Coralling our quarter horse

Before I write about this experience it should be noted, my experience with a horses is limited to the instruction of my wife, Sara. Sara has instructed me in the equestrian world and without her lessons I would have not attempted what we accomplished last night!
We have three horses at the farm, two of which we can saddle up and ride. Our youngest is a quarter horse, he has not been worked with much but we have gotten a saddle on him and Sara has ridden him for a short distance. He has become the alpha of the pasture and is downright stubborn when it comes to catching him. He will come up to us when we bring grain or he is curious. Try to put a halter on him however, that is a different story altogether! Sara had an idea to take him to another farm where she could put him into a small pen and separate him from the other horses.  This sounded like a good idea but both of us knew that catching him was going to be a bit difficult!
Sara backed the horse trailer up to our small pasture and set up a path to the trailer. Mr. Curious (his name is Babu) walked right into the pasture. We pulled the wire rope gate shut and started to work on moving him to the trailer. Sounds good so far! Well...not so much. he was not going to cooperate. Sara had a prod and whip to get him moving but all he would do is walk in the direction to trailer and bolt away when we attempted to push him into the trailer. No, I don't mean get behind him and shove, we used the prod, whip tried to get him to step into the trailer. About this time some of you may be wondering, why not put a halter on him and lead him into the trailer? Remember what I said about catching him to put a halter on him, not going to happen! At one point we had a rope to shorten the pasture and attempt to persuade him into the trailer, nope not having any of that he would just rear up and bolt through the rope! In one attempt he just broke through the electric fence as I am being yelled at for not being in front of the electric gate! Yelled at affectionately of course. So... now we had to replace the handles on the gate and both of us were hot, sweating and pissed! Our kids were standing guard to close the trailer gates and that was about all we could get from them to help. Neither one wanted to be in that pasture chasing a horse that could pummel them in a hurry. What was I thinking? Taking a break we devised a new plan; we would put the other two horses into the pasture to coax Babu back into the pasture. Once all three were in we would
separate the two from Babu and start over. This worked and we were back at it. Our dog is a healer but not trained very well when it comes to the horses. She likes to bark and run from them and Babu likes to chase her. We have witnessed Babu at a full gallop going after Spot (healer) through the pasture, zigzagging after her and believe me that dog was scared! So usually when we are working with the horses we keep her in the house. Well Sara's mom let her out. So now we have our dog ready for action and jumping into the fray. I swear, I thought I was going to blow a gasket! I know Sara was ready to blow! Well instead of putting the dog back into the house we decided to put her to work. We sent her after Babu and she did it somewhat; sometimes she herded him in the wrong direction.  Well by now the horse was sweating bullets, no literally the sweat was pouring off of him. Than the most amazing thing happened; Babu walked up to me as if to say I quit. I gently rubbed his neck and head and slowly wrapped a lead rope around his neck. He tore it from me a one point but I had it hooked around his neck and it did not come off. He came back up to me, now thoroughly exhausted and Sara managed to slip a halter on him. She also attached a small chain on the halter that would go over his hose. We were in business, or at least we thought so! Now that we had this hot sweaty exhausted horse in our hands we thought we could coax him into the trailer, not so much. After many attempts I took a hold of the lead rope with the chain and attempted as Sara did her best to coax him from behind; trust me I will forever look over my shoulder if my wife is going to attempt to coax me anywhere! Well this didn't work so I pulled him away from the trailer and made him walk in different directions, when he moved in the direction I wanted I switched up to another direction, working him hard for not cooperating. He got pissed and reared up, awesome to see unless you are the one holding the lead rope! He did this to me several times before landing on his feet realizing I wasn't going anywhere. So what do you do with a horse who will not go into the trailer no mater what? Saddle him up! That is exactly what we did. Sara got on him and rode him in the pasture. We decided we did not need to take him anywhere, we had made progress and it was enough. We also left the saddle on him over night, we are not finished with him and he also got to spend the night away from his buddies.

Babu

All I can say was it was an awesome experience and despite the danger of one us of getting hurt, I would do it again. Horses are interesting creatures who have a real sense of mind and when they respond positively it can be amazing. Our hope is to train Babu into being a great horse and one we can work with on the farm.

Farming and the labor of love

The romantic vision of life on the farm is an existential vision based on the idea of the land of milk and honey. When we see acres of crops and farmers on their tractors we sense they are driving that tractor thinking about philosophical solutions to solving the world. Watching a farmer cut hay or plow under a field we may envy their stress free life. What I am learning however is an entirely different concept. Whether I agree with their farming techniques or not, I am but a novice in their world. It is easy to asess their methods when we have never tilled a field or fixed a broken tractor because we have never felt their pain. I have learned what it is like to hook your plow up when it is below zero and your hands are so cold you can't feel your fingers. I have fixed things mechanically and realized the ingenuity of the farmer. The laws of physics play an important role as the farmer devises a pully system or how to move a tree by himself. Summer time for many may mean camping, going to the beach but not to a farmer. Farmers working the plan are worrying about water, insects, and other very trying needs. The monoculture farm may be disdained versus the polculture farm and although I think the polyculture farm is the better plan I will still respect the work of any farmer. They work in an industry surrounded by those who view their work as an opportunity to profit from. Those profits dwindle quickly and leave many farmers in the lurch.
We are learning and as we learn our once rose colored glasses now see things a bit differently. Not that we haven't enjoyed the life on the farm, we have set up a campsite on the farm, or enjoyed riding our horses. Just like other families we have our share of drama and stress. As a chef I am building a bank of knowledge to share with my students as well as continue my own personal growth.
Finally I know that this farm has had new life breathed into it, and whether it will sustain itself will depend on well crafted plans. These plans are going to be dependent on not only economics but on mother nature and coming to grips with what doesn't work and what will work.

Deer in early spring in the alfalfa field

looking south towards the woods

looking west towards the woods

Farm life

As I set out for the evening chores I have had some time to reflect on the projects I started back in late winter. This year I reorganized the garden (using a management term) to better manage the soil and water. I cut unwanted trees or dead standing trees to build raised beds. I recycled cardboard to cover walk ways between the beds with wood chips. In between each bed I created swails to allow water to be absorbed under the beds. We have had a heavy amount of rain and because of my reorganization planting was late but I am happy to say we have a great harvest coming and everything seems to be working. It should be noted that during the heavy rains, the garden was one of the few places on the farm that did not get flooded out. I went up to the swails and each one held a small amount of water while the rest was being absorbed into the ground. Our son William and his friend Tyler assisted me in cutting the trees for the beds and William helped me build the beds and swails.
The chicken coop I built out of pallets is 90 percent complete.  I just need to put in the door, flooring for the egg boxes, and fence in the chicken run. Our neighbor, Barry, built the doors for the hen boxes, I did not like my design and he offered to build me a better design! He has now offered to do the same on the door and help with the flooring for the hen boxes! On top of all of that neighborly help he assisted me in cutting the roofing for the coop. I needed a saw to cut through the metal and he brought one over! Our son helped me in some of the construction and believe me any help you can get when you take on more than your schedule can handle is a gift!
Finally 51 grapevines were planted, fenced in and just need to add the electric wire (cattle will be near the vines thus the fencing).  I believe the vines are far enough away from cattle manure and will not affect them.  The. Cattle are on 15 acres below the vines and off the top side. The runoff, if any will not run into the plants or soil. This task was completed with the help of our son and our daughter, Dawson, as I have never put up a cattle fence previously we worked our way through the learning process and put it up! Okay this is where I have to share our favorite learning tool on the farm, YouTube! Yup, that's right we look up our conundrum on YouTube and watch the how to videos! When we were putting the wood post into the ground we looked up how to lock a post in the ground without concrete and found a great video using a 2X4 as a key to lock the post in place. It turned out to be exciting for the three of us as we had never put a fence like this and in the end it came out pretty nice.
In between all of this work I am still doing my work at the college! Talk about a weight loss plan; I have lost almost 20. Lbs!

Gate heading into the vineyard and fencing around the grapevines

One of the beds with tomatoes, onions, nasturiums and basil on the other side.

Chicken coop built out of pallets, old cedar siding and leftover metal roofing. Still needs gutters, door on the front and flooring in the egg boxes. The run will be fenced in towards the garden and next year we will add portable chicken runs into the garden.