I'm recycling and I didn't even realize it.

Lots of changes, as small as replacing a burnt out light bulb with an energy efficient lightbulb  today, the usual composting.   I am saving the twine off hay bales to macrame into ropes for around the farm ( I know it sounds trivial)  and thinking that my habit of burning paper feed sacks is the wrong example for my kids so I am ,as of the last few weeks neatly piling them for paper recycling.  We do live really simply.  I am giving thought to the longer hours and nicer weather of encouraging my children to bike more to visit friends and school, a notion that would good for my health too. 

We are farmers, we breed show horses.    A very big change has been the attention to the quality of life to one of our stallions, our grey stallion Raffaello  went to an amateur rider who was in need of a distraction from her demanding job as  a professor and researcher in Parkinsons disease.  He is so appreciated, he has a wonderful environment where he has more space and freedom and socialization than ever before in his life.  And he is still finding success in the show ring and breeding.

Raffaello pictures:

 http://www.chronicleofmyhorse.com/photo/album/show?id=1971868:Album:8815

 Now my attention turns to our stallion Cotopaxi, Cotopaxi's life is like a heart tugging Disney script with the horse falling to despairing depths, only to be rehabilitated to success and now, hopefully, a happy ending.  His life has been surreal and few would even believe it and one day I will write down the story .  This change is about having compassion for an animal that has lived the regimented and confined life of a competive jumping stallion, locked in stalls most of his life and only let out to perform tasks as specified by a trainer.  I am not proud to have been a knowing  party to this, but it is a long deeper story.  Now today my change is to go against the system, to build Cotopaxi a shelter, turnout area and provide him with a companion, as he has been deprived of socialization most of his life and lived as though in solitary confinement; and keep him in training for competition from our modest family farm. 

So  I am planning an enclosed area, renovated with salvaged materials, I have dubbed it 'Jurassic Park' since Cotopaxi can jump 6 feet with a 200lb man on his back, it will have to be rather imposing to keep him safely sequestered.  It will have a spacious shelter  and a walk out paddock to exercise in the sunshine and stand under the trees, and most importantly it will have an adjoining accomodation for a companion horse.  A lot of people have tried to tell me what I cannot do with this horse, they said he could not be ridden, and he is.  The North American  inspectors of his breed registry  said he would never make a jumping competition horse, and he is gracing the cover of their magazine spring of 2008 in a photo of him jumping  in competition, my ex partner said he could never be handled by anyone else , let alone a woman, and he has never been in better hands than he is now with me , happier, healthier and a success in breeding and competition!  Cotopaxi and I have mutual respect and  trust , and clear communication, as all relationships should have.

So I will be a middle aged farm lady, sawing and nailing and digging holes for fence posts and putting in  sweat equity to renovate this area for this particular horse, who deserves it more than anyone could understand.  He deserves to feel peace and freedom to move and  to express himself and socialize. My big change is putting his happiness before success.

Cotopaxi pictures:

http://www.chronicleofmyhorse.com/photo/album/show?id=1971868:Album:8834

After a number of years competing as a showjumper, my stallion living promarily in a 10 x 10 foot stall, I went against convention and built him his own envirenment on my farm . Happily my stallion came home, and loved the freedom his new environment afforded him, the freedom of choice to be in or out, stand in the sun, rain, under the trees, to roll or buck at will with some space of his own. In addition we used mostly recycled materials to build a lean to adjacent for a companion , so socialization is another step that is adding to our horses lives.

This stallion was once considered rogue and the popular thought was that he should be put down,now he is happy and kind and have fulfilled a dream to work with such a magnificent being.

Recycling material, composting manure, low impact farming methods are all things we have been able to incorporate into our lives.

Another big change is our diet has been shifting to a higher raw food (50%) and some cooking is soon to be by solar oven.
We cut the cable TV
And now we dry 90% of our laundry suspended from a ceiling rack in the laundry room or the outside clothes line.
We have been more cognizant about eliminating energy drains with plugged in equipment and one expenditure will be a conditioner for the electrical outlet powering our computers to make them last longer as recommended by an electrician.
A long ways to go until we have solar or wind power but have it in our sights at least.

Happily the environment of our farm has very successfully remained mixed uses with everything I aspired for my horses , especially my special stallion, becoming a reality and now i have added to the vision. We have remained organic and incorporating more and more permaculture with variety of blueberries edging the barn area. Existing food production for our own needs include raspberry, saskatoon berries, gooseberry, oriental and NZ kiwi, 2 good grapes, 3 cherries, culinary bay tree, 4 apple trees, pears, japanese purple plum, nectarine, peaches and apricot , figs, walnuts and hazelnuts, herbs and a small veggie garden.

This year we are endeavouring to do more heirloom open pollinated vegetables than ever (started a seed saving swap program with other horse breeders) , start a permanent asparagus bed, create a new everbearing raspberry bed for plants I am bartering other plants for, plant at least two mulberry trees, goji berries , at least one chestnut tree (need 2 to cross pollinate i think) , more herbs and a multivariety grafted plum tree.

Okay the general idea is more multifunction permaculture, with trees to stabilize present fir and spruce trees rooting structures, planting deciduous and conifers to used in conjunction with solar charged fencing to form corridors and interior and perimeter hedgerow type barriers for fencing our horses. These mixed use plantings will include honey locust trees for nitrogen fixing and animal fodder, maple for sap , weeping willow which animals graze on, holly, more hazelnuts, more fir and spruce and possibly stone pines if I can keep it within budget. There is a long term plan to expand on this years plantings towards more permaculture with consideration for wildlife, our horse farming, soil enhancement, water conservation and storage for emergency and other use. Biodiversity in our pastures extends beyond planting trees and we have started interplanting herbs like oregano, garlic, organic flax, wheat, differing grasses, alfalpha to turn what was sort of a monoculture of grass into a healthier synergy of beneficial plants , insects, fungi and animals (birds and amphibians too) gosh along with this we have been recycling lots, started making aluminum can solar heaters and have circulated passive solar water tank plans (to heat drinking water above freezing in winter for our animals) amoungst our horse friends and we are all building them out of recycled materials. In time more changes will come, we may not be changing everything but I am really happy with the direction of these changes.