A New Coat for Fall and Pippa Takes a Nap ( sort of)

 If you are a fan of Winnie the Pooh this posting could also be named - " The Day in which Francis the Gallant rescued the Pony Princess"............( PS I love Winnie- "thuh" Pooh!!)

If you've been following my blog, then you will know that earlier on Francis removed all the old barn board from the exposed side of the barn in preparation for constructing the new support wall for the barn. He then put up new plywood  and covered it with "barn" wrap or waterproof membrane (can't call it house wrap on a barn lol!). Well summer has come and gone and now Autumn is here and so Francis is busy tidying up final things on the barn before winter (urrgh) sets in.

One of the things to finish was to put back up the old barn boards onto the new wall. He had been dreading it as it meant dragging all the boards he had placed in his workshop out of there, and place them on the ground so he could sort them and figure out how to make them go back on to the wall again( rather like doing a life-size jigsaw puzzle). Also, the wall had consisted of two layers of boards- one inner layer and one outer layer.The outer layer boards have been weathered by elements for over a hundred years and yet the inner ones were not worn at all. So how to make the boards match when he was using them again? You see some were damaged when removed and he would not have enough of all one type. Well,true to Francis style, he came up with a great solution- turn the boards over and use the inside surface as the outside! Now all the boards are the same colour and wear pattern! Genius I say.

And so in under 12 hours the barn was transformed yet again from a bit of an ugly duckling that looked like it hadn't got all its adult plumage, to the regal and elegant swan I knew was possible. He still has not finished putting the "frame" around all the windows, but the two closest to the barn door are done. These are also made out of the old barn boards.The boards don't match the top part of the barn as those have been weathered for over a hundred years, but in another hundred years no one will be able to tell the difference- or who knows with the wind and storms we get it may not even take that long!!

My hero at work!

Autumn sunset and glow

New wall with window frames!

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On Thanksgiving Monday, I took Raphi somewhere for an couple of hours off property. This left Pippa at home alone to amuse herself. And true to her inquisitive nature and as most small children will do when left to amuse themselves, she got into a tad of mischief. She decided to check out the new fresh dirt next to the barn now Francis had raked it all nice and flat and smooth after completion of the wall. You see Pippa  just loves to find a patch of dirt to roll in-- which is a challenge with all the grass fields, but leave it to her to find a nice spot of dirt for just that purpose.

Francis heard some banging while he was working on the other side of the barn. He thought he had left the barn door open and Pippa had gone in to check things out ( ie get into mischief). Well into mischief was right, but not in the barn. Instead she had managed to get herself "cast" against the barn wall. A horse gets cast when they decide to lie down and roll too close to a wall or other immoveable object. This means they get stuck and can't get back up. If left long enough a horse can die from being cast. But the universe was with us and Francis the Gallant came to rescue the maiden in distress ( PS its usually me he rescues---hmm should I be jealous??). Pippa is such a lady she let Francis grab hold of her back leg which was against the wall and use it to roll her over.... after which she promptly righted herself, shook herself off and went back to grazing none the worse for wear. Can't quite say the same of the poor wall-- it has a few quite large scratches from her back feet where she was kicking trying to rolled over and up again. Just thankful she plonked herself between the windows so no windows were broken and she didn't cut herself ( that could have been very ugly!). You can see how close she was to the window.... In fact she looks like she's having a nap, but in fact she was exhausted from trying to get up.

Poor Pippa "cast"against the wall- no she is not napping

Anyway, Francis maybe upset about the marks but like I told him, it adds character, reminds us to tell the story of when "Francis the Gallant Rescued the Horse Princess" and in a hundred years when the boards are
weathered we won't even notice them! 

Enter at "A" or "Why I Ride Dressage"

Update on the dressage ring.... it is completed! It even has letters ( as per my previous post). 
Francis and I decided to make a "border" for the ring with railroad ties. He had some and I tracked down some more on Kijii.... the ones I bought were not as good but we put them on the far side and far end of the ring so they are not so noticeable. If we find other nicer ones later they are easily replace. Again budget was a factor and these were a bargain.

Originally I was just going to put a fence around the ring to keep the horses out that would also mark the 20-40 perimeter. However, after we decided to put the railroad tie border, we still needed a fence to keep snoopy horses out, so they don't decide its their own personal sandbox to roll and play in at liberty. So Francis spent the weekend digging post holes and putting up a perimeter fence. He used two strands of yellow rope that had made up the temporary fence we had initially. Yes, I want white fat rope but do you have any idea how much rope is???? Seriously spending almost $1000 on white rope or plastic chain ( which is what I really wanted) is just ludicrous and so we settled for the rope we had bought on sale at the local Canadian Tire store  $10/roll and I think it ended up using about 5 rolls... hmm easy decision.. $1000 versus $50.

The letters are temporary as Marina and I plan to make bigger painted wooden ones over the winter. With my age, I need the letters to be a bit bigger but this is all we could find for now. White rubbish bins from the Dollar Store with black stick on stencils........hey presto dressage markers!

And here it is already to be used this week..... so excited. Marina's friend, Claudia, is visiting from Germany this week and so we get the privilege of riding with a high level German rider and try out the new toy ( dressage arena) while "playing dressage". What an end to a great summer of riding and building a dream...........

It is hard to see but all the letter markers are in place ready to guide as as we practice geometry figures- 20, 15, 10 meter circles, diagonal lines, 3 and 4 loop serpentines, straight down the sides, and where we practice precision, transitions, lateral movements..............all in the name of improving our riding, our horses way of going and most importantly building a relationship with the horses we so love and admire. To many people and even riders, dressage is "boring", but when you suddenly achieve for the first time a transition, or figure or movement that was elusive for so long.... the slow burning ember that is your soul, and hope and dreams, bursts into flame and you suddenly want it again, and better than before. For one thing riding has taught me is that you NEVER arrive at your destination... it is all about the journey and the challenges and moments of despair and glory along the way. One day you are ready to toss it in, sell your gear and your horse,and then you have a fleeting moment of "YES, this is it!!" and you are committed all over again to hours of practice and patience as you persevere to find that elusive thing......improvement... You hear Olympic level riders tell people that one day can be magnificent and another not so good, that they continue to practice and strive for improvement.... and I am no Olympic level Grand Prix level rider.... just a girl and her horse, forming a relationship, built on trust, understanding, patience and yes trying to "play at dressage" along the way.  Don't get me wrong, I love just hacking out in the fields and woods around home, and going on excursions, but I still love "boring flat work".... the nuances, that one thing that is suddenly there that wasn't yesterday, be it a trot to canter transition, a shoulder in, or just getting a relaxed walk on a loose rein................and then I want it again, and again, and again, ....I don't even have the "independent seat and aids" established and I have been riding for years, but I keep hoping one day I will get it...it sure is not for the lack of trying on my part. I have no desire to compete..and maybe I shouldn't call  what I do "dressage", but hey I like the fancy word and my dear Francis is French and "flat work" sounds boring!!!  I mean it even has the word "work" in it for gosh sake.  Doesn't Dressage make you think of princes, magical steeds, Avatars? and dreams? and so I do "dressage"............

Blanket Rack - What Every Fashionista Needs! OR Another Sue and Francis- "Design and Do" Project

I myself may not be much of a fashionista, but I do like my horse to be fashionable and as such he has an array of outerwear to keep him warm, dry and cozy during miserable weather. Raphi in fact, has more outerwear than I do! His current wardrobe consists of:

• two rain sheets ( 2 so that if one is completely soaked and not dry by the next morning he has a dry one to put on)
• two winter blankets for being turned out in- one is for regular cold winter days and the other for the really Artic days ( like when its -30 Celsius)
• a wool "cooler" to help him dry off and keep warm after getting all hot and sweaty when working in the cold weather. He would catch a chill if you just leave him wet to dry off with no blanket, or overheat and sweat up again if you just put his big blanket back on while still hot from exercise
• a stable blanket/liner- for keeping warm in the winter while inside the barn. The barns are not heated and it is hard to work a horse in winter if he gets his full heavy winter coat ( his natural one!) as it takes simply ages to get them dry! The options are to clip all the hair off and blanket them. I don't clip him but his coat stays lighter if he is blanketed. With the weather we are currently having I will have to think about starting soon-- it is going down close to freezing at night now. Raphi is also typical of his breed( thoroughbred) and was raised in Southern Ontario where winters are not quite so harsh as they are here. Hence, he does not get a really thick winter coat and if I dont want him to lose weight/condition over the winter, I need to help keep him warm. Otherwise he will use his "stores" of fat ( of which he has none!) to keep warm... and end up a skinny horse by spring.

So I came up with a very budget friendly way to keep his blankets tidy and able to dry if needed. There are commercial ones I could have purchased but they don't have the look that I wanted. I again wanted something that would suit the old barn look and feel. So my idea was a combination of a saddle rack that I have seen at another barn, and the stall guards that Francis made. I said we could cut a cedar pole in half lengthwise and attach to the wall with a " screw eye" and a "hook". The screw eye is mounted on a board attached to the outside of the tack room, and the hook is screwed onto the cedar piece. These "arms" can then be left hanging against the wall when not in use, or put the hook up into the eye so the butt rests on the wall board and the "arm" sticks out. The blanket is placed over the arm and hangs down to the floor. The width of the cedar pole "arm" allows air flow which will facilitate drying.

All neat and tidy!

Vision Becomes Reality- the saga of a dressage ring

Well in my last post I told you about my dressage ring dream and how reality did not quite match the vision I had.... well Hey Presto, my magician ( yes you guessed it, Francis) managed his usual magic and turned a soggy patch of unlevel ground into a wonderful 20x40 m dressage ring! And we had some rain after the base went in and no puddles or wet spots! Will have to see what its like after a really heavy rain but it is such an improvement from riding on grass! The round pen is great but it does limit what you can do in the way of exercises/training. Now the girl has options!!!

 The man who delivered the first load of sand  did a terrible job of doing a "tailgate spread" -( that is when they drop the material out of the back of the dump truck as they drive across the area); a good person can get a fairly even spread of a few inches which is what we wanted/needed. Instead we got a huge pile of each end of the "ring" and very uneven in between.So Francis had to scraped it all off to the sides so we could start again. I then contacted someone else on the advice of a friend who came and told me I would need a "base" of gravel that would pack and provide a firm footing and then put a couple of inches of sand on top. So all this was going to cost only a bit more than what I had originally arranged from the one gravel seller, I decided to go ahead.

So last weekend Francis levelled the "base"... a challenging task when he didn't have the best of tools/equipment. He has his old tractor whose hydraulics don't have any real "down" pressure, a borrowed blade that attaches on the back of the tractor( borrowed from my friendly ex-husband), Miss Piggy ( our little ATV) and a drag harrow and of course, last but not least- a regular hand rake!

Base layer down and levelled

First two loads of sand "tail dropped" on the base

Francis the "Magician" at work levelling the sand- Notice the markings in the foreground- that
is where he raked and levelled by hand to get it just right!

During the week this past week the sand for the top was delivered and Francis spent at least 10 hours levelling it.... it is amazing to see the transformation! Yesterday the three of us, Marina, myself and Francis measured the ring and put in a few markers. We still have to put a "fence" type structure around it to keep busy horses from exploring the new "sand box"...We are trying to decide on how to do this . We have come up with two options - each of which will be about the same cost: 

1) entails putting about 30 posts around the outside which will stand about 4 feet tall; drill holes in the posts at the top and about half way down, through which white plastic chain will be passed. This will be pretty and  quite traditional as far as dressage rings go ( except for the height), as typically the dressage "fence" is about 10" off the ground and is white in colour. The advantage the chain is removable to allow equipment into the ring, but the disadvantage is its frail and would not stand  up to horses crashing through it. However, so far the horses have not demonstrated these tendencies. We easily kept them out of fresh grass seed areas with pickets and tape/string.

2) for this option we are considering buying traditional split cedar rails fencing. It has the aged traditional look of farm fencing which would match the old barn and be about the same cost. However, it would not look like a traditional dressage ring... not could it be taken down to allow equipment in if we ever have to add more sand,etc

So if anyone out there wants to comment on which option we should go with please feel free to do so! We will show you the final construction...

Inaugural ride!

Every dressage arena/ring needs letters to mark the ring (A, B,C,E, F, H, K, M for a 20 x 40 metre arena).We are thinking of making out of little plywood "teepees"... so they can stand up; these of course will be painted the traditional white with black letters. My next task is to do a search online to explain why the letters are the ones they are....? Okay so I couldn't wait and had to do it right away.... So this is what I found:

One theory suggests that the letters indicated where each courtier or rider's horse was to stand and wait for their riders.

The "hof" (stable yard) was believed to be large enough for the horses and riders to parade around for their morning exercise or to assemble for ceremonial parades (20 x 60 m).

The markings found on the walls of the Manstall were:


A         Ausgang                   (Exit). 

K         Kaiser                       (Emperor).
F         Fürst                         (Prince).

P         Pferknecht                (Ostler or Groom).

V         Vassal                        (Servant/Squire/Equerry)

E         Edeling/ Ehrengast   (Chieftain or Honoured Guest)

B         Bannertrager              (Standard Bearer).

S         Schzkanzler                 (Chancellor of the Exchequer)

R         Ritter                         (Knight).

M         Meier                         (Steward).

H         Hofsmarshall              (Lord Chancellor).

The above list shows all the letters used for the larger size ring- 20 x 60... 

Another theory about the letters is that they represent the letters of cities first conquered by the Romans... so you decide which one you like best! I love medieval things so I liek the first version.

I'll post pictures again when the fencing and letters are up! ( but that may not be for quite awhile!)

Vision to Reality......NOT! ( A segue from the barn project)

The Making of a Dressage Ring 

I have always wanted a dressage or riding ring that would be big enough to actually ride in and have footing that would stand up to rain, while being flat but not get flooded. I know it seems like I am asking a lot, and I guess I was asking for too much. Years ago, I had an area that was relatively flat, squarish in geometry and the footing was tilled up hay field and covered with bark chips. It never stood up to rain and was very deep in some areas so the horse would panic a bit. So I decided that if I was going all out there I may as well go the whole hog, and try and fix a riding area. You see the area had all grown back over with grass so I've been riding on uneven cut grass. 

Well as always it starts with a vision or dream in my head that I plan to get to reality. However, as usual reality and the dream don't talk to each other  and that's when I end up with "other"........I can see the ring clearly, had it all prepaved in my mind... lovely sand ring with grass around the outside, neat white little dressage fence with letter markers, and in I would prance on my noble steed at A... the rest would be history as they say.... 

So here was the plan to get to the vision:

• get the grass tilled up
• get bulldozer in to push off the grass and level the ground
• get a dump truck to come in and tail-spread lovely sand onto the newly exposed base. Sand to be about 2 inches deep all over

The reality went like this:

• grass got tilled up but the wrong section was done so had to be redone in the correct area ( my mistake as I wasn't there to direct initiall) Note: here that the "ring" is 90 angle to the fence line
• bulldozer took off grass Note:the bulldozer is parallel to the fence line
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• ground kind of levelled except for what looked like a couple of humps. However, after remeasuring we figured we could get the "humps and hollows" to be outside the actual riding area

Noble steed not entering at A but walking
back after using the ring for a good roll in the sand

• got a dump truck in-- after one load realized the driver did not understand how or where I wanted the sand to go. Got a big pile at each end ( one of which is several feet away from where the ring was to start) and a heavy track of sand in between the two piles....hmmm ..So up I go to the gravel place and cancel the other loads for now( I needed 3 by a calculator I found on the internet for dressage ring footing)- or 57.6 yds to be precise. 
• had to put up temporary fence ( ie read caution tape) to keep the horses from using it as a race track and sand bath
• I now have 20 yds of the sand and not even close to having 1/4 of the ring covered...and its more like 8-9 inches deep in most of it..
• we just had a DELUGE of rain-- I now have a small lake in one section-- hmm and I thought that was the nice and level section. 
  

So new plan:

• will have to either hand rake or see if I can cajole Francis into magically managing to spread the sand that is there to a uniform 2 inches with the tractor ( don't think it will be easy-- the cajoling is easy; the feat another thing all together)
• will have to wait at least two weeks and spend more money to get a different type of truck that can sling the sand where it needs to go 
• may have to put tile drainage in in the wet spot

Benefits of the new reality:

• I now know that the ground is in fact not level and needs draining
• I thought the low spot was in the corner nearest the barn when in fact it is along the side nearest the fence- HUH who knew? 
• that it is really only one section that is wet~! 
• and after all, it really was a HUGE downpour-- last night and then again all morning. To give yo a visual, my pool was low and really needed to be topped up about 4 inches... this morning it is up more than that I have had to drain it...so yes a really large amount of rain
• so maybe if I just get normal rainfalls, the ring won't get flooded and will not need to have drainage put it??? (the optimist in me talking)

Foundation update

Just a quick update on the foundation work..... the framing is nearly completed-

Rebar placed for forms

Form ready to be put up

 One buffer wall yet to be formed and then they can pour the cement. We have been delayed due to a holiday Monday and today it is a downpour of rain, so not sure if the cement truck will be able to get here tomorrow as planned.. fingers crossed. 

Here you can see the framing up in the background and the framing for one of the buffer walls

A Reverse Birthday Gift( Tack Room..............to Zen space) or "Beer and Birthday Cake"

As you know from if you have read my previous posts, Francis built me a tack room earlier. Well, it has been embellished! It is such an amazing place now that we often go up there to have our evening tea ( in his case a beer or ice tea) and just commune with the horses. It is such a zen spot...


The inside walls are now all done with beautiful tongue and groove pine lumber. We wanted the pine to stay the lovely fresh sawn lumber colour, so we stained it with white stain. Natural pine and varnish always yellow and we wanted to prevent that.We have an amazingly deep window sill ( plants will go there next year), racks to hang the saddle pads on, horse shoe holders for bridles, halters, lunge equipment ( for all you non-horsey people, including Francis, its just "stuff"), coat hooks for rain jackets and sweaters.

It was quite comical really when the lumber was being installed on the walls and ceiling. We had done a calculation for just the walls initially, and this is what we purchased. We figured the door and window areas would be almost the same area as the ceiling and so we would have enough-- well not quite. We were about " 3-4 boards short" or so we thought. So off we went to get the boards and we brought home  6 boards. More than enough say we...... but sure enough we ran short by one board... so off we went again the next day to get the one we needed to finish everything 

The cement floor was painted to help keep down the dust, and to make it easier to sweep, but most importantly so  it matched the lumber(hehe).

 Francis decided all the walls needed to be insulated "just in case" we ever decide he horses are staying year round. 

If you look closely at the photo above, you can read what Francis wrote in our "time capsule"-- "Built Aug 13,2016 by Francis Belanger for Sue Bow XX little heart and Marina Laliberte"

We have a couple of  plastic shelving units (cheap, nothing fancy) that we use to hold our grooming boxes, tack cleaning supplies and horsey first aid kit. This will sound terrible considering  my occupation (an Emergency Room nurse), but I don't have a human first aid kit there(oops).

The finishing touches include some old horse pictures which have not been hung yet ( they used to be in my living room) and the two plastic lounge chairs. I went digging in the crawl space and found two old hunt print cushions to complete the seating section. When sitting in the chairs it is possible to see the horses through the doorway...

Birthday cake and Beer!

The work started on a Friday and was finished on Sunday! Amazing feat. Especially as Francis birthday was one of the days. But I did bake him his favourite cake (carrot) and take it up to the tack room along with a beer (it was very hot out and he doesn't really like tea).... it was nearly 5 o'clock so permitted

                     Below is the finished product!

left hand side and outside wall

"The lounge"- right hand side of room