Many of you have met the new addition to the farm, Darsy, the 4 month-old Holstein heifer calf. Feel free to brush her, feed her treats, and scratch her favorite places. If you want to take her out just let me know and I'll give you some basic instructions (I'm a nervous mommy!).

The spring flowers are beautiful! They only last for a few weeks so take your pictures soon :)

Everyone is doing well despite the low levels of grass. We're still getting our ducks in a row to seed and the ducks keep swimming in all different directions!

Congratulations to Molly and Chris on their fantastic find in Canada! A quaint home with Bodhi right outside their window - perfect!

For those of you in school - good luck on your exams. It's almost over!

Florida is Baaaack!

The oaks are shedding on to the backs of the horses (and donkeys!). The horses are shedding on to the grass. And the itty bitty birds are carrying the horse hair back up into the trees. It's spring time!



I've been soaking everyone's grain in water the past few days. Since there is still limited fresh grass the horses are eating a lot of dry matter (hay, grain, etc). Adding water and occassionaly adding wet wheat bran will help their guts out. Just trying to avoid upset horse bellies!

Everyone appears nice and plump so once the grass explodes in the next few weeks we will very likely need to cut back on their grain.

Since your blankets are no longer needed feel free to clean them and hang them to dry on the fence. No reason we can't put them away until next winter!

Enjoy Florida!

April Showers...

Wow! It's April (finally) and the azaleas are flowering!
For those of you lacking a green thumb, the azaleas are the bushes around the barn. Vibrant pink and white flowers are popping up all over their green backdrop. Although azalea bushes are somewhat toxic to animals when ingested, they are not very tasty (otherwise the donkeys would be toxified by now!).

Just in the few days we've had the horses out of Pastures 1 and 3 grass has begun to sprout! We purchased a spreader/aerator from Tractor Supply. With Chris's help we assembled it in under 2 hours only to realize that it was a worthless piece of equipment. Bummer! Lesson learned.
The good news is TS will accept the aerator as a return AND I don't have to disassemble it! Whew.

Instead we'll be buying a more expensive, less complicated, multifunctional piece of farm equipment: a spiked drag harrow! Basically just some heavy duty steel twisted into a chain-like drag with about 6 links of metal that point into the ground. It can work as a drag for the arena, an aerator for the pastures, and a drag for the round bales. Figures the simplified equipment works better.

Because of the whole 'crappy aerator' incident, upgrading the pastures has been set back a few days until I can get the aerator returned and the harrow purchased. That may happen this evening since TS is open late!

This weather is amazing, isn't it!? Perfect for doing anything outside with your furry friend.

With spring weather comes necessary spring vaccines. The mosquitoes are coming out of hiding and with them we see a plethora of vector-borne diseases. Is your horse vaccinated?

Updates, updates!

Pasture upgrading is in full swing!
We finally received our soil sample test results back -- the pH, Phospohorus, and Potash (potassium) are at perfect levels. Hooray! That means we don't need to add lime to adjust the pH. They do recommend adding 50 lbs of Nitrogen per acre. The don't test for Nitrogen but they say that for grazing pasture they always recommend adding Nitrogen.
So, we have the Nitrogen, the Pensacola Bahia grass seed, the seed spreader/aerator, the herbicide and backpack sprayer. We're good to go.

Betsy, Dancer, and Shellie were moved about 5 days ago to Pasture 4 with Jedi, Ufir, and Molly. Molly was thrilled to see her younger lady friends and ran around with them until everyone settled down. Molly has buddied up with Betsy and they all seem very content with the new herd arrangements.
Pokey & Tav were added to Magic's pasture and all went smoothly. We've added corral panels outside this pasture so that the slow eaters (Tav and Pokey) can take their time eating without having to put them in the pasture while its growing.

Now we have two empty pastures on the 'barn side' ready for aerating, fertilizing, and seeding! We'll let them grow for (ideally) 60 days before switching up the herds again.

Pokey and Betsy will no longer be "stall horses" - they are both going to enjoy the luxury of 24 hour pasture!
Shellie and JW will remain in the stalls with pals Satin and Dancer until further notice.

I am typing this update while in my Epidemiological Methods class... so I'm going to cut this short!

See you at the barn!

Kathy