A new toy

This year, because of our house, the boyfriend and I each ended up getting bigger tax refunds then we had been expecting. In our discussions of just what exactly we would do with that money we batted around ideas that ranged from saving every last penny of it, buying another horse, doing our arena or getting started on our barn and fencing to putting it towards house updating projects and all the other practical, but not all that fun things that are requiring our money and attention.

After much deliberation, we decided a practical, but fun use of the money was to put it towards tractor. It is fun because it's a big new toy, but also practical because with horses and raw property there are plenty of ways for it to make itself useful.

When we bought our house it came with almost 5 acres of mostly wooded land (see pic above). The whole perimeter of the property is fenced, but I wouldn't call it secure horse fencing by any stretch of the imagination. Even if it was at some point, it's old and posts are rotted and the only reason a lot of it is still standing is because it's being held up by the blackberry bushes that have taken it all over. I think the whole length of the perimeter is fenced with barbed wire. Then there is the not-horse-friendly, big square field fencing on part of it. Then there is the t-posts with two rows of 3 foot mesh fencing stacked for a 6 foot fence, held up by tposts for part of it. It's a bit ghetto, to say the least. Actually, it makes me laugh looking at it. It's just silly.

The property was mostly wooded when we got it but we changed that rather quickly and rather in a panic last summer. Since that initial clearing we haven't done a whole lot with it. We have an area cleared and mostly graded for our arena (see pic above), but it needs some cleaning up. The pasture needs lots of grading and we've decided there are a few more trees we would like to take out and lots of brush to clean up.

The pic above is how our property looks right now. If we can get the right implements for the tractor, I think we can make quick work of clearing fence lines and sinking fence posts. We did get the box scraper which is great for grading, so hopefully we can get the pastures cleaned up and seeded soon. I'm also hoping we can get the ground in the "arena" ready so we can bring in some sand soon. I'm excited because the tractor will help us turn the mess above into a picture perfect horse property. Or something. We've certainly got our work cut out for us, but I'm excited to see it all come together and hopefully that will happen much faster now!