Dog Days of Summer

Ok, I've been lax. I need to make more time for the blog, but hey, it's SUMMER. I'm not huddled in the house in front of the computer hiding from the frozen tundra. I'm outside doing summer stuff, like mowing lawn. Of which I have too much. So this last weekend I made the decision to re-do some fencing and make a pasture bigger to eat up some of that never-ending lawn.


We currently have two large pastures. That's not enough for proper pasture rotation. When completed, we'll have three pastures and a dry lot. Hank and Honky will probably live most of their time in the dry lot (fatties), with the young athletic types out on any one of the grazing pastures. I'm hoping that this will be a better plan than the one currenlty in place. This should allow for the pastures to have greater time to "rest", allowing the grass to grow and the manure to dry up so I can drag it out and hopefully keep the fly population down. All of the fencing that faces the house will now be wood post and rail, and the rest will be electric.

Excavation for the new barn is underway. The new driveway and parking lot are starting to materialize (less lawn!). All of the topsoil has been scraped off to the side and all the fill has been hauled in. We are just waiting for the dozer to come and smooth out the clumps.

Looking from the house toward barn:

Looking from shed across parking lot:
Looking west up barn aisle:

Parking lot & stalls:

Spent a day and half this week hooking up the water line to our well and trenching in new water lines. Everything was buried at 7' to ensure nothing will freeze. The water line and electric conduit have been roughed in, and the new hydrant was installed behind the big shed. The barn is scheduled to be delivered next week, but we just got a letter saying they bumped us back a few days. Still trying to find the reasons behind that.

Much like everyone else, this summer has been flying by. With shows, 4h kids, the building mess and all that damned lawn we haven't gone on as many trail rides as I would have wished.