We have some great numbers to post...

We did our fecals today; we have 12 horses residing on the farm, of those 12 only 4 or 33% had + fecal counts and need to be de-wormed!  Of those 12, one lives in his own private pasture, KKoi, and the other 11 horses live in the herd.  Of those 4 the major offender is a newer boarder, who, while she was wormed just prior to coming and left in isolation for 2 weeks, still maintains a full heavy load and dirtied the fields up some.  We say this as the other 3 horses were negative at the last fecal count so they must have climbed up due to her sharing the paddock.  Oh and the counts 150 epg, 275 epg and 125 epg. Nothing huge or scary, but just enough to de-worm this go round. No matter, the proof is in the management techniques we use here at Evergreen Farm.  Where else can 11 horses maintain a winter sacrifice field not much bigger than 5 acres and only 4 of them need to be de-wormed after 5 months?  And the elderly and the coming 2 year old aren't even on the list of needing de-worming!  That's attention to detail!  It is amazing what a little field drag and isolation of new horses can do when they arrive.  That's maintenance and management perfection, that's enjoying your horse...  from the hoof up!

March Went In With a Lion and Out With an Addition

Here at Evergreen we’ve been super busy with lots of changes and renovations, one of them being an addition to our old barn. The new addition mirrored the other side (the wash stall and the old tack room). The new addition is the new tack room. It’s much roomier with loft ceilings and semi-carpeted floors. It also has skylights which provide natural lighting and gives the room a more open feeling as compared to the old tack room. When it first began construction it was no more than a cement pad with the shell of the building put up. We had a difficult time getting the long wood beams to our farm though, and had to think of a creative way of getting them safely home. They were too long to put in the car, too long to put in the back of the truck and still be able to turn so our solution was using the horse trailer to haul the wood beams home. It was very apropos considering that the trailer is used to bring horses to our farm and hopefully the new tack room will do the same.

Old Tack room

 Then we had to put on the roof…

 And then we put on siding and it started to look like a real building!

Next we needed insulation and wiring, good thing Rick was an electrician. :) Then layers of rough hewn oak for that “barn” look.

Once we put insulation in the ceiling we had to drywall it. At this point our deadline was fast approaching so we enlisted in help from the Kids.

Then we had the ceiling dry walled, spackled, wired, the whole shebang. We moved the landscaping, added a bench and a light.

Final touches included painting, carpets, and lights.

We are almost finished moving things in, when we finish we’ll post pictures :)