Guess what? Its raining outside! Thanks to tropical depression Ida( that booch) Its been raining cats and dogs and gerbils for three days. Dirt roads are almost impassible and paved roads have several rivers crossing over them. Its gloomy, damp and pretty gross out! So Ive been stuck indoors and so have the ponies. The chickens on the other hand are either senseless from the water or are part duck as every time I check on them, they are dragging their sodden feathers around their run bitching loudly about the conditions. I can only hope that they are simply hardier then my old group of poultry who never ventured forth unless it was 70 and sunny out. They continue to produce small, white eggs daily so maybe they haven't gone totally batty.
My poor ponies have been standing out in the weather for several hours a day, butts to the worst of it with rain sheets billowing. Cuervo is not pleased, and yesterday after about 5 hours out in it I had to bring them in. Its not to much better inside. My silly barn floods! So, except for the fact that the wind is not blowing them around,rain is not pouring off their manes and down their snouts, its not much of an improvement to be cooped up on a small island of pelleted bedding. At its worst the water was ankle deep inside. I thank my lucky stars that I propped the pallets holding my hay up on cinder blocks. I got alot of grief about that too. "Ya know, snakes and critters will git up under thar and bite ye..." well that maybe, but I'll gladly brave a little venom/rabies to keep my hay dry. Well, unless we have a record flood! Anyway, all this fun has put me in the mind of planning how I would improve on things if I had a place of my own. First of all, I wonder about stalls, they are small, dark and cage like. Any stall! Why do we have them? Who was the one person who decided 12x12 was the magic number of feet to contain an average horse? I remember in Hungary the barns where open, and the whole herd would plunk in there and eat from huge feeders set along the walls. If there was any division, it was from a hanging log from the ceiling that segmented out a straight stall where the horse got a grain ration or waited for saddling. A simple butt chain kept it in there between the two hanging logs. So I'm thinking, well what if I had a huge barn-like run in, instead of four 12x12 stalls? I'm not to hip on a simple three sided run in as those are cold and I have always noticed at least one horse getting left out no matter how well they get along. In my imagination I think of a closed barn with a door at either end. And an over hang outside where they can stand next to the barn out of the weather if they choose. This of course would be right off their turn out and down stairs from my barn house apartment! What could be easier for pet sitters or husbands with no horse experience? grin. Down the stair case, out of the weather might I ad, hay over the half doors into the four stall sized open space, water check of inside buckets and back up to a nice toasty home. No fuss no muss! Horses can come in or out as they choose, eat in a wind proof,bedded, snug stable or hang out in the turn out but dry under the over hang. By George I think I've got it! Can you tell I've been doing some thinking lately stuck indoors? The next rational addition would be a cover all so i can still ride in said lousy weather, and a piece of property way above sea level. No worries right? Ha! we shall see. Clearly more research is needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment