The Sand Man

Part of the fun of having your own place is that you get to do basically anything you like to your property, within budget. It's sometimes very annoying and frustrating to have your mares do something like start to completely destroy their fence (yep that needs to be replaced soon), but sometimes when you are faced with certain problems, the resolution of the problem is actually kind of fun and enjoyable. Case in point: adding some footing to one of the pastures.

The mares are the most disgusting animals on Planet Earth, no contest. Pmare in a stall is a force to be reckoned with, and a night of her inside anywhere makes you want to just hang yourself from the rafters with baling twine in the morning when you see what kind of a mess she has cooked up for you. She poops 3x as much as anyone, she eats 3x as much as anyone. She creates mess wherever she goes. 

Especially with all the rain we have had over the past year, we had some soil runoff which left me with a lot of hard (and often rocky) ground in the mare pasture. For the mules and the baby this is actually great, becaue it creates tough little hooves and tough little bodies. For Pmare, being a little unsound in three legs, this is not so great. Most of their soft sleeping spots are now just hard ground. In addition to this, the lot of them has created what I not-affectionately dubbed Pisslandia - they all pee in ONE spot, all together. Those of you who have hard ground and have had horses create a pee bog in one spot know what a gross and non-cleanable mess that can be. After our latest wash of rain, I noticed Pmare was starting to hang out in the soft spots of Pisslandia. Well that won't do. 

Cue the sand man!

Getting squashed by a camera hogging zoodle

They were super into it

New sand brings out the maximum derp in Uma

I don't even know what she's doing

Sriracha being super helpful

I didn't really even have to spread it, they did most of it for me

I got 6 tons of sand for Pisslandia. I actually could stand to get another 6 there, but we will have to see how it weathers the next bout of bad weather. 

The sand is going to do two main things for me:

1) If they continue to piss in Pisslandia, it will actually drain through! Hooray!

2) Now they have a new soft spot to sleep, roll, and stand (especially for Pmare who needs some cushion)

Now for the next projects.... adding sand to the mare shed, building a new shed in the front field, and regraveling the carport/carriage barn.... it's always something!!