A Glorious Day

6.30am on a school weekday finds me porridging in the kitchen, wrestling with packed lunches and devising new ways to encourage small humans to arise and face the day - preferably with school uniform on.
Winters at Opportunity Farm can be long and each morning the fire needs tending and the house warming before there is much success at getting the others up. That's why some summer weekend days it is great to leap out of bed, throw on some clothes and head out the door before anyone else is up.
This morning the dew was heavy and glistening as I walked up through the paddock. The final section of fence where I have been adding Hinge Joint to keep the goats in was beckoning. At our corner post there is a stile over which the human kids climb on their way to catch their bus to their NSW school. I climbed over to tie on the wire and looked back over Opportunity Farm and soaked up the sights and sounds. There were lots of sounds. The separated goat kids and mums were still calling to each other, the dogs were barking, the calf was asking for his mother back and the birds were announcing that it was a beautiful day. I tried to capture this natural cacophony but my camera is old fashioned technology and decent sound was beyond it.

Opportunity Farm from its SE corner

Once I had secured and tightened the fence with Gripples the sun had dried the dew and heat was promising much. Time for breakfast and the morning chores and to chase those children out of bed.

More apples to dry, the air conditioner to build into the wall of the hanging shed and some shelves to put up in the pantry. Outside jobs but out of the sun.

The girls wanted to ride. Opal didn't think this was such a good idea and ran away when approached with a leadrope. She was finally cornered and the tacking up could commence. She snorted and stamped but submitted to the indignity and discomfort of being saddled. It was a fine day for a ride but progress was painfully slow. Harley just wanted to put his head down and eat. My six-year old daughter just isn't strong enough to pull his head up as often as he wants to put it down for another mouthful. Opal would walk for a bit and then stand still despite being spurred on by an enthusiastic though not strong girl on her back. Still as long as I was there to encourage all four of them the walk progressed. I have no experience with horses and am in the dark about most equine activities.

 As a child my older sister was keen on horses and helped out at a stables for a while. This came to an abrupt end when we were sheltering from the wind and rain at a Welsh lake. To our amazement a Mr.Whippy van made it up the hill to the almost empty car park tootling 'Greensleeves'.Taking pity on the entrepreneurial or simply dim ice-cream man we purchased some 99 cones. The Welsh Mountain ponies obviously knew the van as a source of food and approached us for a lick. When my sister turned her back on the pony to protect her icecream it was so offended it took a chunk out of her back. Horses were off the agenda after that.

 Anyway I am happy to encourage pony riding and to see the joy on my girls' faces makes it a very worthwhile project.

   

 The day ended with a thunderstorm and downpour that cleared the air and watered the gardens. Only three more summer weekends to go. I hope they are all as glorious as this one.

Pony Podiatry

 

When you have ponies you also have a farrier. We are really lucky to have Josh, who visits as regular as clockwork. Unfortunately it is every six weeks or so and during that time I have usually forgotten when he is coming.
Josh arrives in his ute with all the paraphernalia required to make our ponies feet look uniform,with perfectly rounded hooves.  Out comes the little hoof stand, the knives and  the large file.
Josh puts on the leather chaps over his wranglers.

Opal is the first and she hasn't met Josh before. She fidgets and kicks a little and  nudges him with her head. Josh is very gentle and patiently gets on with the job. I hold Opal's head and keep an eye on her. She has been known to bite. The job takes only about ten minutes and then it's Harley's turn. Harley is an old hand at this but he still tries to wander off halfway through. The dogs sit watching expectantly. They know that they get to eat the shavings.

While all this is going on we talk about horse breeds, temperament, discipline and Latin. Then he's finished and we part with next times appointment. We are  really lucky to have this wonderful service.

Room for Two Ponies?

Harley the pony was lonely. And small. Too small for a growing ten-year old. When our daughter was the oldest child at Pony Club riding the smallest pony then the time was approaching to look for an upgrade. There are also several younger siblings 'chomping the bit' to have a tilt at Pony Club. Then we hear a neighbour has a grandson whose just not 'eager' enough to be a pony rider. "Come and have a look at his pony."
Opal is very stocky, sturdy and with fine feet. Two hands may make light work but in pony sizes they can make all the difference. Just what we need - a gentle pony just a bit bigger than Harley. Local and delivered. We'll take her.

We returned from our other property to find Opal already at home and certainly telling Harley who the boss is. Now we just have to work her a bit to get her used to us and wait for our horse-mad daughter to return from her holiday and find out. Then two kids can ride at once and while there will be more horse poo to collect the responsibility can be spread wider. It seems very important to make living in the backblocks a positive experience for our children and having another pony may help achieve just that. They may not be many friends to have over, no television or iphones but Opal and Harley are real living friends who can provide hours of entertainment and don't need a wireless connection. Yes, we have room for two ponies.

When Doing a Shit Job is Good for the Garden

Harley, the 15yr old placid pony, loves to eat. He would much rather chomp on green grass than raise a sweat to carry a rider off to wherever they wish to go. This greediness poses a problem as if left to follow his heart’s desire Harley would eat so much he would make himself very sick and founder. This is supposedly common in ponies and once they have overeaten they need to have their food intake very closely controlled.

The good news for us, or particularly our 10 year old horse-mad daughter, is that meant we have the loan of a great little horse in exchange for being the ones that keep a close eye on his feed. This fantastic lush spring has meant that there is little option for Harley than being kept in a small well-eaten paddock. The solution for his feed is to give him a bale of last year’s hay. Plenty to eat but with almost none of the sugars in the hay that would give him a pain in the neck and sore feet. The problem with Harley having plenty to eat is that he shits a lot. Too much poo in the paddock will sour the grass.

So today’s job is to scrape up all that horse manure and bag it. Most we give to a neighbour who helps us out a but some is destined for the compost heap. It’s great stuff for fertilizing and probably the only type of poo that children will get excited about cleaning up. The two youngest girls are still naïve and keen enough to volunteer and the horse-loving daughter has no choice or Harley might find a new home where someone loves him. With a team of four on the job it gets done fairly quickly and then we escape inside to cool down with an icy pole each.