Tuesday 7 April 2009

Easter Break


At the moment there is rather a lot going on. The weather seems to have settled at "quite nice but maybe breezy" for the time being and the ground is drying like mad. The little bit of rain we have had managed to wet Holly's rugs ( that I'd left over the gate ) enough that I took them home to wash and the grass is finally starting to grow. This now brings us to the point of fixing fencing and attempting to restrict horses to certain areas so we can actually grow something for haylage.
We should be recieving 50 new posts tomorrow and Friday is pencilled in as fencing day ( as Si is off work and is really the only one who can be reasonably expected to handle the post knocker for more than about 15 minutes without injuring himself), I've even managed to arrange for the kids to go up there for the day ( Shock, Horror !!!) and it will probably cost me dear in cake and ice cream.
I've been out today and bought enough fencing tape to repair the bottom fence to a state where I can actually energise it so they'll be restricted to the first field as soon as we can get it re-taped and fitted up with the recently repaired energiser. I'd bet money that the first horse to cop a shock will be Harvey and the first dog will be Xsara.
On the whole household front John has been busy building shelves for preserves and a spice rack that was filled about as soon as it was finished - he's now planning on building an extention to it. ! He also had to make a set of steps to reach the shelves although the cats don't seem to be having any problem with jumping up there.
The orange wine is due for sampling tonight before being siphoned off into fresh jars tomorrow but I refuse to do that until after I have sorted the horses and done with driving for the day - I remember what happened last time. Apple wine is slowing down at last and John is currently boiling up nectarine jam.
We had a break from routine the other day and lunged all 3 horses over jumps - yes ! even Fally got a go as there were enough of us there to actually be able to chase him around. I think we have him sussed now - it seems that as soon as he knows that the whip can't actually touch him he switches off so the whole lunging thing is really more like a circular one-sided long reining. He did enjoy the jumping but unfortunately I got no photos of that, I suppose there will have to be a next time.
Asti's gecko has laid eggs again so she is excited and taking extreme measures to try to make sure that the humidity in the incubator doesn't drop like it did last time. She has also gone gardening mad so my garden looks good and she's planted peppers and put them in the greenhouse, she's already booked John to make up some shelves for her and used up all our compost from last year !

3 comments:

  1. Can you point at your poorly hand to get everyone else to do the fence for you?! :D

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  2. Ah no more - the antibiotics did the job and the splinter came out on Saturday - a good half inch of dirty pine. It's still a bit sore but not enough to stop me doing stuff - just make me do stuff more carefully !

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  3. Busy busy busy!! I'm trying to catch up on everyone's blogs. you have been one busy lady!! Glad your grass is drying :) Ours is still sopping wet and the pastures have been so flooded where we board that the one pasture is just wet brown muck. We've had two good days, hopefully a third tomorrow.

    Don't give up on your lunging. I spent lots of time basically chasing my girl around on her left side and I think I got more exercise than she did before we finally got it down pat and her going. If he thinks the whip won't touch him, make it touch him a few times for him to get that out of his head :)

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