Some Ways to Get Your Cow Ready for the Parade

It's World Naked Gardening Day!

Sorry, no photos.

Art as the Illusion of Function

Here are some pieces of fence art I've found around the property. Sadly, the exhibits you see here will be dismantled as soon as the frost is out of the ground, so view them while you can!

This is a particularly fine piece of sculpting done by a series of horses over about two years. A group effort, but a cohesive one. They all had the same vision, obviously.


I especially like this piece, done in wood and metal, tied together nicely with the bright orange twine.


A fine antiquing effect was used on this linear piece.


One of my favourites, this piece gives the illusion of solidity with thick vertical lines, offset by the falling diagonal.


Septimus and his half brother, the newest patrons to the gallery.

Born Yesterday

One down, one to go! Connie had her calf last night (on her own birthday!) with a breezy three hours of labour. The calf was raring to go and was up drinking within an hour. His name is Septimus. Don't ask me why.

Here he is this morning.


I gave him his vitamin shots this morning (ouch), a one-time thing for calves. Tomorrow I'll put in his ear tags. As Corb Lund says, "Welcome to the world, little buddy."

Kasper

Kasper thinks cameras are for nibbling on.


I finally got organized enough to get him into the arena. He was a little nervous.


Noises outside the barn worried him.


But he settled down really well and we worked through a few of the easier Stage Three exercises (see previous blog entries) and he remembered all kinds of stuff that he hasn't done all winter. In this picture he's trotting circles around me. He stayed focussed on me in the arena even though he was off the lead rope the whole time, and he didn't seem worried that he'd left his friends behind. All very encouraging. A good start to the season.

Barn Cat Moves Indoors

At first, living indoors was pretty spooky for Ginger.


And then he discovered beds.

The Next Big Project

This is the next big project. It's not a horse. It's not a cow. It's an equestrian centre! I moved here in January, and am settling in. (And somewhat snowed in). The place has a barn with stalls and runs, several paddocks and some small pastures. Here are a few photos. These will be some of the "before" photos. I hope, by the end of the summer, to have "after" photos.

The first project in the spring will be new fencing. (The barn in the back is my neighbour's barn.)


This is my barn, which houses a riding arena, stalls, hay storage and tack rooms. It's thirty or forty years old. It's made of post and beam construction with huge pressure-treated posts. Which is great. But the posts have heaved with the frost and now the barn sides and roof swoop up and down like a sine wave. Apparently, post by post, this can be fixed. So, after fencing, the next project will be to change the foundation around each post to prevent heaving, level it all out, and put on siding. I'm thinking red tin.


This shows the swoop in the wall from in the arena.


Here's a shot of the central hallway.


This is the south side of the barn where the horses access their runs from their stalls. Snow is an issue! When the roof slides, the doors are plugged and have to be shovelled out. The roof slid just before I moved in so I didn't have to shovel that. (Phew!) But it's set to slide again...