Nantua Farm Blog

60 meters by 20 meters… Sounds simple enough, right? Sooo wrong! Guess I should have paid more attention to geometry while in high school (although I never guessed that the first time I’d use it SINCE high school would be to set up a dressage arena, so, no, to all you high schoolers out there who ask “are we ever going to use this sh*t again?” That is, unless you plan on ever attempting to layout a dressage arena. For those of you who don’t know, a standard size dressage arena (there’s also a small dressage arena) is a 60 meter by 20 meter rectangle (which roughly converts to 66 ft by 197 ft, well, technically 65.6 ft by 196.8 ft, but who’s counting, right?) with at least 8 letters (6 on the sides and one on each end - A F B M C H E K - A being where you enter) around the perimeter. Each letter is supposed to be a certain distance away from the corner and the other letters, the arena needs to me square and, of course, the corners need to be honest to God 90 degree angles. Sounds easy enough until you’re out there moving letters and sides of the arena around for the billionth time. So, as dusk began to settle, I made an executive decision. Eyeball the damn thing. And you know what? I went back and measured it a few days later and it’s actually closer to being dead on correct than it was the dozen or so times I tried to figure it out mathematically. So I’m not sure whether to be proud that I obviously have a good eye or really embarrassed that my geometry and math sucks THAT much (and I used to be really really good in math, too)! All I know is, that damn arena is staying put. Mow around it, jump areound it, I don’t really care, because I sure as hell won’t be doing THAT again any time soon!

Ok… So by dinner time (the horse’s dinner time, because, of course, our clock revolves around their clock) I’m usually dragging. Ready to feed and toss their behinds out. Well, tonight I got a little wake-up call in the form of a cow standing maybe 3-5 feet from the back doors of the barn. All I can mutter is “ok then” as the horses continue complaining that I’m dragging my ass with concern to their dinner. Seems that the cattle have figured out that the grass truly is greener on our side of the fence and pulled down two bottom boards and crawled through. Didn’t realize bovine were that smart…

So today was one of those days… The days that never seem to end and you just want to climb back up the stairs, change back into your pj’s and crawl into bed until the sun has set and risen once again. But, of course, you can’t. So, how does this hair-raising day end? One of my boarders is turning out her horse, O’Malley, into his pasture when she sees a tiny black thing running around IN the pasture. Not a cat. Not a dog. Not even some weird animal I can’t name. No, it’s one of our neighbors calves. A one day old bull to be exact… So people begin to gather (think we eventually got to 5) to attempt to put this 100 lb calf back into it’s own pasture. He was having none of it! Head-butting anything and everyone in sight and O’Malley calmly stands off to the side observing the hysterics. Then they both began to head towards the same gate (O’Malley and the calf, that is) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large beast jump out of his skin so fast in regards to something that could, quite literally, walk underneath his belly… After what seemed like an eternity of people waving their arms, lots of head-butts, the mama cow mooing for her baby, and O’Malley keeping his distance, the poor terrified calf crawled back through the fence to his mom. All I can say is thank God for my boarder (thank you, Shannon!) and her level-headed horse. So now, I go to bed knowing that I already have one thing on my “To Do” list for tomorrow… Fix that fence.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very appreciative that my barn cats are doing their duty and making sure that our barn is free of all small edible creatures, but there are moments where I wish they sucked at their job… Like this morning. Not a bad morning, Charlie’s swollen eye was looking more normal and nothing had been destroyed over night by the equine monsters during the dreaded switch from night to day turnout. So not bad…. right? Wrong. I walk back to the house to enjoy my breakfast (because, of course, my lovely pampered 1,000 lb+ beasts get to dine first at our farm or the human folk will hear about it) and what do I find? A headless rabbit carcass… I will spare you the details, as they kept me from eating, but needless to say, my darling barn cats, who are no larger (and possibly smaller) than this headless rabbit had dragged the poor bunny cottontail to the GARAGE! They are supposed to be BARN cats! So, hopefully, by lunch time, I’ll be hungry again…