Yes, yes and yes and I am so excited!!!! Finally going to do this for myself and Morgan will get to roam......with his "new" friends....
I have been negotiating with a farmer who has 3 hectares he is not using. The best part is he has another 30 hectares (10 under conservation) that we can use for turn out, riding, exploring.....
On the 3 hectares is an old cottage and my darling husband is going to revamp it for me. It will have two large rooms, two small rooms and two run in stables at the back. There are two dams (one is actually a very cute pond) and a dam run off that runs about 9 months of the year. It is on a slope so great drainage, hard ground and about half has horse grazing (too much in fact...lol!) and the rest is forest and fairly sparse grazing (so will be known as the fat camp!
).
I am busy moving materials there but will only be able to move horses on the first week of Jan. This all came a little sudden as the place where Morgan stays has just renewed it's lease and wanted me to start paying and the offer of land fell at the same time). I need to put in the 1st fence line (some 120m) to secure the whole property. Then as the liveries (horror of people....), arrive I can start to build the second and third fences and will end up with 3 large paddocks with lots/medium and little grazing plus the big chunk opposite (which is fenced all around) to rest paddocks or use later.
I know what I want, but I need liveries to make it a viable business rather than just a covering of costs. I don't want a riding school situation but private owners who are hopefully looking for an AND style lifestyle for their horses. Stress free where those that want can join us cutting trails for DAYS into the mountain!!!! We are in horse country (it's a 25min drive from my house), there is a polo estate next door with about 40 horses already there.
The farmer is fab and has two horses of his own at his house. He wants improvements to his farm and wants to see the land being used.
So.....any ideas and advice welcome. Later (year 2) I would like to have a "lecture/social" room and an arena to host clinics......(and Josepha had better come!!!!!!!
), in fact perhaps I can hold an AND worldwide meeting!!!!!
Romy, I already planned to put in a fire pit and have some great tiles I have been holding onto that would be perfect around the opening. I also have some cute powder blue shutters and other reclaimed/recycled materials. I don't have electricity so want to play with solar or wind later and am looking at a "dry" toilet. We want to retire to France one day (10 years?) and our dream is a small holding and to be as self sufficient and grid free as we can so we can get to try out alot of the stuff here and see what works, so that's very exciting too.
I've been researching herbs and plants that I want to put in for the horses, but in the meantime I have also looked at organic horse herb mixes. I want to move away from "bucket" feeding as much as possible and just add in what's missing from the grazing or hay. As natural and holistic as possible. I will build large open shelters.
I have a spot of land that is elevated, hard ground and on the edge of the forest that would be perfect for an arena (which gives livery clients a place to work (I'm hoping they will play AND games in there!), and will be great for clinics. It is close to the cottage behind which I will put simple stalls as holding pens (new/sick/visiting horses).
I'd like to build a natural agility course with bridge and stumps and banks as the forest is very uneven, could be lots of fun to do a liberty agility course....so much work to do!!!!
Problems I will have are ticks/snakes and heaps of hard work.....but I can't wait!!!!!!