Category: round pen

Where Did The Year Go

2022 – Year-End Recap

I was starting to write a “goals for next year” post and was feeling a bit disheartened by all the things I had wanted to get done this year but haven’t gotten to yet and decided that it would be good for my mental health to take some time to reflect on the many things we did accomplish this year.

Just the decision to bring Leeloo home without having the full barn setup that I had been dreaming of was a big deal. There were many conversations with many people, and a lot of thinking about goals for myself and for Leeloo, before we even got to the starting gate. That process was the main focus of these posts:

Then there was putting the fence up and electrifying it, which took the whole summer. I understand now why people are willing to pay an extra $30,000+ to have a fence installed. The entire fence process is detailed in these posts: (Fence Part 1, Fence Part 2, Fence Part 3, Fence Part 4, Fence Part 5, Fence Part 6, Fence Part 7, Fence Part 8) and I need to remind myself how much work that was or I start feeling like we should have gotten more done over the summer.

Getting the first two shelters, anchoring them, starting to build the third shelter, then deciding that building it just wasn’t going to happen, was also more work and stress than I imagined. It is obvious now that we never could have built them ourselves, we just don’t have those skills yet, but that wasn’t always easy for me to accept. I am very happy now that we opted to buy them already constructed and that for the third one we went with the company that anchors them for you. The drama around the shelters was discussed in these posts: Give Me Shelter – Part 1 and Part 2, Second Interlude, So Much to Do, Mish Mash, Know When to Fold Them,  Hayshed – Delivered.

Finding and installing the round pen wasn’t part of the original plan but I am so glad we have it! We haven’t gotten to use it for its intended purpose very often but, it was so very helpful when we brought the girls home and has been very handy many times since then; including helping to separate Leeloo and Juniper each morning during feeding time. Though we are currently having some issues with Juniper turning into a picky eater; if it isn’t one thing it’s another. We discuss the round pen in Gate Expectations and the Fifth Interlude.

HAY! I had been a little worried about getting decent hay for a price we could afford. One of my long-term goals is to have our own hay field and I still feel that way, finding quality hay has been a challenge particularly since we also need it delivered. Luckily we were able to find a variety of hay for this year, including several different people who would deliver, though the quality has been all over the place. The girls like the most expensive hay best (of course) but now that we finally have some hay nets and some haybox lids they at least can’t toss it all over the ground and waste it (I’m looking at you Leeloo).  Hay post – Fourth Interlude.

Then there was finding Juniper – I didn’t talk much about that process on the website but it took a while for us to find the right pony, even when her only job is to keep Leeloo company, well and be cute of course. Finding that next mare, who will be the cornerstone of whatever comes next for us, is going to take much, much longer (Looking For a Baby Maker) – but now we’re starting to get into future goals and that is for the next post.

The ultimate goal of all of this work was to bring Leeloo and Juniper (once we found her) home, which we did! I sometimes forget what an accomplishment that is – it is the culmination of decades of dreaming. Here are the posts about bringing them home and the fun that has been: Coming Home, First Two Weeks, Sugar is Evil, Copy Paste, She’s Lucky She’s Cute, First Real Snow, Work Harder Not Smarter, Winter Woe-nderland.

One of the things I feel the biggest sense of accomplishment about (now that it is over) was something that we hadn’t planned for at all; dealing with Juniper’s eye infection. That was a huge, huge deal, both in terms of time and money, and I am so very, very, happy we were able to heal it (First Two Weeks, The Joys of Medicating Ponies, Mish Mash, Copy Paste, Juniper Eye Update). There was a very real chance she could have lost that eye and we saved it!

Though we weren’t able to build any shelters, we did get several building projects done including the six hay boxes (First Two Weeks, Projects Galore, Hay Contained) and the three compost bays (How to Make Compost Bays). The lids for the hay boxes are so close to being all done and hopefully we’ll get a chance to finish installing them during this “warm” period.

We’re once again getting into future goals but taking time to look back over this year has done what I had hoped, reset my perspective on what we all accomplished in the last few months and made me feel better. We got a ton done, pushed ourselves way, WAY, out of our comfort zones, and, more often than not, accomplished what we set out to do (even if it almost always took longer and cost more than expected).

One other huge accomplishment that I haven’t written about was getting this website up and running. I have never done anything even remotely like this and every aspect of this website has been a learning experience and has been the cause of a lot of swearing and a lot of crying, mostly in the beginning – the website hasn’t made me cry in weeks. I am very happy with how it has turned out and am really proud of myself.

Looking forward to another year of adventures. And of course Leeloo will be there to help:

 

Where Do the Weekends Go?!

Always more things to do than hours to do them in

We got a lot done this weekend, though not enough, as always.

Friday we took full advantage of my 20% employee discount at Fleet Farm and loaded up on some winter socks and gloves and I was able to get this coat I had been eying from the cash register all week and it was on sale! 30% off, plus my 20% discount, plus we were able to use the $5 off of $50 coupon from the popcorn you get for free when you get gas from the Fleet Farm gas station (which I sadly do not get a discount on). Clearly this is the start of an application problem for my next Math Literacy class.

Saturday however was not as productive. We were able to move some stuff off the driveway in preparation for the snow plowing that is sadly right around the corner. But our attempt to hang the gate on one of the shelter bays in the “barn” shelter ran in to some snags almost as soon as we moved all the tools and such from the garage down to the shelter. Namely the drill bit we had wasn’t the right one to make the holes needed for the gate’s J bolts and the latch for the other side of the gate did not actually come with hardware for the post, despite the fact that the package clearly said “hardware included.” When I double checked on the website there was some small print about hardware to attach it to the gate was included but hardware for the post was not. Thanks. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to go get those missing things right then because the farrier was scheduled to come at 3:00 PM.

This was our second farrier appointment since bringing Leeloo and Juniper home and though the first one went okay overall, I was worried how this one would go. Leeloo hasn’t been her normal sweet and well-mannered self the last few weeks and it has gotten noticeably worse since the corn was harvested. I’m not sure if it is the change in weather and the fact that she still doesn’t have her normal winter coat yet, if having the corn gone has made her whole space feel too open and exposed, if with the corn gone she can hear/see/smell the neighboring horses better, or if the neighbors up the hill happened to get a new horse and the timing matched. She is almost always looking in the direction of the horse farm just north of us on high alert, pacing and calling and staring. While Nate and were moving the stuff off the driveway she was clearly agitated and did a little mini rear while staring off at that farm and I was concerned the quickly approaching farrier visit was not going to go well. I grabbed her halter and brought her into the round pen; my plan had been to make her walk and trot a little bit but mostly change directions a lot to get her mind on me and off of whatever was stressing her out since it was too cold and the ground too hard for anything else. The moment I took the lead rope off and stepped back to ask her to move she took off doing at this huge extended trot with random canter strides thrown in and a little bucking for good measure. When I asked her to switch directions she would do these ridiculous sliding stops and spins, including one pretty decent canter pirouette. I never did anything more than step ever so slightly in front of her and say “change directions.”  She clearly has a lot of pent-up anxiety and energy and I will need to do better about finding time to work with her. I just wish we had a better place to do it in. She of course managed to ding up her left heel bulb with one of her absurdly unnecessary moves, but she wasn’t noticeably sore on Sunday and she seemed a bit more relaxed – she even laid down for a little while (in her rolling/sleeping hay pile of course). Though that may be me seeing what I want to see. Regardless it was worth it because she was pretty good for the farrier when he got there. We had one moment when she was being rude, trying to put her foot down before the farrier was done with it, and when he let her know she couldn’t be rude she had a mini meltdown. We just circled a few times until she realized all we wanted was for her to stand still and then the rest of the trim went fine. The crappy weather (going from wet and muddy to immediately freezing) has made the footing everywhere awful and has made everything we have to do that much harder, the stress from not having everything done yet, plus Leeloo’s clear anxiety and general unhappiness with her current living situation has all combined to make me feel like maybe this “Bringing Leeloo Home” idea was not a good one. But the farrier said Leeloo’s feet are looking better than they ever have in the entire while he has worked with us – so I’m holding hard on to that.

We did manage to get the gate up on Sunday after a trip to LeVahn Brothers (the best hardware store ever). There were still a few challenges of course, mostly because Nate and I are fairly inept when it comes to anything regarding skilled physical labor, particularly when power tools are involved. Using a reciprocating saw without hurting yourself and actually cutting what you want and no more and no less requires way more skill than picking up poop does. The final cuts aren’t exactly straight and didn’t go exactly where they were meant to, but no injuries occurred and the gate is up, so we’ll count it as a win. We also had a visit from Juniper’s former owner when she dropped off Juniper’s cart. I haven’t driven a horse or pony in ages, and even then, I was never more than a novice; but I am super excited to refresh my memory (maybe take some lessons over the winter?) and hopefully try out driving next spring.

Just need to keep those positive thoughts front and center during these next few cold stupid months!

And we did get that gate up

Fifth Interlude

Round and Round We Go

As mentioned in this post, the first time I searched for gates I somehow bought a round pen instead; which then sat in a large pile in our yard. One night after work, when we didn’t think we’d have enough time to work on the primary fence, we thought we could get the round pen up quickly. I know, you think we’d learn.

First we had to decide where it should go. The paper version of the layout and the actual version were close but not exact and I was worried about not having enough room where the water will be (north and west) so we planned on making it as close to the other two sides as possible (south and east). There are a lot of opinions on how narrow the narrowest parts of a paddock track system should be, but I opted for 15 feet of space. Since it was a 60-foot round pen with a radius of 30 feet that meant the center had to be 45 feet from each of the south and east fence lines. That was easier said than done since our corners are not 90 degrees, but we got the center figured out and marked it. From there I measured out 30 feet north, south, east, and west and we started putting up the panels. We had differing opinions on the best process for this. Option one was to move each panel to its designated spot but just set them flat on the ground, then once every panel was positioned we would go back and set them up and connect them. The other option was to set them up as we went, though this still required moving three panels first because one panel alone doesn’t stand up. We went with the second option. The issue is in a 60-foot circle the four cardinal directions are far enough apart that there were still two panels worth of space between the three panels at those points. Or so I calculated; there were twenty panels total, three panels at each of the cardinal directions left eight panels total to fill in between the four spaces between the four cardinal directions, which meant two panels per space. (20 – 3*4 = 8; 8/4 = 2).  It did not work out that way. The angles the panels had to meet at was not something I had calculated (I could have, but I didn’t – see previous post about not being that smart after a full day at work) so we were guessing and by the time we were getting to the point where we should be closing our circle we were clearly off; by one and a half panels worth, plus the door. I had forgotten about the door panel when I was calculating – oops. We managed to shift around enough panels so that we got the door panel and that last half a panel in and were only off by one full panel; but at that point we were no longer a round pen, more like an oblong pen. But it was late and we were crabby, so we stopped. As soon as we officially declared we were done Nate saw me staring thoughtfully at the oblong pen and then the space where the water trough will be and said, “You want to move it, don’t you?”

Yes, yes I did.

Staring at a not particularly round, round pen was almost as aggravating as staring at unevenly spaced fence lines. I can’t do anything about the fence lines, or rather I could but the amount of work makes me want to cry, so it was determined that we would even out and move the round pen when we had our friend over to help us with the gate.

This also meant I had more time to think about how to do this right and came up with a much better process. One that I probably could have found online had I bothered to look.

The better way to put up a round pen

  1. Mark out the center. We did that part right at least, and now I had a better idea of where to put it in relation to everything else. We moved it about six feet west and about three feet south.
  2. Actually calculate out the size of your round pen in terms of the number of panels you have. Turns out the twenty 10-foot panels + 5-foot door panel is bigger than the circumference of a 60-foot round pen, by about a full panel! We opted to keep it closer to 60 feet and we just have the extra panel in storage for now. Storage currently being sitting on top of a dirt/weed pile we need to deal with.
  3. Get something (string, tape measure, etc.) that is the length of your radius and tie it to whatever is being used to mark the center point.
  4. Use that string or tape measure and measure out the location of each end of each panel as you place them. This makes sure all your angles are correct automatically.
  5. Have three people to do this!

With the extra set of hands and the better process getting the round pen moved and actually round went much faster and easier. And now it’s actually round!

Now back to the fence, time to get electric.

p.s. do you notice the white bucket? Those little hold digging jerks are back!

Gate Expectations

Went looking for gates and somehow bought a round pen

Though we got almost everything we needed for our fence from Bluebird fencing we did not get the actual gates. We also wanted to get something to temporarily close off part of one of the shelters so we could use it as a makeshift stall until the barn is built. However, it is temporary (I will get my barn!) and anything 12-feet long, at least 4-feet high, and strong enough to stand up to a horse is going to be expensive so I wanted to get something we could repurpose – something like a 12-foot round pen panel (also called a corral panel) or gate. This meant I was looking for gates for the current track system plus at least two 12-foot corral panels or gates for our temporary stalls.

The issue is that to be horse safe these are inherently large, heavy-duty, gates and therefore not something we can transport in either of our cars. It also means that if you find a place selling good products at decent prices, but they are outside of your state, the freight costs eat up any potential savings. I had been looking at the stores in our area that do sell them, Fleet Farm, Tractor Supply, and Runnings (haven’t been to it yet but I’ve heard good things). Unfortunately, they either don’t deliver, or delivery added an extra $100+ to each gate and their websites were not easy to search or use to compare products. That ridiculously long video from Cashmans also spends time talking about corral panels and he mentions the importance of construction and materials, he also mentions many places don’t say what gauge their metal is, so you have go by the weight of the gate or panel to guess. He was correct in this, except many of the sites I was searching didn’t disclose the weight information either – great. But I kept finding these smaller operations in other states selling quality gates and corral panels for cheaper than the big stores and I felt like there had to be one like that closer to me – and I found one!

Quick side-note, from the beginning of this farce project, I have been contemplating who will be keeping Leeloo company once she is home. During that contemplation it also occurred to me that whoever it is will be new to me and though some people are cool working with new animals out on a trail or in a field I am a cautious person by nature (there is a reason my current Wordle streak is 221 wins but my average guess length is 4.2) and prefer to work in an enclosed area. Ideally one not enclosed by a barrier that will shock me or said animal if we accidently make contact with it. After that first corner post took us an entire day to install I asked Nate how he would feel if we modified the original plan and put a round pen in the center of our track system instead of another electrified fence run. This would save us four corners and two end posts, so we would only have to do 12 more and not 18 more! He was open to the idea and became more open with every corner we installed. This meant as I was searching for gates, I was also kind of low-key searching for round pens as well.

Livestock Panels of MN is located only forty miles from me and sells gates and round pens – perfect! It is a side project for someone with a contact in Texas, every couple of months they get big shipments of corral panels and gates and then sell them out as single items or entire round pens. The best part is they deliver and they are close enough that the delivery fee is super reasonable! However, at that particular moment they only had 10-foot panels and 4-foot wide gates and wouldn’t be getting anything new for at least a month or two and I thought we would have Leeloo home before then – HA! But they did have a 60-foot round-pen package available and the price was really good; I bought it and they delivered it the next day!

We still need gates though….