The Horse Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Macarena and Flamenca, 2015

25K views 403 replies 16 participants last post by  bsms 
#1 ·
I've decided to start a member's journal so as I can keep tabs on my/our progress with Macarena (my 4yo) and Flamenca (my oldie for the boys to learn on). So here goes....

I've got a bit of catching up to do, though I haven't had much time to ride since the year started. I'll resume what I can remember of our rides so far.

4th January.
I took Macarena out through the pine forest, but being Sunday it was crawling with pigeon-shooters. Macarena was brave about a couple of gunshots at close range, and just did a little flinch, but then she totally panicked for no apparent reason. I imagine there was a hunter skulking in the trees, but whatever, I had detected nothing alarming and we were trolling along in a relaxed fashion when suddenly she did a spin and bolt. This was her second spin and bolt ever since I backed her, so it was quite an occasion! I let her canter a bit before asking for a stop, them turned back towards the scary spot. She was a bit freaked but she walked past it fine this time. We had a good ride and I came back pleased with her.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#2 ·
8th January
We did some schooling out in the field, and I even managed to get my son to come out and take some photos. Macarena is quite forward when she gets going, so I always do a few trot and canter circles before she settles and starts to listen. We are working on getting a nice regular gait at the trot, and on her canter leads as she is stiff on her right lead. We hopped over a low jump a few times to see how she did. She has a great jump, and I need to work on distances with her as she tends to get in too close.








Posted via Mobile Device
 
#12 ·
8th January
We did some schooling out in the field, and I even managed to get my son to come out and take some photos. Macarena is quite forward when she gets going, so I always do a few trot and canter circles before she settles and starts to listen. We are working on getting a nice regular gait at the trot, and on her canter leads as she is stiff on her right lead. We hopped over a low jump a few times to see how she did. She has a great jump, and I need to work on distances with her as she tends to get in too close.
Posted via Mobile Device
I moved the photos that went here and now they've disappeared, so here they are again:







 
#3 ·
11th January
Trail ride up to the open fields past Los Canales. There's a big area that hasn't been ploughed this winter which is great for letting her open up.

15th January
I finally decided that Flamenca is rideable on non-stony ground. I bought her in December, skinny and with hopelessly overgrown front hooves. The farrier trimmed too much toe (she has almost certainly got sunken coffin bones) and lamed her on the spot. Since then I have taken more off her heels until her foot is getting more balanced, and now, a month layer, she has grown enough sole to walk sound on even ground. She's put on weight too and looks nice.
I rode Macarena and Alberto (son) rode Flamenca. Up the road to some non-stony fallow fields where he did circles at the trot. He hasn't got the hang of riding trot yet. Macarena was pleased to have company, but she's not accustomed to going alongside another horse and gets excited. She wanted to speed up at first, but I said no way, and she calmed down and trotted beside Flamenca fine. We crossed into a different field and trotted again, but this time Flamenca broke into a gentle canter. DS was having problems getting her back to a trot, and while he was trying to circle her, Macarena was getting pretty explosive. She really wanted to sprint up and overtake her friend, but I wouldn't let her of course, because then Flamenca would speed up rather than slowing down. For a minute or so, Macarena was cantering on the spot - it felt like she was bouncing in fact - and she was so stressed that I worried she was about to do a phenomenal buck or rear, but no, she contained herself very well. By that time, DS had Flamenca trotting back to us and the sticky moment had passed.
Once we returned to the yard, DS put Flamenca away and I took Macarena out to our schooling fields to let off some steam. After a good fast canter to stretch out, she did some really nice canter circles and long figure eights, with lead changes on the diagonal, and she even picked up her right lead correctly (she often misses on the right). Then DH appeared on a dirt bike and we chatted a bit before I headed back for the yard across the fields. He passed us on the road, and Macarena coiled up under me (at the walk lol) asking for a sprint. Her reaction to the dirtbikes is the same as to a horse cantering - she wants to go faster. (Except she always loses to the dirtbikes!) So she was asking for a sprint, and since she had worked so well, I gave her the go, and we flew back across the fields. And them I had to take her all the way back round the furthest field at a loose walk to cool her down.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#4 ·
18th January
Took Macarena out through the forest and up the steep rocky hill to the cairn. Good for hind-end development! From there we went down the far side to the old gypsum quarry ( more like a scrape and spoil heaps on a hillside). DH and DS were out on the dirtbikes and the old quarry is a favourite spot of theirs; sure enough, I heard the noise of the bikes coming up the hill towards us.

Macarena tensed up when they arrived, and leapt forwards into a canter as DH passed, with DS bringing up the rear on his bike. Macarena was pretty stressed about being between the two bikes, and when they peeled off to the quarry we continued down the track..... and cantered and cantered some more until she got a grip on things and we could stop and turn round. So I guess she bolted :eek:ops!: Totally my fault for letting her race after the bike the other day.

So we turned and cantered back to the quarry, where she freaked again and wouldn't stop, so carried on along the track in the other direction a bit further. Then turned round and back to the quarry again, and this time we met the dirtbikes on the track. We passed them at a (nervous) walk, so I was happy about that and decided we had seen enough of dirtbikes for the day!
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#5 ·
21st January
I took Macarena out and Astrid (6month old pyrenean mastiff) accompanied us, which was nice. Astrid enjoyed herself enormously! She's gradually getting used to the idea of horses, but has a bad habit of crossing too close in front of them which earns her dirty looks and head shakes from Macarena.

We went up to the abandoned land below the 'monte'. Some men were cutting up felled trees with chainsaws. Macarena spotted them from far away and wanted to check them out, but when we approached she decided she didn't like them after all and wanted to scoot off. We went to and fro a few times until she relaxed about the chainsaws (the men probably wondered what the heck we were doing!) although I didn't insist on her getting too close.

We did a couple of big circles at the canter to get her to relax a bit, and poor Astrid followed us faithfully. She hasn't realised yet that when we do circles it isn't necessary for her to follow in our tracks. Her tongue was hanging out a yard when we finished. I bet she slept well that night!
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#6 ·
27th January

Last Sunday was a dirtbike day, and Saturday was really windy, so it was a non-riding weekend. Flamenca's Easyboots arrived on Tuesday, after having to exchange the first pair for a size larger, so Tuesday evening I enthusiastically rushed down after feeding the goats to try them on. And they fit!

I saddled her up and off we went. This was the first time I've ridden her since we brought her home, as I didn't want her loading my weight without the hoof boots on. And guess what, she's gone herdbound in the last month and a half of just eating and hanging out. I took her down the fields, but she started getting very nervous, and one of the boots fell off, so back up to the land beside the yard to do a few circles. The other boot fell off there, and then she tried to skidaddle back to the gate.

My son had come to ride her too, so I put her on the lunge rein and he rode a bit on the lunge before we called it a day. It was almost dark by then.

Two lessons learned:

1. Put the Easyboots on tighter.
2. Flamenca needs work on her herdbound-ness.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#7 ·
28th January
I decided to work with Flamenca this afternoon and do some barnsour exercises. I put her Easyboots on the tightest fitting - and they didn't fall off :) We started with some easy circles on the patch of land beside the yard, at walk and then a bit of trot on the near side to the yard.

From time to time she would chuck her head in the air and bunch up as if she was thinking of rearing. The head-chucking seemed to be looking for a hard contact to avoid, but my response was to lower my hands, give a tiny tweak on the reins and push her forward. So she had nothing to evade, haha. I am riding her in an unjointed portuguese curb (after trying her in a single-jointed snaffle, which she didn't much like), and she goes very nicely in the curb. Riding in a curb is new for me, as in England as a kid it was all snaffles and kimblewicks or the occasional pelham, and now my other horse Macarena is bitless. It's always good to learn something new!

Anyway, Flamenca was ok until I took her round behind the yard and then asked her to walk up past the yard gate. She sidled in to the gate and we got stuck there. She was really nervous when I asked her to leave and kept going sideways/backwards/doing crow hops until we were hard up against the fence. There was nothing I could do from on top of her to get her out from the fence.

In retrospect, I should have asked DH to give her a slap on the butt ( he was watching the spectacle). The trouble was he had tucked himself into a corner between the yard wall and a giant hay bale, and Flamenca was showing every sign of wanting to join him in his corner..... so I was insisting he get out of the way before anything went too wrong. (I still can't believe he had cornered himself there seeing just what Flamenca was doing only five metres away :shock: ).

Anyway, after a few minutes of unsuccessful manouvering I got off Flamenca, gave her a good whack on the butt, led her away from the wall, and got back on. Then we did some more herdbound exercises without any further hiccups, and I ended up taking her up to the house (she attempted a slow-motion spin on the way but couldn't pull it off), where I dismounted, petted her and unsaddled her.

I hope a few more sessions like this will improve her. At least she's nowhere as bad as Xena was. The bad thing about Xena was that she was extremely herdbound, green, and she had massive holes in her training. Whereas Flamenca is only moderately herdbound, is old and wise, and has a solid base of training to work from.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#8 · (Edited)
30th January
I had company today on my ride :) - DH decided it was time to swing a leg over Flamenca and hit the trails. This of course meant a very.... gentle.... ride. DH doesn't like speed on a horse, and even less so riding in an English saddle, as he says they're slippery and there's nothing to hold onto lol. I need to look for an Australian saddle for him. He likes the Spanish vaquero saddles, but I hate them - they keep your legs away from the horse's side so forget subtle communication with your legs and seat. I reckon a stock saddle would be a good compromise.

Anyway, Flamenca was an angel, she didn't put a foot wrong. Which was a huge relief! (She's fine in company, it's just on her own we've got the herdbound issue to work through.) The last time DH rode was on Xena, who refused to walk home and jogged the entire return journey with him, so he swore off the horses for months. Not that he's a big fan of riding, but if at least we can poddle round the trails together once a month, that's good. Just like I get on his dirtbike and whizz round the circuit at the speed of light lol.... or maybe just a touch slower :)
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#9 ·
3rd February
After a week of not having enough time, I finally rode Macarena again. It was pretty windy, though at least not icy cold with the wind, so she was a bit jumpy. I took Astrid with us; she has the bad habit of crossing in front of Macarena, who gives her pinned ears.

I took her through the pine forest to the big apricot plantation by the solar panels. We trotted up the first (forested) side, planning to canter down the next side, but when we arrived at the corner, the huge arrays of solar panels on the far side of the fence were creaking and groaning eerily in the wind. Macarena tensed right up and I decided that it would be better to walk the boundary of the solar panels if I didn't want a panicked horse bolting under me. I'm a bit wary of cantering round the plantation since one day a pigeon flew noisily out of a tree and Macarena spooked sideways into the line of apricot trees. Fortunately there was a tree missing in the line just where she spooked so I had room to brake and turn her; otherwise I would have got pretty mangled in the branches.

We walked the boundary of the solar farm without any spooks, and cantered the last side of the plantation. In mid-canter she put her head down a bit and did a mini buck. This caught me by surprise as it was her first every buck under saddle. Perhaps it was the wind in her tail? Anyway, I let her know that wasn't acceptable and she didn't try again. She was pretty fresh throughout the whole ride, though I guess she didn't do bad considering:
1. the wind,
2. a week without riding,
3. she's only four, rising five.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#10 ·
Yahay, just looked outside and it's SNOWING! Not that it's going to lie - the ground isn't cold enough - but snow is snow, and we haven't seen a single flake in two or three years.

So to celebrate, here are some pics of the animals:

Macarena and Flamenca (recently arrived in this pic and still skinny)



The dogs. Platina giant-sized, Astrid medium-sized and Babosa the tiny white creature in the middle lol:



The lovebirds. Boom (green) two months old, Bam (yellow) still an awkward fledgling. And no, I didn't name them!



Goats.



The cats. Bichita (the siamese) was still a freaky kitten here. La Roja is her adoptive mum. They both love the dirtbikes!


Posted via Mobile Device
 
#11 · (Edited)
After nearly a week of vile weather (freezing cold and gale-force winds) and no riding, I finally took Macarena out yesterday. She was very fresh and I thought some schooling on the fields was in order. Her ideas were more along the lines of once round the field at the gallop and back home lol.

I started with lots of trotting to settle her. Big circles mixed with smaller circles and serpentines when she started speeding up.

Her trot is her worst gait. She tends to either pull and tank along or if she's not keen on where we're going she trots as if she's on the verge of collapse. It's hard to get her doing a decent working trot and relax, and when we do get it, she stretches her neck and wantsto travel with her head too low for my taste. I don't know if this is her rounding her back (maybe she's trying for low deep and round), as she always does this after her fast trot with high head carriage.

Once she settled I asked for some canter, and what a contrast to her trot. She has a lovely collected canter, plenty of impulsion without pulling or trying to race off. But she didn't manage her right lead at all yesterday. Some days she picks it up fine and other days she just doesn't get it.

There's a spooky little building at the far ended of the field - a little dark shed behind some pine trees. It's the sort of place I'd have been scared of as a kid, but that doesn't really explain why Macarena is also scared of it! At the start of the ride she was on the verge of bolting every time we went close, but by the end we managed to walk past calmly (although she did give it her best bug-eyed suspicious stare :shock: ).

After the schooling I took her for a short round in the forest, with more trotting up hills to get her in shape. She was still looking bug-eyed at all kinds of stuff that she's well familiar with. I guess she was just having a fresh 4yo day :)
 
#13 ·
What a relief! Flamenca is OK again.

She had a mouth full of barley-grass seeds over the weekend. Those horrible pointy seeds that get stuck in your clothes. I noticed her eating badly on Thursday night, and on Friday she was slobbering saliva and half-chewed food all over. I checked her mouth and found two small ulcers on her lower gums and some seeds stuck behind her lower incisors. I cleaned the visible seeds out and washed out her mouth with salt water.

Saturday she was still slobbering. I worried she just have some seeds in her back teeth and called the vet. He'll come on Monday. Cleaned her mouth again.

Sunday slobbering but less. Cleaned her mouth and found a couple more seeds. Took her hand-grazing in the afternoon and she was eating well. The fresh grass stalks are easier on her mouth than the dry hay.

Monday she was almost normal. The vet had to reschedule for Tuesday.

Tuesday she was fine. No surplus saliva. I cancelled the vet and explained.

I'll be giving an earful to the fodder merchant who sold us that fodder. One giant bale was infested with those seeds, and I've had to ditch it.



Isn't she just the sweetest?
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#14 ·
Such a long time has gone by since I posted here that I don't know where to start....

Flamenca's Easyboots arrived which means I could start riding her. She had a rather barn-sour attitude at first, and we had a bolshy episode when she flatly refused to leave the yard area mounted. I had to actually get off her in order to unstick her from the yard wall safely as she was on the verge of rearing. I did a couple of sessions on barn-sourness and was relieved to see a rapid improvement. It seems she was just trying it on:

"Hey mom, I've spent the last two months hanging out and getting fat, I'm ok with that, why change anything? If you don't want to ride me out it's fine by me, don't worry".

Actually she loves going out on the trails, look at her alert face and pricked ears :).



Anyway, after a bit of a tune-up I decided my son could start riding her, and I'm delighted to say that he is doing very well and greatly enjoying her. He's a confident novice, no finesse yet but good at keeping his balance. His first canter on her was bareback carrying a bunch of bulky broccoli plants over her withers. We were bringing the two horses back from hand-grazing, and he hopped on Flamenca. She went down the far side of the field instead of following Macarena, until she realised she'd got it wrong and cantered across to join us. My son was thrilled about it, and didn't drop a single broccoli plant!

Now he's hooked I need to give him some lunge lessons with Flamenca so he can work on his position and I can watch him more closely and correct all his mistakes. At least Flamenca has taken him smoothly through the vital confidence-building stage of discovering that yes, he can trot and canter alongside me and Macarena on the trails without mishaps.




Posted via Mobile Device
 
#15 · (Edited)
Hi Bondre, just found your journal and love your menagerie! Are the goats for milking, or capretto, or both?

The horses look nice! Are they a Spanish breed? And I notice you ride bitless, which I think is cool. Not that I have anything against bits (the right ones for a horse, not what's in fashion or tradition), but bitless and bareback are great things to have in the repertoire, and improve horsemanship. :)
 
#16 ·
Hi Sue, thanks for the visit! I'm sorry that my journal is so sadly out of date :oops: . Since spring started I never seem to have time to update it, but perhaps now the long hot summer afternoons - when the mere idea of going outdoors makes you wilt - will be more conducive to journal-writing.

Yes, we have quite a collection of creatures. The goats count as livestock rather than pets of course, so goats aside our head count isn't remarkable: two horses, two cats and one dog, two lovebirds who rule the roost over a gerbil companion and four quails, and various chickens. Some of the goats are very tame - the bottle-raised ones still think I'm their mother - but some of them are devil's spawn lol.





We sell the milk to a local cheesery where they make a variety of goats cheeses; they are starting to export, but I doubt they've reached Australia yet. And hope they never do, as I'm sure you produce plenty of your own cheeses over there to be needing to import European cheese. I'm all for local markets ;-)

The horses are both gems (in my entirely unbiased opinion) :) . Neither of them are registered, but I suspect that they both have mostly PRE blood as they are both that type, particularly Flamenca (but she is too small to be purebred).



I think Macarena might be hispanoarab - she has a delicate head with a slender muzzle - although sometimes she looks more like a donkey with those long ears and her wobbly lower lip lol.



Yes, I ride her bitless (though at first more out of necessity than conviction) and have since become a convert to bitless riding. I got her at 3 1/2 with basic ground training,* but I think her previous owner had messed around a bit and she was afraid of being tied, of being washed, and of wearing a bit. She was fine about a saddle but a bit was not good news. So I researched into bit less bridles,* made myself an Indian rope bosal, and started riding her with that. At first I planned on "progressing" to a bit over time, but as she does fine like she is and I'm not planning on ever selling her, I don't see any need to try getting her to wear a bit.
Bareback is another story.... I used to ride ok bareback in my teens, but I think I am too old, she is too young, and the ground is too hard to do anything beyond pottering bareback nowadays :) .

Here are some pics of my son tantalizing Flamenca with a handful of fresh alfalfa across the irrigation stream.

Hey, that looks tasty!



Can't quite reach....



Wish my neck was a bit longer....


Posted via Mobile Device
 
#18 ·
Those horses really are beautiful. What's PRE, excuse my ignorance? I've heard of Andalusians and Lusitanos, and I love the Spanish-look horses, regardless of ear length or convex profiles (Lusitanos) etc.

What breed goats do you have? Here in Australia we have mainly Saanen, Toggenburg, British Alpine, those sorts of types, and Nubian. And lots of feral goats, of course! Milked a Saanen as a teenager and made my own cheese. Want to keep a house cow or a couple of goats to do it again, but have to finish the house first! :rofl: Busy enough with our horses, donkeys and cattle. Also we are getting chickens when the house is done (nearly there, but crawling across the finish line).

Hot weather: We get plenty of that here in summer! What drinks do you make for cooling down? Our favourite is an iced tea made like this: Brew four green tea with jasmine bags in a litre of hot water, let it cool, put in a 2L jug and make up 50:50 with orange juice. Throw in some lemon and/or lime slices, refrigerate, serve over ice cubes. :)
 
#19 ·
Hello Ann, nice to see you here. You're right about the joys of sharing my love of horses with my boys. Flamenca is just the right first horse - kind and gentle and with that sort of wise "surprise me if you can - but you won't succeed" face that old grey horses are so good at.

Here are some pics of her doing her job with my boys. My younger son isn't really a horse person but she's gradually convincing him that horse-riding isn't necessarily dangerous and can actually be fun.






Posted via Mobile Device
 
#21 ·
Sue, not ignorant of you not to know what PRE stands for. In Spanish-speaking countries,* the Andalucian breed is officially known as Pura Raza Española - although the breed DID originate in Andalucia. I suspect the decision to adopt the Andaluz breed as the "official" Spanish breed was a case of regional politics, as there are several other native Spanish breeds (but none quite as charismatic and popular as the Andalucians). So it seems the rest of Spain was perhaps a bit jealous of the popularity of the Andalucian regional breed.... lol.

Our goats are Murcianas, from the region of Murcia in the southeast. They are small, smooth-haired goats, brown or black, and noted milk-producers. There are of course LOTS of native Spanish breeds of goats, as they are the ideal livestock for this rugged dry terrain. (Though the average Murciana is too highly bred nowadays to consider scrambling up a mountainside - our goats would fade away if they had to walk kilometres every day in search of food!). And nowadays the foreign breeds (mostly saanen and alpines) are starting to get a foothold too, though why we need to cross-breed escapes me. In any case I have heard that while the first generation Murciana x Saanen turn out well, the F2 generation deteriorates.... plus the fact that the Saanen is a much bigger goat, so Murciana nannies covered by a Saanen billy could have problems kidding.

I do love the Toggenbergs though :) . Such sturdy little creatures. They remind me of Thelwell ponies!

Your recipe for iced citrus tea sounds very refreshing. I'll have to try it! I've been subsisting recently on my home-made aquarius - one litre of water with a small teaspoon of salt, a large tablespoon of sugar, and the juice of one lemon.

And of course, there's gazpacho..... yum! :) . I'm going to go and make some right now for lunch. Back later!
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#22 ·
I've just got to ask - are you native Spanish with incredible English, or originally English-speaking and moved to Spain later in life?

That thing about the politics of adopting the Andalusian as the official Spanish horse even though it's not strictly Spanish reminds me a little (but in reverse) of when an Irish person said to me, "Irish Stew was actually not an Irish dish, but an English one, which the English decided to blame on us!" I'm not sure if that is true or not, but it was funny anyway. :)

Gazpacho, very nice. I also love the tapas - especially the regional cheese and the pickled or BBQ octopus, that sort of stuff. And Alcazar cake. And we love making Paella. I visited Spain with my parents once when I was around eight years old, but we only went along the "bottom" coast, the boring, overpopulated part (as I think is true for France's south coast) - if I had a TARDIS, I'd be going off the beaten track to the real, traditional places. What's it like in the region where you live? The scenery looks nice.

Oh, and have you seen Gaudi's buildings for real? I didn't on our brief Spanish visit. If I had a TARDIS etc... I think it's fascinating architecture...
 
#23 ·
I'm English born and bred, moved to Spain after I graduated and never went back. I studied zoology but was impatient with the whole academic thing and went back to earth on an organic smallholding in Andalucia for a few years lol. Then I got married and we moved over to the south east and set up our dairy goat farm.

It's very rural here, the locals aren't very used to outsiders beyond the South American immigrants who come here in quantity as agricultural workers. There's lots of "off the beaten track" here! Probably because there's nothing very spectacular culturally or environmentally to make people want to come here to visit. Although there are some internationally famous Neolithic cave paintings just down the road.... in a rather inaccessible cave on a mountainside. No signposts, no fenced pathway, no guided visits, no nothing. You need to be reasonably agile to get up there. If this was England, it would all be fenced off and you'd have a guide with mountaineering credentials to take visitors up and down safely. So there are some good things about being in a forgotten corner....

We're in a little green patch just between the desertic south-east and the desertified cereal-growing plains of La Mancha (Don Quijote country). It's primarily a fruit and vegetable growing area so lots of leftovers and windfalls for the horses :) . At the moment their diet is supplemented with peaches and nectarines, which slightly offsets the sad lack of grazing.

I've travelled most of southern Spain over the years, and have lived briefly in the north west, but I haven't ever been in the north east. So no, I haven't seen Gaudi's creations. But I think the Alhambra and other Moorish monuments are equally amazing.

I've been dipping into your journal again, Sue. There's a lot to read in there! And good stuff too, worth reading slowly and pondering. Don't want to skip through it. So perhaps I'll get round to contributing in another couple of months.... Do you have photos of your straw bale house anywhere? It sounds a wonderful construction. I'd have loved to be able to build one myself - I love doing stuff like that - but I've always ended up with bricks or stones and mortar.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#24 ·
Straw bale house construction photos here, in chronological order:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/sets/72157628414190373

With all these photos, you can click on them to get them fullscreen and with the captions/comments (which are hidden on the tiled multiple-photo display). We specifically documented our build in detail to provide a resource for other owner-builders and interested people.


Our general photos include these but also the farm / animal photos and have the newest ones first:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/

No, we don't have a camel, but Brett would like to hire one for a day just to see Sunsmart's reaction! :rofl: (Occasional excursion photos are also included in this collection, hence the camel ;-)).

If you click on "albums" on this page, you can also specifically just see the flora/wildlife sanctuary photos (we steward 52 hectares of wonderfully preserved and species-rich remnant vegetation on our place), or the beginnings of the permaculture garden.

The academic thing can be really unpleasant - bad office politics and all that. We have a friend who had to repeat his honours year when he was a new graduate because another research team who wanted to publish first stole his samples from the laboratory and never gave them back. All his work just gone like that, and no consequences to the people who did it (as no forensic proof). This kind of stuff unfortunately is not uncommon.

I think being on a farm and putting your knowledge into practice is a super way to go. Basically that's what we decided to do five years ago. I got nerve damage to a vocal cord that ended anything to do with public speaking and I needed to have something alternative to get really engaged in. So finally, we are practicing what I was preaching all my life. ;-)

I love that "untrodden ways" scenario you were painting earlier. Where we live is one of the few places in our region where you don't constantly hear motorised vehicles. The rural road we live on is a dead end and has mostly just the local farmers using it, plus the school bus and milk truck (several dairies on our road, including a goat dairy - whose milk isn't trucked out, but made into cheese in situ).

Your area sounds like a nice place to live, if you have a love of nature and untrammelled living! :)
 
#25 · (Edited)
Gosh Sue, that's quite a collection of photos of your place. It looks absolutely beautiful, the landscape is fabulous. Your creatures must all be very happy living there (and you guys too!). Your strawbale house is quite palatial. I had expected something smaller - althrough I thought the strawbales were generally load-bearing, whereas it looks as if you have used a timber frame construction so I guess that allows two stories. Did you have to order specially compact bales? And I'm not quite sure if you lined the whole house with plasterboard, or whether you plastered straight onto the bales in some places?

Time to have a space for the lovebirds in this journal. They've got big news!

Boum, the female, is nesting :)

The proud parents are only young so I don't know if the eggs will be viable? She is seven months old, and her partner Bam is just six months. But they are SOO cute together!



They lived in the house with us until six weeks ago, pretty much free-range, but they wear getting a bit destructive. Boum started shredding paper with her nesting urge and destroyed part of one of my son's posters. So it was time to rehabilitate an empty chicken house for small flying birds to live in.

They are actually very happy with their new house, as although it is smaller than having the run of our house, it is 100% their territory. They share it with a gerbil, and are mutually curious but not antagonistic. We made several suitable nest holes in the walls for the lovebirds, but no, contrary as ever Boum has made her nest on the ground, in a secluded corner originally intended for the gerbil. In fact, the gerbil had chosen it as her sleeping place until a bossy female lovebird evicted her.

She started incubating three days ago, so another three weeks to go....

The male, Bam, is pretty bored. He watches over the nest but doesn't help incubating. He's always very pleased to receive a visit, and doesn't let you leave. Boum emerges briefly to greet visitors and then returns to her nest, perhaps with a few straws tucked under her wings to add to the pile.

Here she is shredding straws, while the yellow male is busy with his favourite salt lick (my sweaty and salty neck lol):



And here with various straws tucked into her feathers, hedgehog-style, for transport:



And here is her fiercely guarded treasure :)



We can't see into the nest, but my son experimented taking blind shots with the camera and finally discovered the eggs. It turns out the huge mound of straw she is constructing doesn't actually surround or contain the eggs, but is more like a protective barrier.

And here are the happy couple in the entrance passage to their nest:


Posted via Mobile Device
 
#26 ·
Gosh Sue, that's quite a collection of photos of your place. It looks absolutely beautiful, the landscape is fabulous. Your creatures must all be very happy living there (and you guys too!). Your strawbale house is quite palatial. I had expected something smaller -
There is a bit of visual illusion going on there! :) It's actually only about 180 sqm plus a 20sqm attic. This is smaller than the ridiculously large houses Australians generally build these days (our nation now holds the world record for average house size, and it's not one to be proud of). We were adamant to make no duplicated anythings: Australian family homes offered by the major builders these days have informal and formal living areas, informal and formal dining areas, home theatres, and other forms of unnecessary duplication.

And now there's a new fashion starting: Outdoor kitchens, complete with refrigerators, to serve the outdoor dining areas (which have outdoor heaters...). More duplication! Really crazy in terms of environmental footprint, and actually cleaning, servicing and maintaining a house.

When I was 30, I shared a Federation house in Hobart, and I loved the philosophy of that architecture: There were generously sized bedrooms, one generous kitchen, one dining area, one living area. That was it. The ceilings were high and you felt like you could breathe. If you wanted to be alone you could go for a walk, or you could go to your bedroom and it didn't feel like a trap. If you were out in the shared spaces, you were social with everyone else. No splitting off into little cliques: All or nothing.

This experience really influenced me when we designed our own house. We've used exactly the same principles. The three bedrooms all take Queen beds, and there is one communal living/dining area with the kitchen in the corner. The attic is for private guests and doubles as an office for me. Two of the bedrooms are in a separate wing with a bathroom. This is a fine arrangement if you have children, but unfortunately we do not, so in our case we are going to be using that as a bed and breakfast wing for paying guests who are looking for eco-holidays (we are avid walkers and climbers of the local mountains and will be doing guided walks off the beaten track).

The reason the house looks large is in part that we have high ceilings (like that Federation house), which rake extra-high in the living area. The communal space feels like a cross between a library, a greenhouse and a Middle Eastern chapel. It's an amazing space to be in, and I much prefer that to having a larger floor space. (But my word, did it complicate the building process! We spent weeks plastering off scaffolds out of buckets...and still have a little of that to go.)


...althrough I thought the strawbales were generally load-bearing, whereas it looks as if you have used a timber frame construction so I guess that allows two stories.
Actually, you can have multiple storeys whether you do load-bearing or infill construction. Infill construction is easier to get passed by the local authorities and it appealed to us because we didn't want to wait for ages for the bales to settle, or think about how to physically crush them down to their final equilibrium position with load-bearing construction.

Basically, if bales in load-bearing houses still settle after you plaster, your plaster will crack. With the infill method of construction, you're compressing as you go (we did it with fence wire loops and gripples, all of which stayed in place) and there are hard "stops" at the wall tops, held in place by the house frame.

Also with the infill method, you're working under a roof that's already keeping the place dry - people who build load-bearing houses have a problem if they get caught out by the rainy season coming around while they are still building walls. If the bales get wet through when building, you can throw them away and start again...



Did you have to order specially compact bales?
You have to make sure that the bales you get are super-dry, mould-free and tightly and evenly compressed.


And I'm not quite sure if you lined the whole house with plasterboard, or whether you plastered straight onto the bales in some places?
You have to plaster over every nook and cranny of a strawbale wall, to stop fire hazard and to protect the straw from damp. This is as true inside a house as out. A lot of water is vapourised during showering, cooking etc. The lime plaster "breathes" so that you don't get problems with condensation on the inside of the wall - which people get if they use a non-breathable plaster, or if they try to paint or waterproof their plaster. The lime plaster has a higher affinity for water than straw does, so if the plaster gets damp when it gets rained on, and if that causes dampness in the straw touching the plaster, the lime will suck the moisture straight back out the moment it dries. That's why lime plastering over natural materials is so durable, and it's actually a very ancient and well-tested technique.

We have some plasterboard in the house, but only for some of the internal dividing walls. This is made into feature colour walls and used for hanging photos etc.

You can plaster straight onto the straw. Mesh is only necessary around areas you want to shape, like window and door openings, and niches. The plaster gets pushed hard into the straw and penetrates to around 5cm. This is plenty of tooth (and makes for good arm muscles ;-)). Every wall needs three coats of lime plaster, so it's actually quite thick when finished.

(...these days someone just has to tap me and this information falls out. We get asked these questions a lot! :))

Spain has a good climate for straw-bale construction. Seasonally arid is a real plus.
 
#29 ·
...those lovebirds: Very pretty! Not sure I'd have one free-ranging in my house, as they don't house-train very well. A university colleague had a pink-and-grey galah free ranging in her house. The back of the sofa looked like one of those islands on which guano is mined, her electrical cables were semi-shredded, and it took to attacking visitors' earlobes while she dissolved into giggles and made little baby-talk about it, "Oh funny birdie, pwaying with visitors!"

No parallels to you, just thought you might enjoy the anecdote. ;-) That bird was a menace, and I thought it would have been better off remaining with its family group in the forest from whence it was poached as a chick. (Imagine, a biologist paying a poacher to have a wild bird! :shock:)

How big are the eggs? Maybe you could give me an idea by estimating how many it would take to make a family-sized omelette? ;-) Only joking. Good luck with the hatching!
 
#30 ·
...those lovebirds: Very pretty! Not sure I'd have one free-ranging in my house, as they don't house-train very well.
They were fine as babies but once they learnt to fly it was harder to contain them. "Their" passage was separated from the lounge by a curtain, but they soon learned to get past that minor obstacle. And then they started to shred the fly screens in the windows, and we had an escape.... and it was time for them to have their own accommodation.

I never imagined myself keeping domesticated birds as I've never been a parrot person at all, and prefer my birds in the wild. We got them because my younger son was very keen. But these two are actually very loveable and we have all fallen under their spell.

(Imagine, a biologist paying a poacher to have a wild bird! :shock:)
Horrific dual morality :shock: Maybe she was a microbiologist?!

How big are the eggs? Maybe you could give me an idea by estimating how many it would take to make a family-sized omelette? ;-) Only joking. Good luck with the hatching!
About the size of the last phalange of a little finger. So you'd need quite a flock of lovebirds to think of making omelettes. :rofl:
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#33 ·
Today the temperatures we're a bit more reasonable so I got through the evening goat feeding early and went to ride Macarena. It's been four or five days since I last rode, and I always find that my guilt-induced stress levels increase exponentially with several days without riding. Plus there's nothing so relaxing as spending an evening on horseback.

It was hot, though bearable thanks to a breeze that never quite managed to be cool (but at least it tried hard). I saw several little owls at their hunting posts, and seeing as I was on horseback they didn't startle or fly off as I went by. I heard the raucous shrieks of a pair of great spotted cuckoos in the pine trees. These cuckoos are specific parasites to magpies, so I always cheer them on when I see them! They are highly visible and audible, not in the least bit like the skulking common European cuckoo.

I took Macarena up to the stubble fields near the rocky sierra for a good canter. Astrid, my pyrenean mastiff, accompanied us as usual. When she first came out on our rides she would run round and round in circles after us when I cantered round the edge of a field, but now she's getting wise to our habits, and knows when she can take a short cut. She's not a fast dog, and she gets left behind at the canter, so she has to use her head rather than follow blindly if she wants to keep up. (Though if I'm cantering in a straight line and no short cuts are possible I always wait for her).

Macarena was going very relaxed the whole time, almost like a western pleasure horse (or what I imagine a wp to be like, seeing as I've never ridden western). She even picked up a right canter lead spontaneously, which is unusual for her. I'm sure an equine chiropractor would be SO good for her, as her right side is quite stiff, but of course no such thing exists here.

We met a tractor on the way home, which caused a minor excitement, though I don't think she was really scared of it. Possibly a bit startled by the big round metal structure it had hooked up behind (for rolling up the irrigation hoses).

Our neighbour was flying his falcons in the field next to the stables when we arrived back, together with a radio controlled helicopter! He explained (shouted from a distance) that he uses it to encourage his birds to fly higher.

Peaches for supper again lol!
Posted via Mobile Device
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top