The gladiolas and zinnias come courtesy of the horses. They are growing in a mix of manure and wood shavings. I read with interest the thread on bedding. In my area wood shavings are the bedding that is most commonly used. Straw is generally only used for mares who are foaling.

I use wood shavings as the footing in my arena, so it is bedded and cleaned like a giant stall. The horses sleep in there at night - their choice. As soon as I post this, I’ll be going out to do the morning clean up.

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The manure is either spread directly onto future garden areas or it is collected into an O2 composter. That’s a system that aerates the compost pile so it decomposes faster. In the fall I spread the contents of the composter onto two large gardens that flank either side of the entrance to the barnyard. Throughout the summer there’s a succession of blooms culminating in a grand display of annuals in late summer.

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So I can provide flowers for our virtual feast. I’ll leave the cooking to others. The purpose of the recipe sharing is in part to get to know one another a little better.

 

So I’ll begin. Normally I would talk about clicker training, but that’s not the purpose of this group. Instead I’ll say that in 2011 I moved the horses to a barn of their own. The Clicker Center Barn sits within a 34 acre property. It’s beautiful land. There are two ponds and a mix of fields and woods.

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I should add that I live in a climate with very cold winters and very hot, humid summers. Generally we get plenty of snow and rain to keep things green throughout the summer.

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The property used to be part of a large working farm. Over the years various sections were sold off and houses took the place of hay fields. The house on this property was built in the 1970s. It’s a passive solar house, one of the first in the area. I don’t know how effective the design really is, but it was a good first approximation.

 

The previous owners kept the fields mowed, but they didn’t have any animals. That was one of the many things that attracted me to the property. The fields were cut to keep them open, but they hadn’t been grazed in over forty years. There was a healthy mix of grasses and herbaceous plants. Though some of the harder to mow sections had become a monoculture of goldenrod and other areas were being taken over by brier roses. The back fields are now brush-hogged a couple of times a year so there is now less goldenrod and more other things growing.

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We carved a level pad out of the side of a hill for the barn. It meant a lot of pushing and shoving of dirt, but we didn’t have to bring in any extra fill.

 

There are three pastures for the horses that encircle the barn. I hadn’t heard about the equi-central system when I designed the barn, but that’s essentially what we built. The barn and gravel barnyard form a central loafing area for the horses. Hay nets are hung in the barn aisle and stalls. The doors are left open so the horses are free to go where they want.

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They sleep in the indoor which is bedded and cleaned like a giant stall. We built an O2 composter for the manure. So far we have put back on the land everything that the horses have produced.

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Turnout is easy. I just open the gates leading out to the fields. The fields are all interconnected so I can give them access to one or all of the fields depending upon which gates I open or close.

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I have many questions about how best to proceed with this land, and most especially the horse pastures. They have changed over time now that the horses are on them. I want to make sure the changes are heading in a positive direction both for sustaining good grazing and for sequestering carbon.

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I don’t live on the property. Once upon a time my house was surrounded by a beautiful botanical garden. As the deer population in town has grown, my botanical garden has transformed itself into a zoological park. Anyone who has watched my DVDs has seen the deer and the wild turkeys in the background.

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So again my questions are what changes can I make to maximize the carbon I am sequestering in my lawn and garden? That’s something I would very much like to explore here. The garden is very overgrown, and there’s a lot that can be done better.

 

I’d like the house to become a model for what can be done in this climate to sequester carbon. How can we use even our smaller lawns and gardens to make a difference? That means it can’t be so overgrown that it looks like an abandoned house. It has to be acceptable within neighborhood standards.

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I also have to think always about tick control, especially in the horse pastures. We have lyme disease and other tick borne diseases in this area, so this is a major concern. So far I have mowed the pastures several times a year in part to reduce the exposure to ticks. The same thing applies to my lawn at home. So suggestions for mowing - when and how frequently are welcome.

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I hope others will share here. It helps to know what kind of property you are managing, and in what climate. What works for me in this area will not apply to someone living in a different climate zone, so we need lots of ideas from all geographic areas.

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We can make a difference!