A quick update

The last few days of March was awful. It rained and rained and rained. Everything was flooded. Needless to say, my pasture was also flooded and muddy. The horses were standing in knee deep mud. I talked to a lot of people about my mud problem and they all told me the same thing, just wait for better weather and wait for it to dry. Thanks for the tip. Thankfully though, better weather has come and it's been beautiful out, nice and warm and sunny. My mud problem is in fact drying up, except by the gate, and things are looking better. The grass is coming up in the lower pasture, but the horses still aren't allowed in there yet. It's still too soon. I don't want them killing the grass by putting them down there too early in the season. I'm still not even sure if Gypsy should have grass because of her laminitis. She's been symptom free for 5 or 6 months but I still don't want to risk it and lose the summer because she got too much grass too soon. I guess I'll have to hand graze her for 5 minutes a day and work her up from there. I opened another section of paddock the other day. I had done it to get them out of the mud, it's a little drier since it's up on a hill but it's still a bit muddy. It looks nice though. I meant to take pics the other day, but I forgot. There is no grass in the new paddock since it used to be pine trees. I figure they can bum around in there for the spring and turn it over with their feet and maybe I'll be able to seed it in the fall with some winter rye or something like that. I'm still learning about this farming and pasture management stuff. I'm getting there though. It's just so hard to maintain 11 acres, 4 out buildings, the house, and all the animals by myself. Other people live here, but they don't help me much. Sometimes I wish I could sit around and do nothing all day. I have plans for this place, and I want it to look nice so there are no rest days for me. The barn is coming along. It turns out that it can be saved and that's what we are doing, saving the old barn. A new barn would be wonderful, but I do love the old barn and the beams and it's history. We want to put it back as close to how it used to be as possible. I'll post pics of it soon. In fact, I'll have to post pics of the new paddock and baby chicks too. The chicklets are getting big! They almost look like chickens now. Right now, I am too lazy to deal with blogger's picture uploader. It just seems like so much work right now. I worked 9am to 2pm today and then did some raking and yard work so right now, everything seems like too much work. I am tired. I swear, when you live on a farm, you don't need a gym membership!