Finally Pasture Time

I finally let the horses out onto the pasture on Sunday. We are a month behind in letting the horses out onto pasture but it was worth the wait. If you look at the picture at the top of this blog, you’ll notice the grass height. That picture was taking in 2010. The grass was calf high on me (and I’m short). We had a steady decline on quality and quantity of grass in the pasture. Last year we tried to resurrect the pasture but the drought hit us hard. You wouldn’t know it looking at the pasture now. (I will post pictures later). When I let the horses out Sunday, I brought the camera along. I struggled to wade through the grass. It’s chest high and without the horses breaking a path, I’m not sure that I could have made it out to the pasture.

I can tell where the new grass is growing. It finally seeded out and it’s different than other grasses. There’s still bare spots and a good portion of weeds and thistles but there’s grass, and lots of it. Hopefully the pasture will hold for the next couple of months until we can secure our year supply of hay. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the cost won’t be as expensive. I’m procrastinating on writing the check for the remainder of last year’s hay. It’s always such a struggle to come up with the cash to buy hay for this many horses.

But I have learned my lesson and I don’t leave the horses out on pasture 24x7 (as much as I and they would prefer). To ensure that the pasture holds, I pull them at night. I will also be dividing the pasture when we have a strong wind (the  mosquitoes are terrible). I have an idea in mind on how to divide but I need the time and the wind to get it done.

Now that the big herd is finally on pasture, I can focus my attention on the mares and ponies. I don’t know why I wasn’t working on getting them adjusted to the grass sooner. Their pastures were never reseeded so I don’t know why I stalled out on getting them out to pasture a month ago. I have Rabbit out on grass now during the day but need to put her out on real pasture. She dropped a considerable amount of weight in the last couple of weeks. When my son got sick, we put out a round bale and she’s been dropping weight ever since. Either the bale is no good or she’s gotten picky about eating through a cinch net. Either way, I’ll be putting her out on pasture soon.

I need to get Babe and Mayhem adjusted to grass too and then I can put them on the pasture next to the road (it’ll have to wait until after tomorrow though!) I havent’ decided yet if Rabbit will join the ponies or if I’ll put her in the pasture to the east. I hate to keep her alone and almost considered putting her in with the big herd. But she’s too aggressive to Babe and I don’t want Mayhem picking up on her bad habits. So the alternative is to eat down the lawn with the ponies, or put her in the pasture by herself. I’m not sure either solution really works for me or her but I’ll have to decide one or the other over the weekend. By the end of next week I want everyone on pasture.

I haven’t yet seen people starting to dump horses. I don’t expect to see that influx of horses until next month. I’m worried though that we’ll have another flood of horses. And now that there’s talk of a slaughterhouse opening in the next state over, I’m worried. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out.

At this point, we can’t take on any extra mouths because of the hospital bills. I’d like to refocus my attention on fundraising and working on the Sanctuary paperwork. I’m curious to see what everyone would think is a fun fundraiser. We can’t do too much but I’m curious to hear what others want to see or do. I’m also trying to figure out a day that might be a good volunteer day. There’s a bunch of stuff I’d like to get done to improve the place. With not being able to do much around the place for more than a year, there’s plenty of fixing that needs to be done.

So here’s a challenge to you. Brainstorm ideas for a good fundraiser and send them to borderlandshorsesanctuary@yahoo.com. I’m interested in hearing all your ideas.