Bodefarm's Blog

bodefarm — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 18:51:39 +0000

bodefarm — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 18:49:48 +0000

Christmas 2010

bodefarm — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 18:45:47 +0000

Its been cold and frosty, with lots of fog in the morning. Some days the sun comes out and it is spectacular. Not weather to be outside much though. This is one of several bird feeders right outside the window – we have huge flocks of finches, and have to fill them up every day! They drink out of the heated waterer we have for the horses so are well taken care of around here.

The dogs stay pretty much in, I suppose you could say our house has gone to the dogs….

Just to keep my spirits up I already have onion and shallot seedlings up in our light garden – they need to get started early. And of course the seed catalogs have started arriving so much planning for the spring is in progress.

Our muskrats are keeping small patches around the edges of the pond open but the middle is frozen solid and the horses go for an occasional skate – hopefully they won’t fall through the ice!

Chickens are now in full production mode thanks to keeping warm and we have a long list of “eggie” people so they fly out the door.

Think spring!!

New baby in the spring

bodefarm — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:22:19 +0000

Since we really want a matched team, and because Mama Carmen at 10 is way too old and cranky to train to do anything (she will spend the rest of her days just being the boss of the pasture and enjoying life) we decided to breed her one more time. We chose a Belgian stallion in Casper WY, and bred her on June 1st, so will be expecting a foal some time at the beginning of May. I am hoping for a girl so our team will be Samson & Deliliah (Notice the operatic theme – Carmen, Tosca, Samson….) Whatever, a healthy foal will be a blessing. Here is a pic of Ben Barielle who is about the same size and conformation as Samson’s sire, so hopefully they will be pretty well matched in size and looks. After a fortune in vets bills we got the very unromantic process completed, and a couple of weeks later saw a blob on the ultrasound, and now I see her tummy bulging in mysterious ways. She is also pushing Samson away more so is obviously getting ready for the new baby. I just hope we don’t have a repeat of the weather last May which was awful, snow, rain and cold, but we don’t want her to give birth out in the pasture again, so will have to shut her in the paddock when it looks like the time is due.

Chickies

bodefarm — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 20:59:27 +0000

Are now laying well and we are able to sell a dozen every couple of days which helps with the chicken feed. They are making the compost bin redundant as well as they love the veggie scraps. These two are a buff orpington and a black australorp, both chosen for their tolerance of cold weather (pretty much a necessity around here) and their alleged prolific laying capabilities….

Pretty frosty Sunday

bodefarm — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 20:47:12 +0000

Its been very foggy in the mornings the last few days so everything is coated in ice crystals which is gorgeous when the sun comes out. The pond is frozen, but we don’t know how much yet. there are still holes where the muskrats keep it open, and we haven’t seen the horses skating yet which they did a lot last year. Hopefully they have enough sense not to get on the ice until it is strong enough as its about 8′ deep and I don’t want to have to go out pulling 1800lb of horse out of a hole! Lucy has been running around on it but no mishaps yet. It really is pretty out here, and who would think we are just 10 minutes from downtown – it seems like miles away – lucky us.

Frozen pond

I can’t believe here we are again!

bodefarm — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:50:03 +0000

We went from a very mild November to WINTER!!! New tires, new batteries, feeding three times a day, and today – no water in the morning. Well I don’t get dressed for work without a shower and poor old Mike spent half the day on his tummy under the house putting new heat tape on the pipes.

Being “trailer trash” is no fun. We can’t wait to start building the house in the spring.

Today has hovered around -8F, snow on and off, and we are expecting -20F tonight. Luckily Helena seems to miss the really awful snowstorms which hit the mountains, go north and south and miss us.

We have had the usual mishaps with frozen waterlines, but the sun shone which makes winter in Montana sparkle. We can’t understand why the horses would rather be out in the wind and snow, not snuggling up under the shelters we built this summer. Go figure….

All dressed up for work

bodefarm — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:36:20 +0000

It took us quite a while to figure out how the harness fits and he was very patient!

Training horses

bodefarm — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:27:11 +0000

Now all the pressing tasks of summer are done and the horses have woken up from summer stupor and we’ve gotten over 90F days, we are seriously working on training them. Tosca is really easy, all the basic work we did when she was a yearling has stuck and she responds very well.

Samson, who I tend to still see as our little doofus, though he is already over 17 hands, learns remarkably fast. I spend a good deal of time with him in the round pen reinforcing voice commands and he is doing extremely well.

Today we spent almost a hour trying to figure out how to fit him with a driving harness (the instructions sucked) and he was so patient, just stood there hoovering up leaves. He did get a bit spooked when we led him out with the driving bridle which has blinders, but after about 15 minutes he was settling down. He is doing very well ground driving, listening to me and responding to voice commands. This is a good thing as he is going to be huge horse, and having him under control will be essential!

Here I am working him in the round pen and you can see him listening to me, which is a great step forward. For the most part…. Work in progress!

Fixing up the farm

bodefarm — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 04:07:32 +0000

We were finally able to actually purchase the property in April after the county had extracted it’s pound of flesh (actually $15,000) in fees for our friend to subdivide the two 10 acre parcels. Then of course our first task was to take down all the rotten unsafe fencing which was mostly about 30 years old (draft horses and old fencing is not a good mix). We spent weeks replacing posts and rails, making a new corral, closing in pens, building new shelters, and generally making the stables, corrals, arena and fencing safe and draft proof. Mike recycled every nail – some of which have to be 80 years old!

So now we have a safe environment for the horses, a place to shut them in if necessary, a round pen to work them, and are finally secure in the knowledge that they can’t get out into the road. Gates are our life……

And its already fall so winter is fast approaching. Next spring our project is to dig another pond in the wetland and try to drain it some. We have already cleared the front part of the pasture of russian olives and had some spectacular bonfires – pyromaniacs unite! Next spring we will tackle the back part to clear the brush out, but I think we are about done for the year.

We are planning to start building a new shop in the spring, and will probably build a temporary apartment in there so we can move out of and sell Chez Taquie the mobile home, which will give us funds to start building the actual house.

So lots to do around here. I am now working as a bureaucrat – who would have thought – as a Program Manager for the Health Care Licensing Bureau, and Mike has a job with a local RV dealer, and hoping that once our utility increases its budget next year for energy audits he can get back to what he really likes. In the meantime the doggies are loving living in the country and we are hunkering down for winter. One thing we loved last winter was going out in the pasture on our x-country skis, though at first it totally freaked the horses. But we have to find positive things about winter here because it sure does last a long time!