Filed under: May 2023 | Tags: draft horses, foals, handling and training drafts, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
May 20, 2023
Our filly Joy gets a morning back rub. She is a very tame little girl. She seeks me out for attention.
She is almost a month old already. She has been tied, led and even had her first trailer ride. She is a trusting baby who loves to be petted and made over.
Magee, is in the background. She is a year old now. She and 2-year old Grace keep Joy and Abby company. They all stay together and come when called. Joy has a big girl attitude with lots of sass. She is a “joy” to be around! We spend time together daily.
Bree, in the photo above is doing well with her training too. She is doing meaningful work. Here she drags the garden. She has hauled manure in the noisy manure spreader three times now. She isn’t bothered by the loud, squeaky machine anymore. She just gets right in to her collar and pulls with whichever teammate she is with. I am pleased with her progress so far.
Filed under: May 2023 | Tags: honey, honeybees, small farm jobs, Small Farming, swarms
May 6, 2023
This day started out like I had two left feet. I was planning to head to a plowing match but everything would not cooperate. I finally threw my hands up and surrendered the day to God. There must be a reason that all my plans had a wrinkle in them?!
After finishing chores and taking care of a thousand little things, everything started to fall into place. Many jobs that I had neglected over the last rainy week, got accomplished. I am a bit sad to have missed the plow day, but I feel much better now.
Late this afternoon I captured this swarm of honey bees. It is my first one of the year. It is a dandy too, almost 5 pounds of bees. I managed to catch the queen in my first attempt. I got her into a small hive with about half of the bees on the post. It is easy to get a swarm that is hanging off a limb, but a 360 degree post with bees all in the woven wire too, is a big challenge! I swept a second bucket of bees off the post and shook them at the hive entrance. In about fifteen minutes, 90% of the bees had entered the hive. In another half hour they had all entered their new home.
It was a beautiful day. This team in the foreground hauled all the sap this year. They are soaking up the sun and nibbling some grass. I think they enjoyed the day too! Especially since they didn’t have to pull the plow for my “fun”.
Filed under: May 2023 | Tags: Draft horse training, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
May 5, 2023
Bree and Rosie waiting for the rain to let up. They stand waiting at the gate, looking to me to open it. We are in a holding pattern due to wet ground, cold weather and more rain. It has been a cold and wet two weeks. April started out unseasonably dry and even hot, but ended the month wet and cold. May has kept with the April pattern, but summer is coming!
They stand quiet. Patience is a good thing to teach a young horse like Bree. There will be many times in her working life where she will be required to stand still and wait. These short lessons are well worth the time.
You’ll notice that the barn floor is littered with gobs of hair. The horses are shedding their winter coats quickly. They know that warm weather is coming fast. I am doing my best to keep up with the curry comb!
If you look close, you’ll see my Border Collie Sam, watching and waiting as well. He thinks its time to go…it’s just a little rain!
In the background, Grace munches her hay. Her training will start very soon too. She had her second birthday two weeks ago. She is big girl now, so time to do big girl things. She spends time in the tie stall learning commands like, “get over” , “back” and “whoa”. These are all commands that she will hear all of her life. She already complies with just my quiet voice. She will make a good workhorse.
In the photo, Rosie looks almost bored as she waits patiently. I know girl, I’m a little bored too!
Filed under: April 2023 | Tags: Baby horses, foals, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
April 22, 2023
Two days ago, we welcomed “Tug” to our farm. He is a big boy. Mom Amee, was glad to meet him too. Tug made his debut at 7:45 Thursday morning. I had to help mom just a bit to get him on the outside. He was a little slow to nurse, but once he figured it out he was a happy little guy!
A little white star and long legs makes him a handsome boy. He struggled to make those legs work, after being cooped up for the last eleven months. Today he is out on pasture with mom, his Aunt Abby and half sister Joy. They are all enjoying the rain and wide open space to run and rest.
I am not making much of a fashion statement, but this is how you look after jumping out of bed and into your clothes to help deliver a foal. It took almost 2 hours to get to this point, but it was worth every minute!
We have two more of Hank’s babies coming in the next few months. Hank is now proven and the barnyard is adjusting to the new arrivals. Connie and I are all smiles as we watch the youngsters frolic in the pasture, zooming past their moms in big circles.
This guy gets all the credit…but the girls do all the work! Many thanks to my great mommas, Amee and Abby. Thanks be to God for his many blessings!
Filed under: April 2023 | Tags: Baby horses, draft horses, foals, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
April 18, 2023
Welcome to our world, Riceland Meadows “Joy”! This little girl was born yesterday afternoon. We waited on her for a while, but she was worth the wait! Her momma Abby, was very happy to meet her too. We struggled to name her, because we had so many choices, one of which was “Patience”. It took a lot of that while we waited. First I had her due date wrong by a month. Then mom went almost to weeks beyond that day! I carefully watched and we all waited, finally Joy picked yesterday for her debut.
Hank is now a proud papa with his first baby on the ground. We are happy with his efforts. We have another Hank baby due in a few days and hopefully two more in the early summer. We look forward to meeting the coming foals.
We will be posting more baby pictures in the coming days and weeks. Farm work continues with a few projects wrapping up and a few more about to start. Training continues too, but everything pauses when the babies come!
Filed under: April 2023 | Tags: firewood, maple syrup, maple syrup season, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
April 2, 2023
I have no idea where March 2023 went! We were crazy busy with Maple syrup and all things farming. I made a rookie mistake and calculated the due dates of our two mares wrong. They are due in April…not March. They did enjoy a couple extra weeks of maternity leave. I got up a few extra nights for foal watch checks…but then I figured out what I had done. So, we are now making preparations for the new arrivals.
The maple syrup season finished up for us on March 23rd. We boiled until almost midnight that Thursday. We are in cleaning mode now as we get everything disassembled, cleaned and stored for next season. We are happy with the 2023 season, even though we missed the first sap run. We were busy processing our pigs, but we rallied and made it happen. It did add a bit of chaos, but it all turned out well.
We had a couple photo sessions with our stallion Hank. We want to advertise him a bit in the future. He is a handsome fellow!
We think the photos turned out well. Hank will have babies on the ground very soon. Our mares are just days away from foaling and we are very excited. Hank is a registered Suffolk stallion. His full name is Ridgewind Atheling Hank of Indian Mound … Hank for short.
The biggest things we will be occupied with in the coming weeks are the babies of course, but completing the maple clean up, working on next years firewood for syrup, plowing for spring crops and working/training the young horses. Things are settling down. My sister’s house is complete and she is moving in to it. I still have some follow up there, but the intensity is over. So, yes, no fooling, it is indeed April already!
Filed under: March 2023 | Tags: firewood, maple syrup, maple syrup season, memories, Small Farming, Suffolk Punch horses
March 11, 2023
We have been crazy busy here! We completed the hog butchering on the day that hindsight would tell us we should have tapped our maple trees. We missed the first run, but did scramble and have been on track since. The photo above shows a sample from our first boil of 2023.
The contraption sitting on our evaporator with all the pipes, is a preheater. It preheats the sap using the steam. The heated sap enters the evaporator at 180 degrees F. A byproduct of this is hot water from the condensed steam that is collected in the round tank to the left of the picture. Having hot water and plenty of it, is a wonderful thing.
The preheated sap helps me burn less wood too. The steam from the boiling sap, usually just vents out the building, but this allows us to make use of the BTU’s that would otherwise be lost. It has upped my efficiency too, allowing be to boil faster, using less wood. There is still plenty of steam to fill the sky and make me remember my grandparents sugarhouse steaming away in my childhood memories.
I am using our son’s horses to gather sap this year. Our main team Amee and Abby are both on maternity leave. These youngsters have been doing a great job. We haven’t had much snow, but the mud has been plentiful.
A quick shot of our midseason lineup. We are about halfway through the season I think, but Mother Nature will let us know for sure. We got a little “sugar snow” this weekend. “Sugar snow” is a term I grew up with describing a snow while we made syrup in the late spring. We have seen buzzards, robins, a wandering ground hog and just today, red-winged blackbirds. These are all signs of the coming spring. The season will come to a close for us when the maples start to bud out or when I run out of firewood. I am pushing the wood pile to the limit. I want to completely clean out the stored wood. I will fill it all again with wood cut last fall and split when we fill the woodshed. Good dry, well seasoned firewood makes a very hot fire, the very thing needed to boil maple sap.
Our mares, hanging out waiting for their babies to arrive. It looks to me like they are ready for the big day. They are both just due, so in a couple days, we may have pictures of foals to share. In the meantime, I will keep working in the sugarbush and around the farm, waiting on the warm greener days of spring. Tonight we “spring” ahead with our clocks allowing for more daylight in the evening… I think I’m ready.
Filed under: January 2023 | Tags: draft horses, family, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
January 19, 2023
This week we had some old fashioned fun. We hooked our new to us mare with our Amee and went for a sled ride. We haven’t had much snow this year, so it was nice to not be playing in the mud! Rosie, our new mare did great. She worked as good as I could have hoped. We pulled our laughing grandchildren behind the sled on their own little sled. All the noise, squeals and laughter made for a good time for me and bothered the horses not one bit.
We used the beautiful day to further Hank’s training some too. Hank, with the stripe, is our coming 4 year-old stallion. Here he works with Abby, pulling a training tire and my grandchildren on their sled. The noise didn’t bother Hank either. He took the day in stride too It was a wonderful time for us all.
Filed under: January 2023 | Tags: draft horses, maple syrup, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
January 9, 2023
After a very cold Christmas season, we have been enjoying some unseasonable weather. We have had plenty of rain and LOTS of mud. All the mud makes it hard to keep the horses exercised. We have been hitching as often as possible. In the photo above, my multi-tasking son leads his filly over to be worked. He was hauling over some manure and drinking coffee and listening to music, while this wild steed walked along beside him.
This says a lot about the Suffolk horse. She was not bothered by the running motor, the rattling cart or anything for that matter. All of this going on and she hasn’t been out of her loose box stall for 2 days. She worked good alongside my Abby mare. This is Belle. She and Abby have worked quite a bit together, but she will work with any of our horses. In the coming days we will be working many different pairs. The young horses in training will soon be paired up to start actual meaningful work.
The weatherman says that we will see a dip in the temperature, by the end of the week. I just hope for a freeze up. We have quite a bit to do before the maple season starts. I’d like to have horses ready, willing, trained and able to work the sugarbush by the end of February. It will all work out, but for now we will wait on winter and play in the mud a bit.
Filed under: December 2022 | Tags: firewood, maple syrup season, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
December 31, 2022
The end of the year is here. It is hard to believe that it has flown by.
In the photo above, our four grown up Suffolk horses enjoy their supper before turn out. I gave all of them haircuts and trimmed all the tails and manes. They were due!
Left to right; Hank, the new horse Rosie, Abby and Amee Quite a bit of power on display.
We are sitting through a rainy day. The bitter cold temperatures have left us. Now, we are having unseasonable warm days. Today was 55 F
We have plenty of work to do, but the mud and rain makes for a day off for us all. We will ring in the new year in a few hours. We will make our plans and resolutions and hope that we are blessed for doing it.
Maple days will soon be here. Firewood jobs are plenty. There are many youngsters to keep training and spring work is right around the corner. Instead of looking forward, I will take a minute to look back and reflect on a successful year that was 2022. There were sad days, mad days and glad days. I will hold on to the glad days.
Happy New Year everyone!
RicelandMeadows 