One More Day~

One more day & we'll be taking Farah to her new barn!  Today, I again scraped a ton of mud & loose hair off her coat - mask on my face.  Under all that mud & hair, her summer coat is coming in.  Once I had her somewhat clean I asked if I could use the outdoor arena, since it had been freshly graded.

Farah - the last day~

 Someone had come out & started the horses in the pasture running.  This put Farah into an extremely animated trot!  I had my hands full, so no photos!  She galloped for quite a while, bucked & loosened up.  I felt bad for not getting her out more this last week.  She had no issues with her new shoes - the footing was pretty deep.

Beyond Tack~

I've ordered a ground tie system from the above vendor.  I think it will come in handy for some grazing time on the farm & make it easy to move her from place to place.  We still have the pasture area to get fenced & the ground will need to be dry enough to let her go there.  I don't see the point of putting her out when all she'll do is make mud.

What I've disliked~

This is the outside door that Farah has used to go from her stall to the paddock.  We put the matts in months ago, since water from the roof also drains here & when things ice up - it's treacherous.  Butch attached the matts with rebar, pounded well into the ground to keep them from slipping.

We have plenty of things to do yet.  I stopped by the storage this afternoon to pick up some items from the tack room.  Butch was there ahead of me, loading the back of the truck!  I think we're both pretty excited to have our own  barn space again!

Farah's New Farm~

 Friends have invited Farah to come & live on their beautiful farm.  A little closer to us than where she's been, with the added advantage of having acres of fields for us to ride & explore.  The roads are less busy than nearer to Glenwood & dirt roads are close by.

The Barn~

This pretty little barn used to house pigs, but that's been over twenty-years ago.  It's stood vacant for a very long while.  With a concrete floor & a new roof, it has the room for a nice large stall, tack room & hay storage too!  We'll be replacing the glass windows with polycarbonate panels.

Inside~

Inside, we've started to strip things down to the floor.  Butch has some repairs to do & stall walls to build.  A wall will go across the room where the support post is, with a gate to allow access to the rest of the barn.  The door will be widened & we'll be adding plywood on the walls & stall matts.  Farah will be able to have her wall & hay feeder again too!

Butch clearing the concrete apron~

 The south side & west end of the barn has a concrete apron that goes out for several feet.  This area will get fenced for a nice large paddock.  It will be super to not have the mud right up to the building!  From here, she'll have a path down to the timber, a bridge across the small creek & pasture on the far side.

Evening~

It will be the first time since moving here, that Farah will have her freedom.  A pasture to graze in, spring fed creek & timber to roam.  As we see how she does, there's room to expand her space & even a secondary pasture area that we can use to rotate the grazing if need be.

Beautiful Sunset~

We're so happy that our girl will have a place to live where she can thrive & enjoy being a horse.  Janice & I are already looking forward to sitting back & watching her graze.  Next, we'll be setting fence posts, pulling wire & hope to have her moved by month end!

What Do You Do?

 With small acreages hard to come by & both of us ready to enjoy life in town - what do we do?  We decide to pay to board Farah.  Starting out with a stall in the barn - our mare was gaining weight & certainly not getting enough exercise.  She made friends with the horse next to her & seems totally relaxed & comfortable.  Since we've been busy with the remodel of our new-to-us home - my ride time has been limited & the holidays are upon us.

Hard at it :-)

Now that a run has opened up - with a place inside to get out of the weather - we decided we'd move Farah from the stall this afternoon.  Horse ownership in Iowa is somewhat different than it was in Washington.  Horses here are definitely treated more as livestock & not pampered to the extent most of the horses in WA are.  I - of course - have pampered the gold girl for many years & it's been tough to not be able to walk out my door & see her.

When we arrived today to check out the run - we found it needed a lot of clean-up work.  Nothing like paying to do - what we used to do for free :-)  I'd gotten carried away last week & decided to do some cleaning in the feed room.  I left it way better than I'd found it - but hadn't carried off all the trash.  Today - the trash was gone!  I think the young couple in charge of feeding & cleaning the barn removed it.  I also did some sweeping & cleaning in the tack room.  I think this means I'm actually missing barn chores!

Farah on the move!

Farah seemed thrilled to be out again!  She hit the enclosure at a full trot & in seconds had taken down the lower line of rope hot wire - managing to wrap her tail around it & then drag it around the tree!  Butch was Not happy!  We could find no insulators, so my husband had to adapt the broken ones with baling twine & electrical tape.  Since the poor gelding on that side had been put in his place...  She started checking out the gelding on the other side - at least that didn't result in any more damage!

Checking out the view~

By the time we had her feed bag & grain bucket in place, she'd finally calmed down.  She stood at the top of the hill - looking out over the countryside.  Such a different view from the one she was used to.  Hopefully, she'll like being out better than being in!  I do not want to end up with fat mare :-)  After all - there's got to enough riding trails to keep us busy next season :-)