The Stables Story Starts Here .....

  Okay. It's been a long, hard slog. But, I believe I'm getting there enough that, by the time I finish a couple or so posts on this; 'The Horses' will be back in there for the winter ~ Winter Is Coming .....

  I can't even remember if I've talked about all this before now, on here. Either way, all ye need to know now, to bring ye up to pace, is that I bought this cow shed and pen off Pat, I dunno. Four or five years back now?

  He'd let me treat it as my own anyway, from the start. I got Donks as soon as I got here. Pat let me stable him in the shed. And the goats.

  I started working on the shed, just as a hobby and a pass time. Rendering inside. Pointing outside. I built doors and so forth. Finally, Pat and I came to a deal. Cash passed hands. Boosh!

  So, there I was, Owner of a paddock, cow shed and pen. How cool is that? Eight cow shed. Matching pen. Horse. Donkey. (Shot the fucking goat). Let the fun begin ....!


  Fun began alright.  Rose, being a fucking great tank of a Cob, isn't exactly light of foot. So, that, combined with the shocking winter we had, back there. And the already aged state of the pen .....

  Well, let's face it ~ It could be a lot worse!  Clever bollocks here though figured he could fix that. So, I dug and scraped all that mud and shit out. Left myself with a 50/50% area of old concrete and pot holes. Then cheerfully filled the pot holes with new concrete!

  Yes! Pure fucking genius, eh? Deano came along. Took one look at it and, in his somewhat laid back and laconic style announced;

  " Yeah. See, the water will get down between the edges of the new concrete patches. Then, winter will come (winter is coming). That water will freeze. Expand. And pop every fucking bit of that new concrete back out again. "

  I didn't actually take photo's of every stage of my work there. I was too taken up with doing the work. But, yes: I let the horses back in, for the winter.

  Winter indeed came ~ with a fucking vengeance. Water froze. Concrete popped. Horses produced shit. Over lifting, breaking concrete. Shit I couldn't shovel, because it was full of concrete ....! Nightmare!

  That's a rough idea of what they wound up living with. It got to the point where Rosie had to walk, knee deep, through her own, liquefied, shit. Just to reach the drinker. A drinker I couldn't get to, because of Chinese boots! (But, that's another story!)

  See that stall, top left? Remember that. Ye'll be seeing more of that yet. Quite a lot of that. It's important.

  In fact, bear with me on this whole 'Stables' thing. It may not seem much now. But, over several more, interspersed, posts I want to show ye something that'll all come together.

  I'll come up with other, unrelated, shit to talk about. So ye don't come bogged down in all this horse shit. But, believe me; We're talking a few Years work here. 

  Next time, I'll show ye the cow shed / stable to be. Inside and out. Tell ye a little about That aspect of the fucking drama!

More Work To Do .....

  Remember the fencing I had to do, Here ?

Got that all finished up nicely. Look:

  See how the crafty wire forms an inward carpet? Vegetation'll grow up and through that. Soon just form an invisible and impenetrable Dog Barrier.

  And here's the long side of that stand of bushes:

  See? Bush is already thrusting through the stock fencing and hiding it. I'll hedge trim to within a few inches of the fence, in future. Be a wall of green, hiding the fence buried within.

  Fucking great, it is! I can now just let the Dogs out, in the morning, and pretty much leave them to their own devices.  They've somehow decided, of their own volition, that 'up the back' is off limits. Maybe because I no longer go there? 

  Either way, yeah, they now stay in the compound and it's lovely to let them just wander about or bake themselves in the sporadic sunshine.

  I need to get the back fence put up now. Just because. Posts are long since sunk. All the runners and pales are painted. Just need Pat to help me for half an hour more. Cutting a notch out of a tree and simply holding one end of the runners, as I screw them on. Rest I can sort out alone.

  Right now though, the thing on my mind is the stable roof! FFS! It's corrugated asbestos and caving in! It won't stand up to this coming Winter.

    So, fuck the overdraft. I'm going for broke. (Christ, I'll be broke!) But, my horses will have a luxury roof over them that'll still be looking fantastic, long after I'm gone.

  Suffice it just to say that, as I type; If it rains? The fucking rain comes in and drips directly into the very place where there hay feed goes. So, they get wet as they munch on wet hay.

  It also runs down on the only spot available to store their half a dozen bales at a time that I buy them. But, that's nothing though. Ignore it, and the whole fucking lot will simply collapse, this Winter. No two ways about it. 

  Here's what it looks like, today then:

   And, believe me, that shit's shot to shit. It's a fucking abortion up there. Half the rafters beneath it are rotten as pears too. Never mind though. I'm on the case. 'Nuff said. Massive money is now pledged to this situation. Twenty by Thirty roof? Fuck, yeah!

   Watch this space! 

I'll Be Back ....!

 Sorry. I'm just So fucking busy living the shit that gives me anything to write about that it's leaving me no time to write it up!

  I want to tell about the fencing I'm incrementally doing ~ a tooth and claw battle with the rain and my brand new power tools! FFS!

 The stable's a dream! Happy horses. Fucking roof's gonna cave in any time, 'mind! 2014 is going to be the tightest summer, for me, since the fucking hay drought. Fuck it. Shit happens.

 Dogs are all fine. Well, the three I have here. Remind me to tell ye about Rag. FFS.

  Canaries? Anyone want to talk about canaries? I've developed something of an obsession! I guess it's just been all this ringing I'm doing. Getting to handle so many birds.

 Birds have characters, ye know? Loveable little things. Great tits will try to bite hard enough to take chunks out of ye fingers. Coal tits will just defiantly peck, peck, peck away at ye. Full credit to their determination not to go down without a fight!

 So, yeah; Not being best advised to keep 'native' birds ~ I'd so love to breed coloured lesser redpolls. Such endearing little birds! ~ I've set my sights on canaries.

 Coloured canaries though. If ye thought all canaries were yellow .....? Fine.


 What ever. You're here and have read this.  I'll try to get more up. Slide up to my first words on this post .....