Finally after months of coming into the yard, Abbey is relaxing and this week I popped her into the stable. Importantly she was fairly chilled about it and continued to eat her haynet while watching her boys through the garden and across the field.
It seems a tiny thing, but it’s taken months and months to get to this point. On previous occasions she got herself into quite a tizzy and either walked circles or stood trembling at the doorway.
Continue reading “And we’re in”
All was going well on our longest solo mission (some lovely long canters, some well negotiated logs in the forest etc) until…Abbey spooked at a dog and leapt/fell into a lake. With a 2ft drop into a 3-4ft deep lake, we both went under.
Continue reading “Leaping into the lake”
Much to the amusement of my non-horsey friends, giving up the lovely school at the livery yard was one of my major concerns about moving house (priorities?!). While I love hacking and interval training, I also love schooling.
I looked at all the options and realistically installing a menage costs thousands of pounds, so for now we’re doing our thing in a mowed rectangle in the field. And it’s actually ok. We’re fortunate enough here to have very sandy soils, which means that it drains well and the land is quite flat which also helps.
With all the hacking we’ve got here, I’ve not done as much as schooling I used to, but last night I headed to our ‘arena’ on a mission.
Abbey went well. She needs to get stronger and fitter but, as usual, she tried her hardest. I feel that with all the shoveling, heavy lifting and other smallholdery-type exercise, I’ve gotten rather stiff. But that’s undo-able with some time spent on the yoga mat.
Here are our best bits:
Over the years I’ve found that lateral work in walk is incredibly useful for getting both Abbey and I warmed up. It reveals when I’m not ‘plugged in’ and using my seat properly, and it sets the tone for the session, making Abbey concentrate and engage her core.
Continue reading “No menage, no matter.”
Moving to a very different equestrian set-up has highlighted one of Abbey’s flaws…her lack of independence. She’s rather herd-bound and has always been inclined to draw comfort from other horses being around.
Before moving it had rarely been a problem and she was never ‘that’ clingy. The menage was surrounded by the fields in which many of the other liveries were grazing, we didn’t hack on our own because the traffic was so bad that you needed to be able to go two abreast to slow the onslaught of vehicles. Even interval training round the fields was nearly always in sight of others.
But it was always there…she’d run around like hooligan if left in the field on her own, she wouldn’t like it if her travel companion went out of sight at a competition and when we were seemingly alone training in the field, she was always very on edge and liable to spook at the smallest movement (pigeon or horse-eating leaf, didn’t matter). I put it down to horsey nature, they are, after all, herd animals. There is safety in numbers. I didn’t worry about it at all.
Coming here has been a learning curve for us both. The stable block, while only 30m or so from the fields, totally obscures her view of her field mates. And, as we’ve yet to make lots of friends, most ridden work has to be done alone.
Continue reading “It’s a long road to independence”
Please note I am not an authority on the identification of any bugs, beetles, flowers or grasses and am very happy to be corrected!
One of the reasons for continuing this blog is to have a record of what we’ve seen and to spot changes has we try and encourage more wildlife. After a seemingly long winter it was the bumblebees that first let us know spring was on its way.
They were initially spotted looking for nest sites, particularly around the big oak tree. Today we’ve a few nesting in the garage.
On a particularly dark, cold, miserable night at the end of February I spotted our first toad. Since then we’ve spotted a few more. I’m particularly found of the one I found in the veggie patch fingers crossed he decides to make it his home and eats all the slugs that are currently taking down my carrots!
When we viewed the property toward the end of the summer in 2021, the pastures had a good amount of grass on them. It was noticeably weedy from the traditional sense but there was plenty of grazing to see the ponies through the winter.
By the time we moved in, however, it was evident that the previous owner had more than her own horses on the land and it had been grazed hard. As a result, the grass is still recovering. While it’s more than a little frustrating, we are where we are!
Continue reading “Our journey towards the Equicentral system so far”
I mentioned in my last post that one of the key elements of improving soil health and biological diversity here is going to be the adoption of the Equicentral (and track) grazing system for the ponies.
Note this is my interpretation which brings information from Equicentral’s courses and books, together with some of my knowledge/understanding of farming and conservation. For original Equicentral system information, click here.)
Essentially the Equicentral system is a form of mob grazing for ponies. You let the grass grow much longer than you would in a traditional rotational grazing system (at least as tall as a beer bottle on its end) and move horses on to new grazing quickly (when they’ve eaten it down to the height of a beer bottle on its side).
Continue reading “About the Equicentral grazing system”
For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted a smallholding and to cut a long story short, now I’ve got one! Abbey is literally in the back garden and an epic new chapter has begun…
Continue reading “Abbey moves house…to my house!”Managed to squeeze two schooling sessions and a dressage lesson in this week (jump lesson tomorrow!). My ‘notes to self’ and video highlights:
Schooling
The schooling went well. I tried to work on the same things as I have been in the lessons.
Here are some of the best bits:
Mares And Meadows 