(blog post written by Jason tonight; as always picture captions by Melissa)
Melissa and I are in the rare spring-time position of actually being relatively caught up with our farm chores this weekend. But all was not sloth around here as we took advantage of the excellent weather to move the horses around to take advantage of grass in other areas and do a little very timely area spraying in some of the pastures. The way horses move and graze are incredibly hard on pastures, and while I tend to think herbicides are over-used I haven’t yet figured out how to eliminate their use entirely and still maintain reasonably productive pastures. Hand hoeing or even spot spraying 290 acres (Jason is including the total acreage of both farms in this number!) of pasture ground just isn’t realistic.
In addition to spraying, we also did some serious tidying up around one of the outbuildings. This particular spot tends toward being the junk camp of the farm; not any more! We loaded old wire, tires, twine, etc into the 24 foot stock trailer and hauled the whole mess off to the dump!
Next on the list is servicing the hay equipment and the bush hog, none of which should see actual work for another couple of weeks. Melissa has now bathed every horse on the farm with the exception of four – and they are on the list for tomorrow! I’m interested in hearing what ya’ll did this weekend ?
One of my favorite pictures that I have taken recently around the farm; Alex and Ogie grazing early one morning. Of course I love the sun breaking through the lifting fog, I love the canopy of the trees in the background, I like how the fence provides a border for the picture, but most of all I love the silhouettes of Alex and Ogie and how they were grazing so closely together in quiet companionship. It was a perfect scene on a perfect morning and I am glad to have it captured in a picture.
Thomas has now had a bath and spring clean-up with the clippers; he obligingly fell asleep on the cross ties while his legs were trimmed. Wish he would have done that while I was bathing him!
I had to take Cuff Links’ picture in the middle of his bath. He was not happy and it shows in his expression. Forgiveness will be slow in coming for this and it will be weeks before he will let me walk up and catch him in the pasture without using stealth measures!
He did come out of the wash nicely though – like a freshly laundered set of sheets!
Mina and Jo, World’s Cutest Fainting Goats, grazing along with Billy and Bubba, World’s Luckiest Stray Goats
Alex
Teddy, Lightening, Lucky, Chili and Clay (O’Reilly is mostly obscured in the background). See the redbud in the background? Jason loves the fact that they grow wild here.
Bella and Sebastian
Lily and Buffy
Winston and Sebastian