Monday, May 27, 2013

Good day for a project!

I've worked a lot these last two weeks and Saturday was the first real day I had off so when it rained I was a bit bummed. But it turns out there was a silver lining... it didn't rain hard enough to make things muddy and messy, instead it was just drizzly enough to dampen the ground to be worked Sunday. So when I got back from brunch with the girls I fired up the tractor and headed out to the pasture to try to reclaim my track.
As you can see it was in need of rescuing!
All the rain we had last year made it really hard to get out there to work it before the weeds & grass took hold.  I did make one good pass on it last fall but it was basically unusable all year. 
Today was the perfect day to get out there.  The grass & weeds didn't have too good of a hold yet and the ground was soft but not sloppy from that light, steady rain.
The horses are currently turned out in this pasture.  As you can see they were terrified of the tractor lol  There's actually two horses in this mirror pic.  Tavi (sorrel) is easy to see but Odin (grullo) pretty much blends into the background.  Those two, Lefta & George followed me around for a good while.
After the peanut gallery finished following me they went back to grazing.  I had to laugh when I looked over at them and saw them munching away at the grass on the uncultivated part of the track!  I guess they wanted to get that tender spring grass before it was gone lol
(it takes two passes of our little tractor to work the track.  It's about 12-14' wide and our cultivator is only about 6')
I worked the track counter clockwise then turned and worked it clockwise.  It's not finished yet but it's definitely WAY better.
Next time I'll hook up some harrows.  I don't want to cultivate it too much, otherwise it will get too deep.  The footing isn't perfect but it is usable and I have a hunch that once it's harrowed it will be pretty darn good.
I would never have thought of working up a track out in that pasture but it was there when we bought the place.  I'm pretty glad to have it too... it makes a nice place to work a horse at speed plus it's somewhere to ride besides the arena.  We've only got 74 acres and you can cover that pretty fast even just walking/trotting.  I don't like riding out in the ditches here because people drive like yahoos and there are often bottles & cans hiding in the long ditch grass.

3 comments:

  1. I so wish I had that much property!! I could really use it. Love the track. If we ever move on more acreage, I will have to have a track! Very cool.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pretty nice to have a track to work them on. How is Odin's leg now?

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is cool, I would like to have a track, but I got lots of pasture, so I guess its all even somehow.

    ReplyDelete

Wordless Wednesday ~ new trailer!