Busy Building Westeros

Busy is a good way to describe the last few weeks. We've had a spell of great weather, sadly finishing a few days ago. We saw highs in the upper 20's and low 30's with overnight lows in the teens - lots of sunshine and just gorgeous for this time of year!

We have finished all the electric fences; built a functioning round pen; installed rails on the fence in front of the house and started installation of swinging metal gates to keep the cattle from getting into the house and yard. Spring means the return of Brian and Louise's cattle and since we removed the electric barbed wire that surrounded the house last year, we needed to complete the new fence that replaced it. It also meant that we had to move our remaining hay from the stack on the other side of the road to its new spot under the deck by the basement door. Of the 150 bales we bought last year to feed the two horses we had then, we have 50 left. We did lose a few bales to mould where water had settled on the bottom of the platform we had the hay stack on. It sounds like our efforts are timely as one of our neighbours, Holly Campbell, had called last night to warn us that her cattle were now out on the range and that we should take measures to keep them out of areas we didn't want them in. Apparently, "finishing the gates" has now moved to the top of our lengthy priority list! It seems to never end.
On the "good news" side of things, we have Jake and Sierra moved up to our place. They actually came up several weeks ago but it's been a while since we have updated the blog. It's been fun to watch the herd dynamic as they all try to find their place in the pecking order. Jake is definitely the "alpha" and has displaced Mystery as the overall leader of the herd. The herd itself is now formed of two mini-herds - Mystery and Acorn representing our original group (minus Whisky who's at Camilles' Horses for training) and then Jake and Sierra, the "new guys". They all get along reasonably well with a minimum of ear-pinning and gesturing.
As we have 3 fenced fields that we can keep them in we have named the fields to allow discussion of horse placement without having to use terms like, "the field on the far side without shelter but that does have lots of grass". Being that we are currently enjoying the TV series, Game of Thrones, we have chosen names from that series. Winterfell is the paddock that has lots of shelter (but the poorest grass) where we had the guys spend last winter. It's closest to the house and easy for us to get to in the snow. Riverrun, is the smallest of the 3 fields and has no shelter at all, but it boasts an underground stream that gives it the best grass. The Vale, is the largest of the fields with some sheltered areas and some lush grass where the underground stream runs across a corner of the field. It is the farthest away from the house.
We have currently allowed the horses access to all three paddocks but will move to a rotational grazing system as the summer progresses. This will give the grass time to recover in one paddock while they eat down the next one. However, for now, they have all chosen Riverrun as their favourite, seldom venturing out, even in the rain and wind we had the other day. I've learned that horses are piggies when it comes to food and they have simply picked the best feeding area!