Lawn Pasture Time

I wasn't brave this morning like I'd hoped I'd be. The pasture Joe and Thor are in is drying up. There's still enough but it was a pasture with old grass, so nothing lush. I would like to pull Joe and Thor off that pasture during the day to give it a rest. I put up one strand of electric in the lawn for the lawn pasture. But I don't think one strand is good enough to hold them in.

In the picture, you can see I had them out on a different part of the lawn. They mowed it down pretty good and it helped them get accustomed to me a little bit better. I'm hoping tonight to add a second strand of electric and then I won't worry as much. I'm half tempted to keep them on the lawn pasture for the next week straight but we'll see how it goes.

The pasture they are currently in was full of tall grass. I've found that the tall grass isn't lush and doesn't provide a lot of grass. Now once it's been eaten down for a season, the next season it will come back thicker and closer to the ground. I hope that's the case for this pasture anyway. When we first started putting up the fence, the grass was so high and I couldn't walk through it without a struggle. Joe and Thor have successfully weaved paths through the trees making it easier for me to walk around.

I did let the ponies out into the grass. I had been running them from their pen back to the red shed. Unfortunatley they'd eaten it down to the dirt so I needed to move them. With the strong breeze we have today, I won't worry about the mosquitoes carrying them away. They are in the treeline right now in tall grass that isnt' very lush. I'm sure if I were to take pictures it would look lush but when you look close there really isnt' all that much good grass. My hope is that the ponies will eat down the grass and help get rid of any places for mosquitoes to live.

Short grass = less mosquitoes!

I did get a voice mail from the trainer (who trained Chaos, Maverick, and Brego). We'd talked this spring about him borrowing Tommy. He's finally got everything lined up so I'll need to talk with him to find out what his plans are. I'm a bit worried for Skippy but it would do them both good to be seperated. I can't do anything with Skippy unless Tommy is around. Being THAT herdbound is unacceptable. But we'll see how it goes and if Skippy gets too upset we'll either tell the trainer he needs to take Skippy or that we'll need Tommy back. I'm not sure how long they are wanting to use Tommy but it will do him good to do something other than stand around and be bored all the time.

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I haven't had time to do anything with the horses since last week. Camping and family have kept me away from the very basics of chores these last few days until last night. Now that I have everything set up for lawn pasture time I might have more free time to actually work with some of the horses instead of just stare at them.

I did put flymasks on everyone last night. I wasn't sure if everyone would keep them on over the night time period or not. Only Maverick and Jim didn't keep theirs on. The flies are starting to get fierce already which surprises me. But at least I have enough masks to go around to keep everyone happy.

I shouldn't be surprised that the days are getting shorter but I am. I had to do chores in the predawn light. I get so spoiled in the summertime not having to do chores in the dark both morning and night. I can't seem to get as much stuff done in the evenings because it's starting to get dark sooner (and the mosquitoes drive me in).

Hopefully tonight I'll get the last of the lawn pasture fenced in so Joe and Thor can enjoy some actuall lush grass for a little while. My hope is the lush lawn pasture will help pack on the pounds for old, sweet Joe.