January 2012:

News Archive:

Now that it’s winter, all of the horses are tucked up inside until the land dries out and the grass starts growing again. We keep our herd in small groups in 25’ x 50’ covered yards bedded on rubber matting and straw, and with ad-lib access to hay and haylage. Mucking out, feeding and watering all 13 horses takes quite some time – and when it’s the Maidendale herd, it takes even longer! The other day was just one example. It’s been cold and frosty here and all the water tanks that feed the troughs in the sheds were frozen up. The hosepipes had been thawed out overnight, so they came out, got connected to the tap and I started filling the troughs. The boys were first, the hose wouldn’t reach right to the back of the shed where the boys live, so that was a case of filling 10 gallon containers and lifting them into the troughs for the boys. Luckily, the girls’ 3 yards were within reach, so I took a breather while Dream and Peigi were filled up. The fillies’ (Kia, Mattie and Fi) trough is in the middle of one wall, so I had to take the hose through the yard. I thought they would be startled by it being dragged through their home, but no way! There was a 75 metre long, bright yellow ‘snake’ wriggling towards them and they were absolutely fascinated by it. I had thought that I’d be able to leave the hose running into the trough and get on with some other work, but no chance. Fi loved the water and kept taking the end of the hose out of the trough and squirting everyone. Mattie insisted on trying to walk on the hose itself and actually got it looped round her leg, while Kia just wanted to pick it up and chew it, so I had to stay and guard the hose. After the first few minutes, Fi realised that I wasn’t going to let her play with the hose, so she found something else to amuse her. I wear a fluorescent yellow jacket on the yard, it’s made of a fabric that makes a loud crunchy, crinkly noise when it’s scrunched. Fi spent some time chewing bits of the back of my coat to hear it make noises. She must have then thought that my personal hygiene left something to be desired, because her next activity was to take repeated mouthfuls of water and release them over my head and down the back of my neck – aaargh! At last, the fillies’ trough was full and I could start on the mares. Two good points here, the mares (Su, Leia, Serenade and Jemma) are sensible grown ups and the trough is at the back of the yard, so the hose could just go straight in without snaking across the floor. I set it up and went off to do something else. 10 minutes later, I was back. The hose was on the floor and the end of the yard was flooded. All the mares were stood at the top end, claiming that ‘a naughty pony had done it and run away…..and look at that mess, someone’s going to have to clear that up!’ No wonder just doing the watering takes all afternoon. Of course, the hoses had to be emptied and coiled up to be stored indoors to stop them freezing up again. The smaller (25metre) one wasn’t too bad, but trying to coil a cold 50metre hose was horrendous, it kept tying itself in knots and even bend double in two places, it’s definitely one for my Room 101. The next day brought a thaw and guess what – burst pipes!

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