Technically, the first day of spring is March 19th. But it’s been so warm here, I think we can call it – it has definitely arrived. The first color of spring is always yellow – the daffodils and forsythia.
My first reaction to the warmth is how happy I am to get outside again. My second reaction – “Okay, what needs to be done now?” Over the winter, I usually forget about all the maintenance the farm needs. Then when it warms up, it’s a solid smack to the face. By the time fall rolls around, I’m practically cheering for it to be cold again. The cold means things don’t grow, so no more mowing and weedwacking. It also gives me a great excuse to not work on projects outdoors!
Although really, it’s more the illusion of not doing any projects as I did get a few things done over the winter, like building new stalls and painting the barn. I hope I don’t bring that up too much, I’m just a little bit proud of myself.
No time to focus on that though! It’s time to look at what else needs to be done. I usually think about what would be ideal, and then determine what steps I need to take. What would really be nice this year is having grass again. It’s taken a big hit this winter with four horses on it. With so little grass, I also have an erosion and mud problem, not to mention it just doesn’t look nice. At this point, I loath Virginia clay.
I’m figuring out what I can do to bring the grass back. The first step, already completed, is to seed that pasture. It’s been seeded, and seeded again. We aren’t giving that grass an excuse to fail.
The next step is to get the horses off the pasture. If they are on it they will just eat all the new growth as soon as it comes up, and it won’t even get a chance to grow up and have little grass families.
I have the stalls, but I hate having the horses in so much. Which brings me to my next project – it’s time to bring runs for all the stalls. The runs will work as personal sacrifice paddocks while the grass grows. I still won’t be able to keep them in there all the time, but half the day will do wonders. Once again, I’m going to be really ambitious and try to make the runs 32 feet long each. I have the posts. I have some electric tape. I have arms. I think I can do this.
I moved a big bundle of posts down to the barn. Now it’s time to dig many holes. I’m planning to set the posts for board fencing, as I’d like to replace the electric eventually. That means one post every eight feet. Hopefully my arms don’t fall off. Wish me luck!