Maybe this is getting a little too farmy.

Last evening we had a picnic in the barn. The menu was reasonable enough, bread and cheese and ham and sausage and such.



but there were a lot of guests.

Chickens,



a dog chasing the chickens,



a cat overseeing the chicken chasing



and a beer drinking horse



fortunately, we have no pear tree

That country necessity.

These are our new and expensive lawn ornaments:



every rural home should have two but few do. What they are, of course, is hatches for pumping the septic tank. Tanks should be pumped every few years to keep them working efficiently but that hasn't been the case in either septic equipped place I've lived; both tanks were left to fill up and become the problem of the next householder. Since we were the new householders we called a pumping firm to deal with our tank, telling them we didn't know where it was, how big it was or, indeed, anything about it. They referred us to a firm specializing in locating septic tanks (who knew, there were such companies).

The Tank Hunter was a cheery Newfie chap "if I'm not able to find it you'll pay nothing" he said, leaving me imagining the whole lawn dug up and no tank found. He came and after a false start he found the tank. He installed hatches and filters and whatever gubbins a tank untouched since 1978 needs. Once we recover from that bill we can start again with the honey wagon firm.

Unsettled weather.

It's hot in the afternoons, mid-nineties with very high humidity, cooler at night, down to sixty or so. Late in the day there are intense clouds and lots of wind at ground level. One of these days there's going to be a storm. We hope that, when it comes, we'll be sitting in the barn under the metal roof with bewildered chickens pecking around.

This was the view from the driveway last evening:







It was blowing hard, gusty, exciting, but no rain fell.

Chickens offered freedom, decline.

We enhanced the chicken room by giving them some perches made from scrap wood and tree branches:



We then invited them to come outside and free range a bit. They weren't keen and needed to be both coaxed and chased with a mucking rake:







Eventually some of them made it out into the barn proper where they immediately became lost, confused and eager to go home.



We still don't know which are male, which female, and what orientations they may have. This one has highly developed arse feathers but that may be a temporary affectation for Pride Week:



They're buggers to photograph, they won't stay still for a moment and our camera, a Pentax, doesn't take the picture until long after the button's pressed so it's press and hope.

Be careful what you wish for.

A comment on an earlier post led me to a blog on which the author contemplated the good features of our "lifestyle". I've been thinking on that. Life in the country does largely consist of sipping mint juleps while watching one's horses jump repeated clear rounds carrying visiting city children but, occasionally, there are disruptions.

Firstly, moving to the country doesn't somehow eliminate the chores one had in the city, the floors still need washing, the windows still need cleaning and there's a dirtier dog in the bed:



Then there are some farm type chores, this weekend, for example, we went by Farmer Squirrell's to discuss hay; we'd expected to be moving hay. Alas, he's behind on haying because his son grew up and left and he couldn't find anyone to hire for farm work; it crossed my mind that we should offer to go halves on a family of illegals, one labourer one domestic/child care person, but then I remembered reading on Chronicle of the Horse how "them Mexicans shit in the stalls" and thought the better of it. Anyway, because he's behind we have two worries; that he might not get the hay in and that he might at short notice. We have 300 "small" squares coming from the first cut, 300 bales is a lot of hay to store and it's also a lot to carry and stack. (Small squares, by the way, are only not large squares, at 40-50lbs each they're not trivial to carry). It would be unpleasant to hear that, because a storm is coming, the farmer has rushed and dropped the hay at the back door and it has to come in RIGHT NOW!

I worked on the barn for a couple of hours making sure that we have weatherproof space for the hay when it comes. That has to be done on a weekend because with, maybe 48 hours a week spent in the office and another 20 or so driving there's little time in the week for anything but a little riding. All that time in the office is necessary, of course, because a hobby farm is an expensive proposition, "a hole in the water into which to pour money" only without the water.

Before getting going on the barn repairs there was picking to do. Picking hilly pastures would be great exercise if done with a wheelbarrow but I've neither the time nor the inclination, so I drive around and fill the tractor bucket. Each horse generates two tractor bucket loads of manure a week but our pile is growing much more quickly than that as it's the last resting place of the raccoons the neighbour's shooting; it's really a raccoon pile with manure so we may be able to offer the content as "enriched compost". Anyway, picking is complicated by horses that suddenly develop an interest in food they've already eaten as well as in eating one's sweater.





On weekends there's enough barn work that we press anyone into doing some:



This weekend, since there was no hay, Anna put on her barn outfit and set about making trot poles. There was a platform made of old fence posts, she pulled the posts out, removed the nails and barbed wire and we took them down to the flat pasture and arranged them artfully.





There, fat cavaletti, not some sort of Italian fast food but a horse training aid at no cost. A research trip to Home Depot suggests that twelve foot lengths of three inch plumbing pipe will serve admirable for jump poles so long as someone gets around to making standards. That'd be the someone who's not got around to fetching the chicken house and is wondering when the house house is going to sanded and stained. I don't think I've ever felt as rushed as in the country; there is just so much to do and so little time to do it.

Oh, and there's actual horse care as well, it's not all shovelling and bad carpentry. Here Dixie has a pedicure:




Still, all these jobs are individually satisfying and, at the end of the day, you can lean back, drink from your home brewed beer and contemplate the horses quietly grazing. If, that is, they are quietly grazing. If, like these ones, they're being driven mad by flies and are galloping themselves into a frenzy trying to escape, well then the only thing to do is to spray them yet again and plan on buying sheets in the morning.




There, horse sheeted, calm prevails:



You will note that Austin is wearing a heavy Shedrow sheet while Dixie is not wearing a sheet. The trade off in sheets is that the Shedrow's can dig in and scratch while a lighter, more comfortable, sheet may not stand up to prolonged wear and tear. This is Dixie's after 24 hours:




this is what happened to it:



I suppose Dixie will be getting a heavy and scratchy Shedrow today. They won't be getting Shedrow blankets though, I'd forgotten how much I dislike that brand and their awkward fastenings. Fidgeting with poorly designed catches in the freezing cold is no joke.

There are other specifically rural things to worry about. One car and the tractor need servicing, we may need tools for the tractor, better work that out before the weekend. The Land Yacht needs petrol, better remember to take it somewhere with a filling station, so long as we only use it to go to the dump, we risk running out in the middle of nowhere. There's an endless list of things to fret about.

The bright side though is that, after driving home from work I can park at the barn, throw on boots and go for a ride. Last night we went up on the ridge behind our pasture, just to see what was on the other side. It made for a very relaxing evening:



You will, of course, have observed the George Morris compliant attire of horse and rider. The attractive patina of dust and unbrushed hair ensures that the horse not have a sheen to reflect sunlight and disconcert other riders. The combination of an English saddle and Western bridle lacking a nose piece lends the animal a jaunty air while the rider's grudging concession to safety in the form of helmet is balanced by the lunacy of carrying a glass container. What makes this team scream readiness for the Olympics, the para-Olympics, is the baling twine grab handle/hand positioning aid attached to the saddle, you don't see many of them at Hickstead.

To return to the original theme, a semi-rural lifestyle requires either great gobs of money, which plainly we don't have, or fitness, stamina, and the ability to find pleasure in mundane tasks. Personally, I rather like manure management, after weekdays spent crafting strategies for onshore meta-data manipulation in support of empowered decision making it's nice to shovel shit literally.

Into the pit

Apart from potato farming, the primary local industry seems to be gravel extraction. I pass the gravel trucks lined up on the highway at five-thirty each morning so I suppose the pits don't start work until six. The nearest pit to us is in disuse, there's no extraction going on currently but it could start again depending on the currents in the global gravel markets. In the meantime it's a local recreational facility, people go there to shoot at beer cans, to drive their four wheelers madly and, one imagines, to do other things one cannot do at home. There are trails around the edge of it which would be nice for a ride as, due to the brush, you can't see the pit itself from them.

I wanted to see the pit and set off with Charlie. I think this is barley we're wading through. Anyway, it's long wet grass and sweeps the bug repellent off the legs of people in shorts.



The pit is moon like landscape







it put me in mind of the mesas in the west.





Beyond the pit there's a fire tree plantation. There are many of those locally, the result of a tax credit some time in the past. There are trails leading off in several directions. They'd be best explored by horse I think, a horse would lift the rider's legs clear of the wet and buggy grass.



We could have returned by road but I hadn't brought a leash and Charlie's apt to take a run for Darcy's (a labrador) house, so I let him lead me back the way we had come. Via trees. And via a pond. And via one of those mysterious concrete tower things that dot the landscape and must once have had something to do with farming.
At least, I hope they had to do with farming. Historically where we live was Catholic while the Orangemen lived just five miles to the south, I've only heard of resentment and discrimination but perhaps things did escalate to the point where a Martello tower was the thing to have in the backyard.

Charlie doesn't care, Charlie doesn't like Mennonites but he's no other religous peccadillos.

Dark in the barn this summer.

The barn has power and water (at least in the summer it has water), it even has light bulbs in the ceiling. We won't be using those lights this summer though as the barn swallows have chosen a bulb as a nesting place:





Darkness may be inconvenient for us but, in the summer in Ontario, you don't displace any creature that eats bugs.

Flowers

I received flowers for my birthday, one set from my parents, delivered to me at work, and one from Jim, waiting at home. They're both from the same florist (French's Flowers in Shelburne) who seems to do a marvelous job. I've never had a peacock feather in a bouquet before!

A few more chicken pictures.

After numerous recounts we've come to believe that we have an extra chicken. We ordered a dozen of each variety but now find that we have twenty-five. Somehow the barred rocks must have reproduced.

How many will turn out to be female is the subject of much speculation and behavioral analysis. If they're all males we'll have no eggs and a freezer full of chicken parts, if just a couple are female that's no better as a huddle of two chickens won't last through the winter. For the time being though they've not been frozen, by man or nature; they're all aflutter and so difficult to photograph but they're growing steadily. They've gone from being cute to being scrawny.











You don't get free range eggs here, it's not lawful to sell eggs from chickens not raised on concrete. What the supermarkets offer is "free run" eggs, eggs from chickens that have space to turn around. It's a bit frightening to think that our flock, locked up in a little room in the end of a truck trailer, is already living in the best conditions allowed by law. Once we let the chickens out to eat bugs they'll be outlaw chickens, fit only for consumption by the people that raised them and/or those people's dog.

A curious horse.

That Dixie gets into everything. We'd driven a hundred miles or so just before this first picture and there were bugs splattered across the front of the car. Both horses seemed to enjoy licking the bugs but only Dixie wanted to climb into the vehicle.





Earlier in the day she had taken great interest in the fence stretching process. A complex procedure involving a series of repeated steps:

- haul on ratchet
- hold taut
- elbow horse's nose out of stretcher
- push locking catch into postion




Once the fence wire was tight we were able to use the two paddocks on the hill, the horses took great delight in racing up and down sliding to a stop and ploughing up the mud.




The poorly mowed area in the foreground of the last picture is the longeing circle.

This is the layout seen from the top of the hill, there's another pasture to the right, the circle is in one corner of it. The run in shed, which belongs to the neighbour, has a 1950's tractor in it which the former owner of our house is getting around to selling. The elegant structure at the back is our barn.



The area to the right of the barn looks as if it once held goats, it's fenced and there's a mound of earth to climb on. Goats, however, are about the only animals we haven't heard of living on the property. At one point the barn held two mules, five calves, and an unknown number of chickens.