Saturday 7 November 2009

Pastures new

A better day weatherwise with some warm sunny spells between the showers. We decided to move the electric fence to give the 5 ponies in the big field all the pasture that has been denied them since April. Paul has gradually accustomed them to it over the past fortnight by moving the fence a few inches every day.

It is a wonderful mixture of grasses and herbs and we arranged the new fenceline in such a way as to enclose some scrubby willow and oak for scratching or browsing on. First of all we had to move the ponies into the little paddock - Paul tempted them in with some hay. All except Bobby - he only came out of there a week ago and is well aware that it is a 'starvation' paddock and not worth revisiting! So he stayed out, unaware that we had all the outside fence down, and moved over to graze the new bit.

We had to join some tape up to get enough for two lines all round. Vikki and Sam went up to let the ponies back in (they had been watching us carefully). They came out of the gate so fast! Muddy in the lead, closely followed by Jeremy, with Basil and Dan behind. It was a flat out gallop to the new grass with a slight pause at the point where the fence had been, just to check.

It will be difficult to find the manure now and to pick it up out of the long grass. However we probably won't need to feed hay in there for some time yet, maybe not until after Christmas.
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