We’re now looking for a home for Chelsea, our miniature horse.
It’s the only livestock purchase that we regret. It’s the same story heard often – young teen girls beg for a horse, parents relent and horse gets ignored. Chelsea has grown up to be a “Mack Truck” of miniature horses.
Here is Chelsea the day she arrived on the farm. We’re hoping we can find her a good home with people who will know how to train and keep her, hopefully with others of her kind.
In the fall/winter, we have a special ration we feed the sheep, but have had trouble keeping the horse from taking more than her fair share.
Linda had an idea to put a board across that the sheep could go under, but horse not get through. So, a couple of 2×4 brackets inside the door, a 2×4, and there you have it – sheep running in for a treat. It won’t prevent the door from closing and is easily removed by just sliding it out of the brackets.
The horse can just sit and look – rebuffed from the treat inside!
After a long winter, Chelsea, the miniature horse is shedding her winter coat.
As she is a young horse, her “baby coat” of white is giving way to an adult coat of brownish-roan. If you’d like a preview of the color Claire painted her bedroom, just check out her legs
After a long winter, Chelsea finally gets some attention.
It’s been a long winter, and an initial brush of the winter coat sure feels good!
Just because it’s cold and dark, doesn’t mean that chores can slack. Winter outdoor chores are greatly reduced – the horse, a couple of goats, laying hens and pets. Everybody needs water and food for the day and eggs need to be gathered.
We’re on a seasonal rotation, with duties changing with the turn of each season – so starting in a few days, the chores will rotate once again.
one year ago…
December is in like a lion with an ice storm. So far, it isn’t holding a candle to the ice storm that left us without power for 4 days and our neighbors for 8 days. See February 23-March 4 blog entries for the worst 8 days of ice, snow, and wind I’ve ever lived through.
Chelsea doesn’t seem to mind the ice – she’s out running in the pasture this afternoon.
So far the ice accumulation has not brought any trees down, although it did cause some airplanes to slide off the runway in Des Moines.
This week the kids (even Martin) worked hard getting the rest of the corn cobs out of the horse stall. It became a bit more imperative as I want to start working on the hog barn soon and can’t when she was in there for temporary lodging. So I whipped up this gate to fit the odd size of the stall.
We thought it was a nice big space,but she promply ripped the gate hinge out of the wood. So, a sturdier design and she seems to have calmed down and is starting to make it home.
This might look like the girls are out on the road taking the dog for a walk. But it is a moment Emma thought would never come – the day a horse came to the farm!
The person we bought it from (The Jolly Rancher) preferred not to turn around her horse trailer in our yard, but was kind enough to bring it to the beginning of the gravel road, 1/3 mile away – so the girls got to walk/run the horse home!
The horse is a 6 month-old miniature horse named “Chelsea.” She won’t get too much bigger. We saw some at the Iowa State Fair pulling carts and Dad softened from his hard line of “no horse ever on this farm” to “I could see having one of those for the girls to train to pull a cart.” The upside is they don’t eat much and aren’t as dangerous as a full-size horse. So here’s Chelsea, the latest addition to high hopes gardens.