Come With Me To The Stables....

You may remember that I have four horses? Well, today I thought I would take you with me to the stables....


I gathered these there, I'll show you:

The barn doesn't look like much, but it is in the middle of the countryside and backs onto woods:

Inside that barn to the right side are stables, I have three of them. To the left is the area where the farmers cows come in during the winter.

This is the entrance to my field:

That's Daisy one of our JRT's sniffing around....

If you come in with me you can meet the gang.

This is TC (The Colonel) - he is a 17.1HH Suffolk Punch X and is a huge boy. He is 21 this year and I've had him nearly six years: 

Next is Crofter. He is a 14.3HH Connemara X and is 30 years old. He taught me to drive and still loves to go out in his gig. As you can see he is still very woolly with his winter coat. As he is an old man he doesn't tend to shed it as quickly as a younger horse would:

Here we have King. He is a 15.1HH Gypsy Cob. He rides and drives and is 20 this year (all my ponies are oldies - I love them!!):

Finally, we have Jasmin. She is a 38" Shetland and came to me to retire from being a broodmare. She is 22:

This is a view of my whole field:

As you can see I don't have much grass, one of the reasons is because it has been so dry this spring that it has not come in like it should. It was same last year and means I am still feeding hay. I am hoping we have a more normal summer as last year we saw hay prices almost double.

The building you can see is the field shelter for the horses. My ponies all live out. I believe that is best for horses as they are flight/prairie animals and thus not meant to be shut up in a box. I do have stables in case I need them but they are rarely used. The horses come and go into their shelter as they please (it has an open front) and love it, they are often found all huddled up in it.

Here King and TC enjoy their "dessert" - they have a bucket of food each day and then love to munch on their hay. As TC and King are both pretty dominant horses this always is accompanied by face pulling - here I managed to get a pic of them eating in harmony:

While the ponies were eating I went to gather some wildflowers for home. We have wild roses:

Buttercups & Cow Parsley (which the horses LOVE!!):

Elderflowers (I keep meaning to make some cordial with these):

And Clover:

Aren't they lovely? I gathered a large bunch and managed to fill two jam jars when I got home:

How pretty are they? And free too!!

While I was gathering the flowers I saw some birds of prey swooping on the thermals high above:

Not the best of pics as this is zoomed in and cropped as they were very high. There were three of them, kites perhaps?

So, that is the stables. I go up every day to see to my horses and even if it sometimes feels like a bit of a tie, my spirits are always lifted when I get there.

Thanks for joining me....

S x