot saddle, but whatever we do will require a fitting, and with everything going on we haven't gotten around to it.
Sometimes she uses her Little Joe bareback pad, but mostly she rides him bareback these days.
As I watched, she had finished warming him up and was moving into the working part of her ride. She's a very quiet, naturally balanced rider anyway, but yesterday afternoon her body seemed particularly still and only moved with the motion of his gaits. The picture of the two of them caused me to hold my breath.
She had the reins in one hand and her legs were perfectly still against his sides, but the pony was walking, trotting, cantering, circling, turning on invisible cues I could not see, even when I tried. The contact was there, but not through the reins or the bit. This was a pony anyone would say was "on the aids" - perfectly so - and yet the aids were not visible to my eye.
She often carries a dressage whip when she rides him, which she uses to do a "tap, tap" cue if needed, but yesterday she didn't even have that. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a beautiful, quiet, harmonious ride, and I couldn't take my eyes away because I wanted to learn from what I was seeing.
I've figured out that the mark of a wonderful horse and rider team, for me, is when the ride seems to approach the sacred. To speak would be an unforgivable interruption, and the only appropriate response is to watch, silently, and hope I absorb some of that magic.
I was so busy in the barn I didn't notice that she'd come outside, and only realized it when I noticed the pony's bridle was missing from the tack room. The next thing I knew he was in the barn aisle being groomed, and there was no sound, just a girl and her pony, going through a routine they've been through hundreds of times, needing no words to communicate.
They were there, and then they were in the arena. At some point I stopped what I was doing to watch. She was riding him bareback, as his pony saddle is now too small for her, and we keep changing our minds about what we want to replace it. We were initially thinking a dressage saddle, and now we're thinking a treeless Barefoot saddle, but whatever we do will require a fitting, and with everything going on we haven't gotten around to it.
Sometimes she uses her Little Joe bareback pad, but mostly she rides him bareback these days.
As I watched, she had finished warming him up and was moving into the working part of her ride. She's a very quiet, naturally balanced rider anyway, but yesterday afternoon her body seemed particularly still and only moved with the motion of his gaits. The picture of the two of them caused me to hold my breath.
She had the reins in one hand and her legs were perfectly still against his sides, but the pony was walking, trotting, cantering, circling, turning on invisible cues I could not see, even when I tried. The contact was there, but not through the reins or the bit. This was a pony anyone would say was "on the aids" - perfectly so - and yet the aids were not visible to my eye.
She often carries a dressage whip when she rides him, which she uses to do a "tap, tap" cue if needed, but yesterday she didn't even have that. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a beautiful, quiet, harmonious ride, and I couldn't take my eyes away because I wanted to learn from what I was seeing.
I've figured out that the mark of a wonderful horse and rider team, for me, is when the ride seems to approach the sacred. To speak would be an unforgivable interruption, and the only appropriate response is to watch, silently, and hope I absorb some of that magic.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
new petition: JUST SAY YES!
Thanks, Beth, for sending this my way!
Just say yes to the existing FEI rules and standards regarding head and neck position in dressage!
GO HERE TO SIGN.
Just say yes to the existing FEI rules and standards regarding head and neck position in dressage!
GO HERE TO SIGN.
celebrating compost
Yesterday we dug into the grandfather manure pile and found the gardener's version of gold. I've been told this morning that I either need a vacation or a stiff drink for celebrating this, and I laughed, but to be honest, it's one of the little miracles of living on a farm that I hope I never stop celebrating.
Since January I've been making small compost piles around the perimeter of my pastures, with the intention of composting some of our stall waste right where it's needed, so that when when it's mature, I can simply drag it out across the field. Unlike with chemical fertilizers, horses can graze immediately on composted fields.
It's an experiment, so we'll see how it works out. Yesterday I shifted from pile making to pile seeding. I'm going to cover each small pile with a nice layer of mature compost and then let nature do its thing.
Meanwhile, I've started saving for a composting system made by the o2 company, which will significantly reduce the time it takes to get from stall waste to mature compost. I can move the portable bins around to where I need them, and run the aerating fan with a small solar panel. The company also has a page on their site which talks about using mature compost as stall bedding, which would make the bedding issue a closed circle at some point - no need to buy more! I can't quite picture it, but apparently there are more than a few horse farms doing this with good results. For the horse sensitive to the usual bedding materials, I can imagine compost being a very benign alternative.
Aside from the obvious benefits of composting, which include turning a waste material into something valuable, protecting the groundwater, and possibly reducing expenses overall, I confess there seems something almost magical about the process, and that has its own appeal.
One of the most constant, never-ending chores on a horse farm has to do with mucking and managing manure. Horses are designed to graze nearly 24 hours a day, and as we toss hay and maintain pasture to keep that possible for horses not able to range as they do in the wild, it's not lost on most of us that what goes in one end comes out the other.
Two years ago I transformed the daily chore into something pleasurable when I started using my wheelbarrow loads to create the labyrinth path. Once done, I moved on to the woodland path. Now I'm making these small piles, thinking of them as alchemical mounds, which will transform to gardening gold.
Even the equines are excited about it. I'm noticing they helpfully drop the manure close to the piles, and yesterday, as I was working on one small pile in the back field, the pony came over and backed up, leaving me more raw material for my alchemy lab.
Since January I've been making small compost piles around the perimeter of my pastures, with the intention of composting some of our stall waste right where it's needed, so that when when it's mature, I can simply drag it out across the field. Unlike with chemical fertilizers, horses can graze immediately on composted fields.
It's an experiment, so we'll see how it works out. Yesterday I shifted from pile making to pile seeding. I'm going to cover each small pile with a nice layer of mature compost and then let nature do its thing.
Meanwhile, I've started saving for a composting system made by the o2 company, which will significantly reduce the time it takes to get from stall waste to mature compost. I can move the portable bins around to where I need them, and run the aerating fan with a small solar panel. The company also has a page on their site which talks about using mature compost as stall bedding, which would make the bedding issue a closed circle at some point - no need to buy more! I can't quite picture it, but apparently there are more than a few horse farms doing this with good results. For the horse sensitive to the usual bedding materials, I can imagine compost being a very benign alternative.
Aside from the obvious benefits of composting, which include turning a waste material into something valuable, protecting the groundwater, and possibly reducing expenses overall, I confess there seems something almost magical about the process, and that has its own appeal.
One of the most constant, never-ending chores on a horse farm has to do with mucking and managing manure. Horses are designed to graze nearly 24 hours a day, and as we toss hay and maintain pasture to keep that possible for horses not able to range as they do in the wild, it's not lost on most of us that what goes in one end comes out the other.
Two years ago I transformed the daily chore into something pleasurable when I started using my wheelbarrow loads to create the labyrinth path. Once done, I moved on to the woodland path. Now I'm making these small piles, thinking of them as alchemical mounds, which will transform to gardening gold.
Even the equines are excited about it. I'm noticing they helpfully drop the manure close to the piles, and yesterday, as I was working on one small pile in the back field, the pony came over and backed up, leaving me more raw material for my alchemy lab.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
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