With the end of Summer just around the corner, it’s time to take stock of my Autumn project plans, which include:

• Set down 3,800 feet of electric fence in our 6.5 acre south pasture. Tasks include:
• Paint 475 green t-posts an attractive high gloss white. Thomas, a carpenter I’ve hired before and trust, will help me paint them all with a commercial sprayer
• Set down +/– 25 4×4x8 treated wood posts in concrete. Wood posts will be used on all corners and as gate posts.
• Install six steel gates and two-way latches, and bury underground electric cable.
• Hammer in 475 6 foot tall t-posts one foot deep into the ground along my fencelines, at 8 foot spacings. I could go farther, but I’m using four strands of highly visible 1.5” wide electric tape. Winds make this tape flap at longer distances, and the wind flap can damage the conductors in the tape, disabling the electric fence. 
• Run 15,200’ of 1.5” wide electric tape. Each spool is 656’, so I’ll be using quite a few buckles to join up each run.
• Bury about 200’ of water pipe to supply six water troughs.   
• Renovate the indoor riding arena footing and installing concrete pavers in the stable area. Tasks include:
• Removing +/– 100 tons of arena footing currently in the arena.
• Rough leveling the arena sub-base in preparation for my base material.
• Rough leveling the 12’ wide stable alleyway in preparation for my base material.
• Trucking in and dumping many tons of limestone screenings in both the arena and in the stable alley. Spreading, grading and packing the limestone.
• Installing 1,500 square feet of concrete pavers in the stable.
• Reparing the wash rack floor. Tasks include:
• A new layer of concrete set down and a top layer of anti-slip texture treatment so horses don’t skitter around while getting showered down.
• Set down 2,000 feet of permanent steel fencing to create a new 2.5 acre pasture.
• Clear a trail system on the wooded outskirts of our property.
• Paint the exterior wood of the stable.
• Finish clearing undesirable trees from the forest edges and along trails and around outbuildings.

My goal is to complete all of the above projects by Thanksgiving  Optimist? Probably!

I’m about one third into my indoor arena footing project. When we first acquired our farm, the indoor arena had been used as a giant horse stall for up to six horses. I’m not certain how long this was the case, but the footing was so badly packed down that it had to be dug out with my loader bucket, one small sheet of “unbaked brick” at a time. My task is to dig up the footing and remove it from the indoor arena, until I’ve worked my way down to a reasonably level sub-base of packed stone dust and clay. When I’ve removed all of the footing, I’ll have a couple dump truckloads of limestone screenings dumped into the arena. Once I’ve spread, leveled and packed the screenings, it will be ready for riding. After about six months of horses packing my base. I will add another +/– two inches of limestone screenings. After another six months, I’ll add some sand or other suitable material. I’m learning that the secret to proper riding arena footing is playing it by ear over time. There is no instant solution. Also, I’ve learned that all of the red clay and sand mix visible in the old arena footing above will never be a consideration for us  The red dust settles on everything.

With that said, I’ve paused work on the arena footing project while I await the delivery of my second tractor. Pictured above is my not-yet-rusty-but-very-trusty John Deere 2210 parked in front of a +/– 20 ton pile of old arena footing. With this small tractor’s bucket capacity (600 pounds) the job was going to take a bit longer than I’d like  So to make more efficient use of my time I’ve been finishing up smaller projects on my todo list while I await the arrival of my bigger tractor. Yes, the real farmers who read this blog will be pleased to learn that I’ve finally ordered up something that looks more like a proper farm tractor. In about ten days, my John Deere 3520 will be delivered  The 3520’s larger 37HP turbocharged Yanmar diesel engine, its three thousand pound weight, and three quarter ton bucket loader capacity will make much faster work of the big jobs on the farm. My existing 2210 will be demoted to mowing, arena management and other lightweight tasks. I’ll post an action photo of my 3520 when it arrives!

That’s often been the response in this neck of the woods after I’ve mentioned that we’re converting a portion of our oversized garage into a mudroom. I’m not certain the term mudroom is completely alien to all Virginians, but it’s certainly not nearly as widespread a term as it is “Up North”. For the uninitiated, a Mud Room is where the mud stops before it can spread into your house. It’s essential on a farm. After working all morning on farm projects, I’m often head to toe in mud, sweat and grime. Everything I’m wearing has been caked in sweat and mud. Without a mudroom, where I can enter, and store my boots, and shake out relevant articles of clothing and basically get myself in order before I enter the house…… I’m tracking in lots of barn stuff and mud into the house. So, when I was referred by a trusted contractor to a talented local independent carpenter, I hired him on the spot for the job  Picture above is our mudroom in-progress. The room is entered into from the outside through the entry door (pictured, at left). In addition, there are two interior doors into the garage section and one into the living room. The first garage entry door is visible along the 8’x20’ hall, the second is out of view in the 10’x10’ alcove (pictured, at right). This picture is outdated; Thomas has already installed the insulation and drywall. He has taped the drywall and has put down two coats of mud. He’ll be back tomorrow to sand and paint. The two interior colonial style doors are on order and will be identical in style to the exterior door in the photo. The exterior door pictured will be replaced, but I’m still shopping for a custom door style that will suit the entryway and complement the interior style of the mudroom when it’s finished.

Not bad for my first time! I set down 500’ of electric fence in about 8 hours, with t-posts spaced 16’ apart and with four strands of electric tape. Pictured at right are Moira, Chloe and myself. Moira and Chloe are watching me hammer a t-post into the ground with the business end of my 200CX loader. This little 23hp John Deere 2210 tractor has over 90 hours on it already in less than three months.

You can spy our Great Dane Sophie in the background. At the time she was staring at two fawns who were eating grass on the other side of Little Creek, about 400’ away towards the forest line. Sophie has give up on chasing the deer after long ago realizing that despite her 25+ mph sprinting speed she is unable to catch any deer she chases. So she simply stares at them longingly. Our farm seems to be a deer sanctuary, and a great many fawns have been born nearby this summer and they all seem to be thriving. One interesting observation is that they seem to prefer eating certain grasses and weeds that our horses ignore. So, since our two dogs appear to keep the deer from getting too close to our house – they don’t bother our landscaping and thus I’m happy to have them around. Some of them will be grazing one side of a pasture while horses are grazing another. And when the horses come into the stables for the day, the deer have the run of each pasture.

One of the chief concerns while operating a horse farm of any size is proper horse pasture fencing. Honoring the K.I.S.S. philosophy, fencing can be broken down into two groups: Perimeter Fencing and Partition Fencing. A perimeter fence encircles a pasture while a partition fence (or fences) serve to divide a pasture into multiple smaller pastures (or paddocks). Where you establish your perimeter and partition fencing depends on a variety of factors which I’ll not address here. What I would like to address is a common misconception that I feel certain horse people have with regard to certain fence materials.

Now, I want you to study the photo at right and – for those with faster internet connections – try viewing the massive original by clicking on the photo so that you may study it in all its gory detail. This, my friends, is vinyl fencing, a fencing material that all too many people in the horse industry tout as being the horse industries’ safest and lowest maintenance fencing solution. This particular post, located on our farm and installed by the previous owner, is +/– 5 years old and not 20 years old as the photo would suggest. Simply put, our vinyl fencing is disassembling itself with shocking rapidity  In bullet form, permit me to outline the specific issues that prevent me from recommending vinyl fencing to anyone – horse people most of all:

• Vinyl fencing is expensive – our quotes are in the $11 to $14/ft range! We’ll be setting down 5,000 feet of fencing. You do the math. In fact, prices are increasing daily with the increase in oil costs. Since vinyl pricing is directly tied to the price of oil, expect many vinyl fencing manufacturers to go belly-up over the next couple of years. One has to weigh this against any warranty claims; a bankrupt company can’t and won’t honor their warranty.
• Each of our vinyl gate hinges have pulled completely or partially from their seat inside their vinyl posts. I’ve had gates literally fall off in my hand as I’ve opened them. By contrast, low-tech wood posts with steel gates on our property continue to hold up even after two decades.
• As you can see from the photo above, mold growth is quite explosive. In fact, mold growth is most prevalent at the mitred seams of our vinyl gates and where metal hardware meets vinyl. The mold in fact scores and corrodes the surface of the vinyl, and many seams have split where mold growth is particularly prolific. To prevent this damage one would have to pressure wash the entire vinyl fence bi-annually, at a minimum. Pressure washing in my mind presents more logistical problems than re-painting an entire length of wood fence with a commercial sprayer. After all, you can haul a paint cannister and your sprayer/compressor along a fence line with relative ease. However, the water volume required during pressure washing is substantial… and I still haven’t figured out how one could transport the water ‘round a fenceline without a massive truck-hauled cistern!
• As far as where safety is concerned, when a horse bolts through a vinyl fence, the rails can and do break into pieces. Anyone who has ever opened (or tried to open) a product encased in retail hard plastic packaging may understand just how sharp those plastic edges can be! For example, in preparation for horses entering our vinyl fenced pasture for the first time, the fence line was inspected and a large number of sharp vinyl shards were found along the ground. To make matters worse for many of us, I suspect that the vinyl would shatter into much smaller and potentially more dangerous fragments during sub-freezing temperatures.
• At no time does a vinyl fence owner feel more frustrated than when he or she is mowing alongside the fence and does one of two things. Either you accidentally hit a post with your mowing deck and take a big glaring bite out of it, or you shoot a stone out of your deck and punch a big hole straight into a rail  In only three months I’ve done both!

Now, mind you, I’m not a strong proponent of any specific type of fence. None of them are without their drawbacks. Wood fencing requires a certain amount of maintenance in order for it to maintain it’s structural integrity, and it can warp, and crack, and almost immediately present maintenance demands on the horse farmer. However, at least real honest-to-goodness wood ages gracefully! You can choose to re-paint your wood fence every two years and enjoy a solid fence for (literally) decades, or you can neglect the fence. Neglecting the wood fence reduces its life expectancy; however, a neglected wood fence still retains much of it’s character and dignity. And the truth is, how a horse farm “looks” is vitally important to your marketing efforts. Other types of fence include standard electric wire/tape fencing, woven wire fencing with or without a top sight rail, high tensile electric fencing, high tensile encased in PVC and so on. They all have their plusses and minuses.

So, with the task of developing a short and long term fencing strategy at hand, Nancy and I put our heads together and collaborated on a plan that has us converting a 6.0 acre pasture with existing vinyl into six individual paddocks. We’ll be establishing these paddocks first with “high grade” temporary four-tape electric fencing this year and will be replacing the tape with a permanent fencing material next year. In addition, I’ll almost immediately be creating a new 2.5 acre pasture from viable open field. For this new field, I’ll be using the permanent fencing material we’ve selected.

The permanent fencing material we’ve selected is called 400 Fence (http://www.440fence.com). 440 Fence is a steel fence with certain patented methods for addressing the drawback of steel fencing, namely, rust. Each pipe is cold formed steel with four layers of protection: a layer of pure zinc, then a conversion coating coupled with a layer of polymer so that the last layer – a powerful powder coat – can adhere to the zinc. As you can see from the example photo at right, it’s certainly an attractive fence material. The pipe wall is quite thick, thicker than industrial chain link post pipes and it’s clearly more than adequate for horses. Better yet, you can install 440 Fence with relative ease because of its innovative rail sleeves, which are super heavy duty. The novel sleeve design allows you to follow any conceivable vertical grade and any ground perimeter contour. Since none of our pastures are square, this perimeter contour hugging capability is highly desirable! I’ll be ordering my first truckload soon and will post journal updates soon!

When we moved into our new house four months ago, our two young girls Moira (age 5) and Chloe (age 3) settled into their new bedrooms. Since our house follows a rather strict Williamsburg Colonial style, the wall and trim colors of each bedroom were a bit stark. Pictured at right is Moira’s room as it was when we first toured the home. As you can see, the blue tone trim and flat white walls and ceiling, coupled with the stain on the oak flooring mixed together to create what I would call a very depressing theme! So, the very first rooms to receive an infusion of “good vibes” were these two bedrooms. We thought it would also help our girls’ feel more at home in rooms they could truly call their own. Nancy, my better half, and I – along with our girls – took a trip to Lowes to select our colors. After some deliberation we selected a trim color we’d use in both rooms, along with two analagous colors for each room. For both rooms we selected Ivory Dust in high gloss as the trim paint. For Moira’s room (pictured above/to the right) we selected two pinks, and for Chloe’s room we selected two yellows.

Pictured at right is a close up of Moira’s attic door after all was said and done. Like most things, I went in with a pretty clear goal for the ‘feel’ of each room and very little specifically in mind for how I’d tackle certain design elements. Thankfully, “going with the flow” has never failed me. Once the trim, walls and ceiling were painted, I set about sanding and painting each solid wood six-panel door in my two analagous colors. After nearly 30 years the wood doors also required some hand planing so they could open and close more freely. The attic door pictured at right is representative of how the full size doors were finished off; however, this attic door is just a flat sheet of plywood that I painted with “fake” panels using a pretty simple but time consuming method  Needless to say, I used an enormous amount of blue tape while painting both rooms. In fact, each room took an enormous amount of time to complete. The trimwork required two coats and there is more than 250’ of trim in each room. The walls also required two to three coats. I lost track of the number of hours I devoted to these two projects, but my best guess is that each room redo took about 30 hours. It was worth every minute though – the girls love their rooms!

Oh, and one thing I learned during this project was the significance of the colonial door, also called the six-panel door. Originally it was also referred to as a Christian Door. This is because the area between the top four panels is meant to signify the Cross, while the bottom two panels are meant to signify an open bible. I suppose the original intent of this style door was to express to passers-by that the home’s inhabitants were good christian folks, although today the original meaning has been lost. To me, it’s just an attractive style of door, and I’m thankful to the original owner for sticking with solid wood doors throughout the entire home!

Our horse population has risen to five! Pictured at right is Eef, a beautiful Friesian gelding owned by Reesink Horses of The Netherlands. We visited Reesink in July while horse shopping in Holland as part of a group shopping “vacation” organized by Steve Wolgemuth of Graemont Farm (http://www.graemont.com/). If you’re in the states and planning on buying a European Warmblood then you owe it to yourself to contact Steve. You’ll enjoy the good company of fellow shoppers in the evening, and during the day you’ll be treated to private tours of jaw dropping Dutch horse farms with your very own driver/advisor. We had a great time and the other shoppers did as well. ANYWAY! We didn’t purchase Eef, the galloping Friesian pictured, but rather Reesink shipped Eef from Florida. Nancy will bring him along and sell him, on behalf of Reesink Horses, to a lucky buyer in the region. That is, if we don’t fall in love with him first

And so begins our entry into the European Warmblood horse training and sales market. Others will follow - including two (!) KWPN Dutch Warmblooods we have entered into the process of purchasing from The Netherlands. Once they’ve arrived I’ll post more photos! Both will immediately for sale although one in particular I believe will become Nancy’s long term Dressage partner

I’ve been quite busy for the past month and a half with various projects. I’ll be catching up my blog this week on the progress of each of them, beginning with one more family-related than farm-related

Pictured at right is our playhouse as it was when we bought our property in May. It was never truly completed by the original builder; the interior consisted of a bare unpainted plywood floor and exposed studs. Several dozen wasps had taken up residence. The exterior stain was faded badly, the playhouse door – too heavy for kids to open – was rotting off of its hinges. Also, there were no swings mounted. The only usable portion was the neat sandbox set up underneath the stilted playhouse So, when Nancy and the girls were in Vermont visiting family in early July, I began my Extreme Playhouse renovation project

The playhouse structure itself is a great design. An 8×8 playhouse with a 4×12 deck sits on stilts above an 8×12 sandbox that is screened in to prevent animals and insects from taking over. Attached to the playhouse is a beam for swings, and the beam is connected to an end with a set of monkey bars.  On the exterior, I put down two gallons of Amsterdam solid stain – it’s the dark blue tone visible in the picture at right. Next, I put down a gallon of Shipmate blue – the lighter shade of blue – as an accent on certain exterior boards. Then I added shutters to the sliding windows on both sides of the playhouse. I also put down a new plywood floor on the deck. Inside, I sealed up the wall joints with expanding foam insulation. I completely finished off the 8×8 room with simulated tile flooring, cape cod style white wall panels, and an attractive panel ceiling. Then I added baseboard trim, custom window trim and crown moulding! Once the moulding and trim were painted, I installed a new giant wave slide and three swings. I’d like to thank our good friend Brian, who was visiting us from Alexandria, for helping me cut chain and install the swings! The finishing touch for v1.0 was the door into the playhouse. Door heft was an issue, so I decided to custom build narrow double doors instead of one large one. I built each door out of 1/4” birch plywood, framing them with 1×2 and 1×3 boards to reduce weight. On the outside of each door I put a decorative frame design with slat boards that also help to strengthen the doors without adding more weight than was necessary. Each door has three hinges, with the center hinge being a spring-type so the doors slowly close by themselves.

It was a fun project! Those ten hour days outside in the ninety degree sun were challenging, but I kept hydrated. The girls love the playhouse and I enjoyed building it.