Paddock Paradise in paradise!

So we are having the most amazing Spring weather this year. The past two that we have experienced it did nothing but rain and not a lot of sunshine. This one in comparison has been lovely, lots of sun - occasional rain to keep things growing and mild temperatures that are a pleasure to be out and about in. As a result everything is madly growing - including the grass in the horses paddocks. This unfortunately brings with it some challenges on the weight management department for the horses - not so much Ambre who is still very much growing into her long legs but Tolsan only has to smell grass and blows up like a balloon. He must take after me! Well I decided that I wanted to create the "paddock paradise" system here - which basically means fencing off the perimetre of your land and running the horses in this track leaving the interior to grow and hopefully make hay with. This means feeding them hay which is much better for them for many reasons including the reduction of the problems too much sugary grass can create, including laminitis etc etc. Anyway we went to the saw mill and bought as many of the chestnut posts they had in stock and some electric string and the plan was I was going to install it. Anyway fencing is really one of Pauls favourite things to do and after he saw my feeble attempt to use the fence post digger he basically shoved me out the way and went to work - a day or so later and voila - its pretty much done. We ran out of posts so have left the small paddock they have their shelter in open to the track but so far it is working well. It is designed to encourage movement so the idea is to put out the hay at different places on the track so they don't just stand over a feeder bin all day only leaving to get water - which is pretty much how Tolsan spent his winter to be fair!

This is them cruising on the track - it will eventually have no grass on it at all so the electric fencing is definitely going to have to stay on with all the nice green grass just on the other side! It certainly makes the twice daily poo collection easier! And the best thing is Tolsan no longer has to have his dreaded muzzle on - he and I are both happy about that - I hated putting it on him as he would spend an hour or so sulking before starting to eat with it. Here is the view of it from our bedroom window.

In other news Paul has been making steady progress on his walls and stonework. He is really doing a lovely job of it - his back however has decided in the past few days that he has pushed it a bit too far - hopefully it is just muscular and nothing too serious. Here are some progress pics.

And here is a picture of possibly why nothing gets done in a huge hurry around here. This is Pauls mate Vic who comes to visit most days and since they both very much enjoy a cup of tea or a beer whilst solving the worlds problems, often I have to remind them it would be much nicer to be having said drinks under the shelter of the building he is meant to be working on! All good - part of the fun of semi retirement and since I spend the majority of my days playing with the horses I really can't complain too much. Or maybe I should say I shouldn't complain too much haha.

Anyway this is the courtyard as of today - no wonder Paul has a sore back you can see there is now no stone where there was once a very high mound of it!

Next job is getting the concrete slab laid - lucky we have our huge cement mixer - it's a reasonably large area. We are still trying to locate a couple of oak beams for the roof - we have plenty of shorter ones but finding a couple that are over four metres is a bit tougher. It would be so much easier for Paul to use new sawn straight wood but we both love the look of the older timber - and it's always nicer to upcycle!