Garden Project - Let It Begin

Given all the photos I've taken in my lifetime, it's hard to believe I forgot to take BEFORE photos here! We were so busy jumping right into the work that it simply slipped my mind! I think it's time to pass the official family photog torch on to V who loves to capture images whenever she can wrest my camera from me.

The first three days we were here, we unpacked the kitchen then got right to work fixing the paddock fence so we could bring our previously boarded horse home. As she had been for years, our mare was kept in a small pen and we wanted to get her out on space and grass and rocks as soon as possible. We thought we'd be able to simply repair the fence that was here, but upon close inspection we found that we needed to start over again - the old barbed wire fence had been stretched and patched with tie wire and any manner of things, and the corner posts were rotted and broken down. Grandparents were here for the weekend and all lent a hand, either picking up bags of trash (wire, wood, nails, metal, glass, recyclable) from the paddock or working directly on the fence.

My first horse, Maddie, in our own front yard

Neither Mr. B or I have ever done this kind of work. And I confess: I can be pretty impatient and rude when I know how to do something, or know only a little bit about how to do something (but don't want anyone to know I DON'T know 'cause I don't want them to think I'm dumb - I know...something I need to work on). But what I discovered through the fence building project was that it was a lot easier to have fun and enjoy the hard work when just giving in to that ignorance, doing my best with the knowledge I have and enjoying the give and take of working together with Mr. B with shared leadership in a project.

In another project, the girls and I worked on cleaning out the designated garden area. The previous owner, also a city girl it appears, went through a variety of efforts to keep squirrels out of the garden here. During our excavation of the old garden, we found a lot of trash and remnants of a variety of those efforts: chain link, then poultry netting (chicken wire) and finally a low, double-line electrical fence setup. The garden looked so great after the cleanup I decided to shoot some photos. It was only then that I realized there was no "before" photo to provide contrast. Oh well.

With the trash out of the garden, and plenty of greenery and drying things growing, it was time to cut the horses loose to graze. This week, we had two horses as we were trying a second. Kevin, the taller Thoroughbred shown here, didn't work out for us. Herd-bound horses suck. So back he went. It was a nice try, and Maddie enjoyed her equine company, but he cost me in back injury and was too dangerous for the girls. Remember everyone: "There's NO such thing as a free horse!"