Saturday, May 21, 2016

So how do you handle the aches and pains of a life fully lived??

I was born and raised on a farm and to this day, live and work on a farm.  Those years, long hours and hard labor take it's toll on your body after awhile.  I've got some nerve damage in a leg from a surgery that didn't go quite right and I've developed RA (rheumatoid arthritis) after that as well.  It makes life challenging, for sure, but I'm not throwing in the towel on farm life!  I honestly think I would wither away and give up, if I didn't have the outdoors and the animals to keep me moving!  Here are some ways I've learned to adapt.  Hopefully this will give others some ideas on how to adapt so they can continue to enjoy their lifestyles as well!

I LOVE fresh vegetables right out of the garden.  I just can't bend over and do all of the planting, weeding and harvesting now.  So.....we plant a few things in raised beds.  This works VERY well and is quite efficient.  We have grown peppers, onions and tomatoes this way, as well as strawberries.  I also buy a lot now from the farmer's market.  It's the same fresh veggies I would get out of my own garden, grown in similar soil and weather conditions to my own farm, without the joint aches of doing it myself!  I get our corn, green beans and cucumbers this way.  Really, when you add the cost of planting, watering, time for weeding, etc.....the cost is not much different (if any) compared to doing it all yourself!

As you probably know, we raise horses.  I've always done all the ground work training myself and in years past, started them wearing the saddle and long lining myself as well.  Some I've even trained to drive.  I used to ride about 4 or 5 days a week.  I showed most of my own horses as well.  With the addition of RA to my life, I had to cut back on all of this in a big way!  Riding causes a great deal of pain for me now.  Somedays my hands don't even work well enough to get their halters on and off.  I just can't manage the buckles on a "bad" RA day.  There was absolutely NO WAY I was going to go without horses in my life!

So.....I still ride, but maybe once or twice a year.  That's just not enough to satisfy my need for riding/driving.  Driving the full sized horses is difficult for me now.  Holding the driving lines is too heavy for my hands to do for any length of time.  However, God made a wonderful little creature called the miniature horse!  I can easily work with them and they are a blast to drive!!  They have as much heart and "go" as any full sized horse, but with a fraction of the weight of equipment!  I can easily handle their driving lines, harness, carts, etc.  If my hands are really stiff, they just get the time off for a few days.  The minis are also much easier for me to show in halter.  I can actually still "trot" well enough to show them off well (vs the full sized horses that I just cannot keep up with now to show in hand)!

We still raise one or two full sized horses every other year.  Thankfully I can still handle the foals to give them a good start in life.  If they need further training that I cannot do now, I use a trainer for that.  It was hard to admit that I needed help, but after I finally DID admit that, it is a good compromise for me.  I still get to do what I love, with help.  It's better than not having them at all!  If we have a horse (either full sized or miniature) that we want shown on the show circuit, we send them out to a trainer to do this.  Just another concession I had to learn to accept. 

In the past, we've always fed square hay bales.  We would also gather the hay directly out of the field, when the farmer was baling it.  You get a cheaper price that way.  Now, square bales are hard for me to lift and carry.  I can't stack them any longer either.  My joints don't always cooperate on being mobile, so I have to be much more flexible with my scheduled physical tasks.  In other words, I may not be able to put up hay on the day the farmer bales hay.  Thankfully my husband is still able to stack the hay.  We now buy our square hay bales out of the barn.  You pay a little more this way, but you also don't have to worry about rain moving in, loading them yourself (the hay farm has guys to load the hay for you), etc.  We also feed large round bales in the winter now too.  I was always leery of feeding round bales to horses, but it works fine.  We get top quality horse hay, only in round bale form.  I only put out a bale at a time in each pasture.  The horses eat the hay in about 2 weeks, so it doesn't spoil.  I use the front end loader on the tractor to scoop up any left over hay in the area, to keep it tidy and clean.  It works very well. 

We have run-in shelters for all the paddocks and pastures and most of the horses can be left in their pastures full time or at least a great deal of the time.  This reduces the amount of stalls that need to be mucked out too.  Only foals (and their dams), youngsters (yearlings or 2 yr olds) and stallions are kept inside each night.

As for other things we've done to make things a bit easier to deal with on a day to day basis, I get the halters with snaps at the throatlatch.  MUCH easier for me to undo a snap and slip the halter on over their ears, rather than fight with a buckle!  I also have heavy duty hoses that we run down the fencelines and leave in place.  This way I only have to pull the hose from the barn out a short distance in order to hook it up to the outside hose, in order to water the tanks that are further out in the paddocks.  MUCH easier than dragging a hose all the way out there!  We also purchased a tractor with a front end loader.  This helps a lot with hauling the muck buckets out to the disposal site.  I put the muck buckets in the front loader and haul them that way, instead of pulling them on a cart or carrying them.  The front end loader also makes moving the bags of shavings we use for stall bedding easier as well.  Instead of carrying the bags over, I put them in the loader and haul them into the barn.  Since the mobility in my hands is sometimes an issue, turning on a water spigot that is round, can be difficult.  We have freeze proof water spigots in the barn areas instead.  All I have to do is pull up on a lever and I have water.  Works wonderfully.  We've also set up an easy turn-out system for the horses.  All paddocks and pastures can be easily accessed from the stalls in the barn.  If it's a day where I just cannot get the halters on them, I can open a set of gates, open their stall doors and direct them to whichever paddock or pasture they will be going out in that day.  I just reverse the process to bring them back into their stalls at night.

These are just some of my adaptations I've made, in order to allow me to still live and work on our farm.  I hope some of these things will help you or will spur you on to find your own creative ways to adapt and still enjoy your farm life!  Take care all.  I hope everyone enjoys your Memorial Day weekend!  Remember the next blog post update will be in two weeks (the weekend of June 4th).





Monday, May 9, 2016

Garden planting in small areas.

This week's blog returns to farming.  If you only have a small area to garden in or if you need a raised bed for your plants, what can you easily do?  We have successfully used the following idea for onions and pepper plants.  I'm sure it would be beautiful with flowers too!

We can't be the only farm that ends up with water tanks that have sprung a leak.  Sometimes you can repair those pesky tanks and sometimes it's just time to throw in the towel and admit that their use as a water container is finished.  LOL  However, that doesn't mean that their useful life is over!!  Far from it! 

We drill holes in the bottom of the tank, so that the plants don't get water logged.  To make it more of a raised bed, we put rocks and stones in the bottom of the tank to help fill it in and make the dirt level be up higher.  This also helps with water management (obviously).  Then put in your garden soil and plants.  It can be moved wherever you want it and it takes up a very little space.  Weeds aren't an issue and it keeps rabbits out too!  I do place some weed control paper underneath the tank, along with some decorative gravel, so I don't have to mow or weed eat around that area.  If you would like to paint the outside of the tank first, you could certainly do that too.  Add a bit of your own style and flair to your garden containers!  We just leave it as black (the original color) and it does fine.


Old water tank prepped and ready to be used as a raised planter.

Onions planted.

Sweet Banana Peppers and Jalapeno Peppers planted, along with some Marigolds to help reduce bugs.




















Another space saving idea, is to reuse pallets as planters.  We buy our livestock feed in bulk, so get a new pallet every month.  While they are great to store hay on, after awhile, you end up with an abundance of them!  Ours are just plain, raw, pine wood.  They are perfect to reuse as a planter!  We staple weed control paper on the back of the pallet.  Fill it with garden soil and plant in between the wooden slats on the front of the pallet.  Again, it takes up very little space and is easily moved wherever you need it.  Weeds are easily controlled this way too.  You can paint the pallet first and use it as a decorative flower planter or leave it natural for a rustic look.  The possibilities are endless!!



Basic pallet, ready to be transformed into a planter.

Weed cloth stapled on the back (underside) of the pallet.

The backside of the pallet, showing the weed control fabric better.

Pallet filled with dirt and ready to plant.

Watermelon, cucumbers and lettuce planted.

We added in some marigolds, to help with bug control.



I like to add in a substance to the dirt, to help retain moisture.  We live in the south, so have hot, dry days.  This helps to keep the roots moist and helps the dirt to retain more moisture.  We've found our plants and flowers REALLY do well with this!  I buy it on the internet from Amazon.  You don't use very much at all....just a sprinkling of it worked into the top dirt does the trick! 




That's it for the tips from this week!  Remember, the new blog posts will be every TWO weeks through the rest of the spring and summer.  They will be posted on Mondays now too.  Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful week!  Enjoy your spring weather and planting!