The Wacky Weeds

The last few days have been work days in my pony's pasture. Why is it that when you are not working (as in a paying job) you still end up working? Why am I not sitting in a lawn chair in the sun, fanning myself, drinking lemonade and reading the latest best seller?

Because when you have a horse, there is always something to be cleaned, mended, exercised, unloaded, bought, fed, fixed, washed, organized, dusted, longed, raked......I could go on and on, but I'm running out of verbs.

First, I wanted to tackle these weeds growing in My Boy's pasture. I have no idea what kind of plant or weed they are. But they sprout up pretty fast and tall in the early summer.

Does anyone out there know? {click on photos to enlarge details}

My horse doesn't eat them. Last summer when we took the horses on a trip for five days, the goats roamed all the pastures and they munched down some of them. I offered a goat one last weekend, and he scoffed his nose at it.

Luckily, their root systems aren't too deep and I was able to pull most of them right out of the ground.

A few were more stubborn then others and I think I broke them off at the base of the root. Hopefully I got the majority of them, as they are about to seed and continue their intensive takeover.

Next up- cleaning the dusty old shavings out of My Boy's turnout shed. Luckily, he hasn't been using it as his toilet much lately, so the shavings were unsoiled, just coated in a heavy dirt.

Paint Girl had a helpful solution for this task, she used her riding lawnmower to pull the little cart into the pasture. We unloaded the new shavings.

And then I loaded the dirty ones in the cart. And Paint Girl hauled them up to the arena, where we spread them out over the harder ground to soften the footing.

And My Boy got a fluffy, cozy turnout shed. NOW he will start using it as his toilet again, I guarantee it!

It was good, hard work. It's such a good feeling to be productive. And I'll let you in on a little secret. To me, horsey work is never really work. I never mind making things better for my horse. Right now, his "home" is cleaner than my own home!

After cleaning up (I rinsed about 3 lbs of dirt out of my hair) I rushed off to a friend's for dinner. My friend let me sit and relax while she grilled pizza (yes, grilled pizza on the BBQ, flat bread style~ let me tell you, it was delish!) and homemade chocolate chip cookies. I ate like I hadn't eaten in weeks.

Fresh air, a little (a lot) of dirt, and horsey work will do that to ya!