Spring Break on the Ranch

Two weeks ago I was on Spring Break, and what could be better to do during that week off than to get some much needed jobs done here on the ranch! So my mother and I went to work and had a very productive week.

Every morning after walking the dogs and feeding, we worked on trimming back the brush and trees that were trying to take over the trails in the woods. We walk and ride these trails, but they were becoming so overgrown that riding was becoming impossible.

We still have a few trails to trim, but we managed to get the main trail done!

After a morning of trimming trails, we’d come in, eat lunch, and head back out to work on something else. Our main focus after the trails was a section of the ranch that needed some major help. Before we bought the property, this area of the ranch had old junk cars on it, and the weeds and bushes were so tall and out of control, you couldn’t walk through them or even see over them!

Over the past two years, we were able to get the old cars removed, and a lot of the bushes, weeds, and thorn trees cut down. Unfortunately, when they removed the cars, they broke the windows and left glass all over. And, after cutting down the thorn trees, a lot of large and nasty thorns remained everywhere. And last but not least, when mowing down the weeds, we discovered an old burn pile with, can you guess? Even more glass, metal, and trash of various sizes and shapes.

Our goal was to rake the entire area in order to remove the thorns, branches, and dead weeds, and so we could locate the trash spots. Once we accomplished that, we went to work on cleaning up the glass, metal, etc. (Please ignore the fact that my right leg looks abnormally long! Haha, must be a stump there that looks identical to my leg!)

There were also a few more thorn trees that needed to be cut down, but hadn’t yet because the old barbed wire fence had grown into them. So we removed that section of old fencing so that Sam (my husband) could come out and cut the thorn trees down.

Now that we had all the trees cut down, fencing removed, trash picked up, and thorns and weeds raked up, we were ready to remove stumps. Due to the large amount of thorn trees and large bushes that had grown up in this area, there were over 40 stumps remaining that needed to be removed so that we could mow the area and not trip with every step we took.

We have a wonderful neighbor who lives just down the road who said he could remove them all for us for free! What a blessing!!

So we said goodbye to our now beautiful and sparkling clean work area . . .

And said hello to a stump graveyard . . .

But boy was it worth it! After cutting away some remaining roots and filling in holes here and there, we can now mow the area.

And last but not least, in the late afternoon/evening, we were able to take time to ride. I was able to ride Patrick for the first time on the Ranch that week, and he did wonderfully! We went on several rides in the woods and around the property with mom and her horse Keva. I am so proud of Patrick! He went beyond our expectations and truly surprised both of us with his confidence and his calm attitude towards everything!

We got so much accomplished that week, and it sure was a beautiful time of the year to be outside everyday! The grass was growing like crazy and getting so green! Flowers were blooming on the trees . . .

And the horses were looking beautiful in the early morning sunrise as usual . . .

The only downside about the beautiful week, was that it got so warm so fast, that the horses were bent on getting their winter coats off ASAP! As you can see by this poor little cedar tree . . . it never even had a chance . . .

It was a wonderful Spring Break, and a great start to Spring on the Ranch!