Well, sometimes Mother Nature tells you that you erected the horse shelter in the incorrect place.
In my defense, I had to make this decision before actually living here and understanding the cycles… Wind, rain, mud, dry dust, moonscape… I had no idea how it all worked around here.
Now I do. And, just by chance, Mother Nature has decided to help me correct my mistake. “Dawn, the horse shelter doesn’t belong here!”
And so, it doesn’t anymore.
Shelter down.
THIS WAS THE FIRST THING WE DID BEFORE MOVING HERE…
When escrow closed on the Paso Robles house, I was still in Grass Valley with the horses. I had the fence guys putting up fencing in Paso. Hubby offered to put up the first horse shelter. He asked where I wanted it.
At that time, we had only two paddocks budgeted, so I thought it best to erect the large shelter in the largest pasture. Which was a good idea.
The issue was where I decided to put it. For some reason, I thought putting it at the highest, dryest and flattest part, would be the best. It also had awesome views which I thought the horses might enjoy.
What I didn’t know was that this high and dry, very pretty spot, was also hit with the highest winds. And, we have a lot of high winds – up on this ridge. Epic.
Last week, we had particularly high winds.
On the first day of these monster winds, I noticed that the shelter looked torqued. I went up there and I tried to push on it to see if I could move any part of it – and I couldn’t. So, I just thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me.
On the next day of the high winds, I thought the shelter looked torqued – but the other way. Hmmmm. Could this be? So I went up there and tried to push on it again. I couldn’t budge it. However, I was fairly certain it was leaning the other way. Hmmmmmm.
The next day, it was down. Evidently, I was correct.
As you can see, it did have the best view on the place…
MOTHER NATURE
Although the shelter worked fine for 2.5 years, it was probably always in the wrong spot. First of all, it was at the furthestmost spot from the house – uphill. So, only the horses used it. I rarely went up there to groom or mess with them.
Secondly, it didn’t help to cover/shield where they ate or drank. Their food and water troughs are by the fencing, of course, to make daily feeding more efficient. If it was really hot or really wet, they ate/drank exposed to the elements. I always thought to myself… ‘A shelter down here would be better.’
And, I half-way got my wish. Now I have no shelter – so when I get another I can put it in the right spot.
Here is the shelter, ready to be carted away.
OY. But it is OK.
Summer is coming. I liked using that now shelterless pasture because it is huge. But, without shelter, it is hot. The trees in Marty’s Alley are not big enough yet to provide ample shade. So, I will figure something out. In the meantime, Finn, BG and Wrigley will use the smaller shelter in the adjacent paddock.
Finn, BG and Wrigley also really like this shelter… so they are good.
EMERGENCY APRIL BUCKET FUND FOR GRANNYPONY! – the 35+ blind, perfectly mannered little pony – left at the meat auction by her family! Click here for story
Only $300 to reach our goal! Although we have paid her initial vet bills, it would be wonderful to help with the follow-ups as well as purchase a month of senior feed from the feed store to boost her along her way to health!
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This 35+ year old granny pony was left at a meat auction to fend for herself in the huge pens with larger horses.
Yes! We have one of those at the Grass Valley house. It has been up for over 10 years. They are GREAT.
We purchased ours from Farm Tek, but the same idea. Thank you!
Sorry to hear about your shelter. I have also had shelter issues. I live near the mountains at 8,000 feet and it is a windy area. When we moved here two years ago the horses needed a run-in shed so I contracted with a company in early July of 2017 (Terrapin Steel Structures) to put up a 12X24 building. It was supposed to happen in two to four weeks. By the end of November I still didn’t have my shed and I was heartily sick of Terrapin’s excuses. There was a 12X20 “Garage in a Box” on sale at Tractor Supply, so I bought that. It’s basically a heavy tarp over a steel frame, but my son is a carpenter and he thought it could work if we covered the frame with plywood and put the tarp on top of that. There have been issues: the horses went to work on the tarp one night, so I repaired it with Gorilla duct tape and ran an electric fence around the shed. Twice, I found kick dents in the plywood (without which I believe the kicker would have gone right through the tarp, possibly trapping his hoof or leg and causing a great deal of damage). Also, due to the tarp, the shed is noisy and flappy. It took the horses a very long time to acclimate to that. Wind, however, hasn’t been an issue. We had a bomb cyclone here last month with 70 to 100 mph winds for about ten hours and the shed didn’t move. The plywood makes it more stable, but also much heavier. The shed has been up for about 18 months and is still going strong.
I just thought I’d write about this in case anyone else needs a cheap run-in. The cost was under $1000.00
and that includes the wood, screws, a trailer rental to haul the wood, and rubber mats for the floor.