A hobby farm in the making...
Well hello! So many firsts here. First blog entry. First year breeding Hanoverians. First time having horses in my backyard....well where to start! My husband, Clayton and myself (Shannon), own a farm in Oxford, Nova Scotia, Canada. In a beautiful, quiet area, surrounded by blueberry fields and rolling hills. We love our property here, and have spent the past year and a half slowly upgrading the century old farm and the land.
Below is a panoramic view of the property, before any reno's to the barn.
All the work was done by Clay and myself (with exception to the new barn roof.) Clay would spend hours, cutting trees off our property, milling them himself, and eventually we would put them up in our barn. My main job, was the sanding, staining and polyurethaning of the barn, and the staining of our first pasture fence outdoors. This was very tedious, but when you actually sit back and look at what you've accomplished yourself, it is quite amazing! We currently have half the barn turned into horse stalls. The other half will be worked at over the next couple years. We have one 3-acre pasture, with plans on adding more pastures/paddocks and a riding ring in the future. As you can see in the pics below, one of the 'smaller' projects was re-building the tractor lean-to....here is the Before:
And here is the after. Newer roof, windows, extra support all around. Bravo Clay :-)
On October 21st, 2014, we finally welcomed horses home to our property. This has been my dream since I was a little girl. No more boarding, no more traveling to see your horse....they are right in my back yard. And I am loving it! A big thank-you to Ruth Hanselpacker and Nick Graham or Aileron Stables, PEI., for looking after Daisy and Cindy. (Closest is Daisy and in the rear is Cindy)
Onto breeding news. Our first season ever breeding Daisy and Cindy did not go as planned. A tough year all around the globe it seemed! We tried frozen Benetton Dream and frozen Finest on both Daisy & Cindy, however luck was not on our side. Next season, we plan to try a different course of action and will try both fresh & frozen semen. Candidates for Daisy are Wolkentanz II, Harvard, Schwarzenegger again (did you see her colt Selkirk??? He's a real WOW!), and with frozen from Celle, Furst Nymphenburg or Livaldon. Many choices, and Canada has so much to offer with fresh semen....my mind is not yet decided! For Cindy, I have my eyes set on the modern Don Index, and the lovely, well-minded Rascalino, with possible fresh back up of Bon Balou/Sir Gregory. My mind changes every 5 seconds, and I'm hoping by breeding season, I will know which stallion will suit each girl perfectly. But for now, I will enjoy and spoil these girls rotten!!
Till next time!
