Silence is golden

But not very common in these parts right now.

We have had trees being felled for the past 6 weeks or so and it has not been a fun time. Firstly the guys wanted to start up their industrial strength chainsaws at 7am - we managed to convince them that 8am was a nicer start time. Their reason for starting early was to 'avoid the heat of the day'. Nuts really given the week that they said this, there was a cold spell and we had a high of 9 degrees on one of those days.

Anyway they are about to be evicted, because they have had their third and final chance. Chance one was when they 'accidentally' brought down a concrete, reinforced power pole and then went and sold the wire that just happened to come down with it. Chance two was when they brought a tree down onto the yards and demolished one of the newly built horse pens and the top rails of the gate into the cattle yards. And chance three was when I got home yesterday to find that they had brought down the one tree I asked them not to bring down and also left the bloody gate open into the horse paddock.

Problem is if you tell them stuff that you are unhappy about it just goes over their heads. They even managed to blame us for the problem they are having making money on this job. Didn't realise it was our fault they demolished the pens...

Anyway the driveway area looks pretty different now. This is the view from the gate up towards the house, heaps more open:

What remains of the tree that destroyed the yards


The tree (far left where the gaping hole is) that wasn't meant to come down...

The parking spot off to the side of the drive, now covered in sawdust

Panorama - can see the shed really clearly now

Took Oscar on his second ever jumping competition yesterday. Was very very low key - just a riding club day. We did one whole round of showjumping - how brave, lol! But he did really well given we have done no jumping at all for a couple of months at least. Then we went to the forest with Ellie & Spyke and Nic & Jake and had a great ride. Oscar even got brave and wanted to be in front for a change - even when we had a canter and he was lolloping along really well, not feeling like he was a bit cautious about being in front at all.

He did tarnish himself when he had a tanty about Jake behind him at one point, god knows why, Jake was a good horse length back. But Oscar felt the need to kick out 4 or 5 times. Maybe he was trying to show Jake that he's not some sissy boy that just wants cuddles all the time? Yeah right... I lost count of how many people he mugged at the jumping, trying to get cuddles!

Also have had some fertiliser put down on the hay paddock - after being rained out for 6 weeks we finally got it down last Wednesday and then on Thursday it rained quite nicely and washed it in well. So now we just watch the grass grow :-)

Sunday morning vet callouts

Well the day after the last post was a bit of a rough one for Oscar. I rode him in the afternoon after that post and he seemed pretty sluggish (more than usual) and then was not interested at all in his dinner. Which is completely not like him. He didn't look colicky or anything but just quite flat and pooped.

Sure enough the next morning I checked on him and he had poo all over his tail and had projectile diarrhea. Really really unpleasant!!! He was basically pooing green water it was that bad. So had vet out for a couple of hours on Sunday morning (ouch) and he stomach tubed him with 12 litres of fluid and some scour ban, which worked really quickly. Vet came out again on Monday and Oscar was quite a bit better although still pretty flat.

So that was two weeks ago and now he's pretty much right although still has pretty soft poo (such a nice topic). Last weekend we took him and Ellie's boy Spyke to Woodhill Sands for the dressage day - just a riding club one so quite low key. It was our first outing in about 6 months and Ellie's first novice tests. So both of us were a bit nervous. Oscar was great though, warmed up really nicely and was heaps more relaxed than the previous two times at WHS. Although just before we went into the arena he seemed to spot the show jumps next to it and thought he'd rather go jumping instead. So we had a few bend problems... Some pics from the video that Ellie took of our tests:

Aiming straight for the jumps!

We are meant to be doing a right circle but someone wants to go left (towards the jumps)

Towards the end of the second test, he did some nice stuff here
We're quite good at halts :-)

Ellie and Spyke had some bad luck with the weather - it was drizzly when I rode but a few minutes before they were due on it poured down, was awful! And Spyke doesn't do rain terribly well, he had a bit of a tanty a few times. But they still did really well for their first novice tests, and in such awful weather.

I also had Oscar's saddle checked as I was worried it's a bit tight for him. It is, and I done what I can to fix it temporarily but I think the reality is I'll need to get him a new saddle. Which I am a bit bummed about as I love riding in the CTD I have for him, plus I just splashed out and bought the matching bridle :-( Oh well, what can you do?

Rode at Ellie's yesterday afternoon too, had heaps of fun and even had a left canter - on the first ask! Didn't get it again though, haha. Although he was doing lovely transitions on the right rein to canter, he jumps up nicely into the canter. Popped over a cross bar a few times too, and on Monday we're tagging along with Ellie to Raider Lodge to have a play jumping there after she's had a lesson.

Speaking of jumping, found this other pic from last summer, jumping at Ellies

Harry the hereford turned one this past week and it was marked by a call to the homekill guy. We have tried to separate him from his mum (Harry not the homekill guy) but the two of them are determined to get back together. Harry is still drinking off his mum which he really doesn't need as he is a big boy, bigger than his mum. So he is going to head to the freezer sooner than planned. And then his mum can have a break and get fat so she can head to the freezer as well.

Nap time

It has been icy cold here the past couple of days, and finally now about midday the air temperature has warmed up. The horses aren't silly though - they've spent most of the morning snoozing in a nice sheltered spot. Even the goats decided it was a good spot to sleep (Choc got the short straw and had to eat, er I mean keep guard)...

Dee decided she'd had enough of a nap but for Oscar - well there is no such thing as too much sleep. So after a quick heads up it was back to noddy land.


Then, conveniently enough, I wandered over and sat down beside him. What a perfect pillow a human's legs make!!

Back in the saddle again

Been a wee while between posts... Partly due to me being a lazy bum and also partly due to me having swine flu. Well at least the doc thinks it was swine flu. I felt awful - 4.5 days in bed, sleeping 18 hours a day for the first few days, it was hideous. Am still really tired and get puffed out quite quickly which is yuck.

However have managed to ride Oscar twice now since the flu hit me and he has been a doll. Almost toooo cruisy!! Had to remind him to wake up a bit the other day, with a wee tap from the schooling whip. Decided I was working way too hard and wasn't going to last much longer and it was time he took some responsibility.

Ellie and I bought some poles each - so I now have 4 new poles in the paddock ready to work on our jumping with. Ellie splashed out and got ten for her paddock which we have already test-ridden. We've been working on some jumping exercises in a book I got - the exercises look deceptively simple but are way trickier than they look. Highlights that we have a complete lack of bend on the right rein. Which I kind of knew anyway but hopefully these exercises will remedy that.

I've entered us for our first event for the season - a dressage day with the Waitemata Riding Club on Sept 12th. Hoping he will be more settled at Woodhill Sands this time, the other two times we've been there he was really tense and it wasn't much fun to ride. Third time lucky?

Ben has been busy on the farm chopping gorse and making a track that we'll be able to ride through in the far paddock that is mostly bush. Haven't seen it properly yet - I can walk down there but I don't reckon I'd have enough puff to get back up the hill just yet!!

And we sold six of the heifers we bought in autumn last year, plus two more and on the list for homekill, so all eight will be gone shortly. Then just have the 22 left and we'll sell five of those by the end of the year hopefully. And then get some replacements next autumn. That's the plan anyway!

We're also going to fert the hay paddock in a few weeks, hopefully will bring a bumper hay crop. And depending on how money goes will also fert the house paddock and maybe the two main paddocks I use for the horses, just with some lime.

Not many exciting pics lately, but here are a couple of the cows mowing our lawns for us

And Oscar all ready for some work (and looking half asleep...)

Lunging Oscar

Oscar is pretty much turned out for winter now, but I'm still working him a wee bit on the ground. Hopefully by the time winter is done he'll have the lunging thing 100% sussed. He's pretty good now although after a while he will attempt to bog off over towards the gate in the direction of the others (who don't give two hoots about what he's doing). So I just need to be a bit quick watching him and catching it before it happens. He is not exactly very clever or quick about trying to take off, but seems to know when I'm not paying attention!!

The chooks helped this morning which was actually kind of useful as it got him working in a nicer frame :-)

He was also doing some great lengthening in his trot after about 15 mins. He is still happier on the left rein than the right so I need to make sure I work him evenly and hopefully we'll get more even muscle development than he has now. Been trying to work him over poles but the little bugger is very good and avoiding them.

Not a lot else going on at this time of year, it's not too muddy so far. Had a decent amount of rain in the past week but yesterday and today have been pretty dry and warmer so hopefully the grass might grow a wee bit.

About to plant my first lot of garlic, ever! After meaning to do it for years I am going to plant some this weekend. Fingers crossed it actually grows... not sure how easy or hard it is to grow?

Remodelling time

I have horse pens! Well... almost.... The fencing contractor finally turned up to pull out the posts and ram them into their new homes (about 6 months after we had things ready to go), to get things set up for two horse pens and also to make the yard paddock bigger. We basically swung the yard fence out to the left, to join up with the big shed. This view is looking towards the house, you can see where the old fence line was, pretty much where the tyre and black feed bucket are in behind the cavaletti that Oscar was leaping over yesterday (jumping them like it was a 1m oxer with a 90cm spread - drama queen).

This view is looking almost straight down the old fence line, from the pens.


Choc here is modelling one of the pens. The three posts closest together will make the two entrance ways, and I'll put rails up to the left and right of each entrance. Where you can just see the blue baling twine on the left post is where the side of the pen Choc is in will be.They are 3.5m x 4m so are a good size. Will probably put rubber down (like the rubber in arena surfaces) to stop them become a quagmire in winter.


And Dee, looking fat and modelling her mud coat. She is all but sold to a client of mine who lives up north. She's going off to be a hack and broodie. She will LOVE having babies again I think.

We also put the heifers (and Harry) around the house for the day, to try and mow the lawns a bit. Last time I put Oscar and Bert around they didn't really make a dent in the grass, so hopefully the cows will do a better job than the horses did. So far they are chowing down quite happily.

This is Harry on the left, who has gone from being brown and white to black and white, and huuuge! He is 9 months old here and the other heifers are about 14-15 months old. The chicken is kind of wondering what is going on...


And in other news this week, the Hilux has gone :-( I sold the tyres separately to get new ones for the Bighorn and then sold the rest of the Hilux to a guy in Morrinsville who is going to fix it up. Took him a wee bit to get it on his trailer but it's all gone now and all that's left are the stumps it was sitting on. Bit sad really!

Brrrrr!

For the second morning in a row we've woken up to frost on the hay paddock - never had it frosty before and it makes me extra happy we decided not to fertilise last week!! It is usually a warm-ish paddock but this morning especially looks rather white. Took some pics:



It's so cold, Sunny had to find a warmer spot to snooze...


Sheryl has managed to remove her stitches so had another vet visit on Tuesday morning and came home sporting a head collar. Not very impressed! She has been giving us sad and miserable looks (talk about guilt tripping) but it's only for five days all up. Her tummy is looking a bit bruised still and there is a bit of exudate but it's not too bad.