the Icelandics of Rien Poortvliet

If you are interested in the Icelandic Horse I uploaded several pages from Dutch painter Rien Poortvliet's book "Van de Hak op de Tak" to my Picasa page featuring Icelandics. He ended up owning / enjoying two Icelandic Horses, Gustur and Ko, and his paintings and drawings of the two are inspiring. Enjoy!

Maybe someday I'll take the time to translate the little stories he wrote with them...

suustainable Garden Benches

A new project; and available to the general public from Suustainable: repurposed wood Garden Benches. These beautiful low carbon footprint garden benches are available either as kit or assembled and are listed for sale on Craigslist.com in the Farm/Garden section.

A little background:
I was looking for a nice wood garden bench to enjoy our swamp view with our toddler son. All the outdoor benches available are either poor quality and expensive, or good quality but very expensive - and all made from woods from very far away (pine imported from Germany?! hardwoods from California?!) even though New York has abundant wood resources.

So, I searched the internet for an ergonomic outdoor bench design and found one I really like, that sits wonderful and looks great. I made one, hauled it out to the woods and the swamp overview and have never had so many positive remarks about one of my projects...

Since I enjoy wood working and really enjoy "jutten", a Dutch word for going to the beach after foul weather and finding 'free' goodies (my granddad actually was a real one, found many interesting things on the beaches of Vlieland) I hereby offer my building and collecting skills to you for a nominal fee :-)

About my benches...
- Each one is different, depending on the resources available.
- The woods used are:
• locally harvested and milled ruff cut or finished hemlock
• rescued shipping wood (mostly pine)
• locally harvested and milled natural edge hardwood planks
- The legs, backrests and armrests are either hemlock or hardwood for durability and safety.
- The armrests are sanded down with rounded edges for comfort.
- Weather resistant hardware (star bit self drilling screws).

The benches come in three basic designs:
- Made from repurposed materials only: $75 kit or $100 assembled
- Frame made from repurposed materials, back and seat natural edge hardwood: $90 kit or $125 assembled
- Both frame and seat made from finished hemlock: $110 kit or $150 assembled

The kits come with detailed instructions, clearly labeled pieces and a baggie of hardware. It takes me about 5 hours to cut and assemble one bench. It should take you about 1,5 to 2 hours to assemble one, less if you have woodworking experience.

You can set it in the garden as is for at least a decade (and a half) of use, or treat it with your preservative of choice (wax, oil, stain or polyurethane).

Contact us for more information or to order!
Pick up in Ithaca on west hill near the hospital or delivery within reasonable distance.

Why do I like horses? I think I must be mad.
My mother wasn't horsey - And neither was my dad.

But the madness hit me early - and it hit me like a curse.
And I've never gotten better. In fact I've gotten worse.

I hardly read a paper - but I know who's sold their horse.
And I wouldn't watch the news - Unless Mr. Ed was on - of course.

One eye's always on the heavens - but my washing waves in vain
As I rush to get the horses in - in case it's gonna rain.

I spend up every cent I've got - on horsey stuff for sure
I buy harness, carts and fancy boots - and then I buy some more.

I can't sew on a button - I don't even try
But I can back a truck and trailer - in the twinkling of an eye.

It's jeans and boots that I live in night and day
And that smell of sweaty horses that just wont wash away.

I ache from long forgotten falls. My knees have got no skin.
My toes have gone a funny shape - from being stomped on again and again.

But late at night, when all is still - and I've gone to give them hay,
I touch their velvet softness and my worries float away.

They give a gentle nicker and they nuzzle through my hair
And I know it's where my heart is - more here than anywhere.

- Author Unknown

reposted from the St. Skutla Icelandic Horses Yahoo Group.

have spare energy?

go chop down a bunch of trees and built a few bonfires - it works like a charm :-)

After learning about the bone tumor thingy I got just a little nervous... Instead of googling tumors or thinking about any biopsy results I thought of something laborious to do that Simon the 2 year old would enjoy as well and voila: now we have a walk through the woods. Nice thing is that Simon fairly regularly asks to go hike back there (bos! bos!), not so nice thing is that it suddenly turned winter and halfway through he or we get chilled and then it's a long way back to the house... but hey, we're Dutch, back yards that large is not something we should complain about :-)

I know, it does not look like much, but believe me: there were so many small shrubs and fallen wood even Simon could not get through without getting caught, tripping or tripping while getting caught! So I built a small wood collector on the trailer of the lawn tractor (basically six upright 2x4's , one in each corner and one in the middle of the long sides to gather all the downed wood and chopped down shrubs to the bonfire pit. I think I did that for about two weeks, several times in the weekend once or twice during week days depending on weather - I must have hauled at least 25 loads of scraps out of those woods to make it (goat) kid safe! I really had some energy to spare, I guess :-)

This view is looking back, the mature trees are on the house side and the New York State Protected Marshland (we call it the swamp) is on the left. Which does mean about half the trail is pretty muddy so when it has rained the lawn tractor has a tendency to get really stuck! I did get two car trailer loads of wood chips from the city to raise things up a bit which does help (no snow cover means wet, muddy ground in pics), but for now when it's really wet it's just not drivable.

And why all this effort?
Couple of reasons: my handicapped sister comes to visit us in February and I plan to have her ride the lawn tractor (snow chains?) all around the place to see for herself what all the fuss is about. She sees the postings and the pictures but last time she was here we tried to push her around in the wheel chair and that just did not work.

Simon needs his physical time, especially in winter. The boardwalk is not all that long yet - large water willow came down and needs to be chainsawed first - and this loop thru the woods makes our hike around the goat pasture just different enough it's fun. Plus, I made a raised platform with a bench (so I can take a rest) for an open view over the swamp and that just turned out gorgeous... the view's not ours but I don't think those neighbors would mind sharing it!

And one more thing: goats like woods. Hopefully this spring I can fence off part of the woods to create a temporary pasture for the girls where they can munch young tree growth in spring (keeps the forest floor more open) and leaves in fall. They won't be allowed in there when they're into tree bark (mostly late fall & winter) to protect our beautiful large sugar maple trees.

I situated the trail with an eventual goat fence in mind as I would like to use live trees as occasional fence posts with steel t-posts in between. From Michael's swamp experiences, most of his pasture is wet at least part of the year, I learned to use tall ones - and so we learn from each others' experiences!

what I learned about worming goats

This whole goat keeping has quite a learning curve, especially since any book you read and anyone you'll ask has a different opinion and way of doing things! Plus, most internet sites are not local to your area so what works for them does not necessarily apply or work for you...

in short: what I learned asking anyone I could find:
don't try and figure it out yourself, instead focus on finding a goat specializing veterinarian and have her inspect your flock and living conditions and ask for advice - she knows the area and any problems other goat keepers might have.

do not worm everyone and do not worm on a schedule - consult with a vet, or collect fecal samples yourself, for fecal worm egg counts and only treat the ones who need it. It's just like antibiotic use: the worms become resistant from regular exposure.

do no listen to sales people; they're great for general info but are not trained vets...

if you find a wormer off the shelf do not trust the dosage on the label if it is not specifically labeled for goats; of course they are different and need a much larger dosage a vet will need to tell you...

In our area Cornell Ambulatory Clinic and especially Dr Mary Smith are very good goat resources. They sure know about goats, come right to the farm and are affordable. They will let you (and show / teach you) give subQ injections like booster shots and they can process your fecal samples to determine your worming schedule. Dr Mary Smith prescribed labeled for goat Safeguard, available locally at Tractor Supply for about $20, to worm my herd of three (but only two, the kid was ok).

I found two other wormers which I'm interested in:
Molly's Herbal Wormer which is a weekly feed additive consisting of once every 8 weeks a dose of formula 1 herbal wormwood combination and the other weeks a dose of formula 2 herbal weekly worm formula & tonic. It's not that expensive, it's organic and it helps boost general health and the immune system. But; formula one can not be used in pregnant goats, and of course I just bred both Thirteen and Monica...

Another one that looks interesting, and is also available for poultry, is Verm-X USA which are certified organic herbal intestinal parasite control pellets. It seems to come out to about the same cost per month, or maybe a little more than Molly's, but they're imported from England and it does not always seem to be available.

Both Molly's Herbals and Verm-X have horse specific organic wormers available as well.

what happens when the barn turns out better...

... than you'd ever thought possible? Horsey thoughts pop up again!
I was already (semi) joking to get a pony for Simon when I found out I could get a pony for me as well! Oh my god, all my childhood dreams (well, I only had one dream) within arms reach! No wonder I'm driving hubbie Rolf nuts with my sudden onset of horse obsession :-)

I'll copy/paste something I wrote as an introduction for the yahoo forum of our very nice local Icelandics organization called the St. Skutla Icelandics Horse Group couple days back (with my right hand swaddled from surgery typing is not my strong point right now):

"Thank you for your warm welcome!

I sorta rolled into the Icelandic awareness, having thought for a while our property did not lean itself for horses and not wanting to stable somewhere else - I wouldn't want to my kid off to boarding school either! Then we got a couple meat goats, which evolved into a couple milk goats which needed fenced pasture - and a winter barn... and seeing the new structure go up - much larger & nicer than it looked on paper - made me wonder about getting a pony for our toddler son someday.

So here I was, googling pony housing information, thinking of the ponies back home (we're from the Netherlands, lots of fjords and ijslanders) when I came across a picture of Altario (Pangea) getting ready for a hunter pace event (my newly discovered absolute favorite outdoor event). And oh my goodness, it suddenly dawned on me: a horse might not fit, but Icelandics sure would; we've got an acre of fenced meadow pasture and a 14x10 walk in stall - and I can ride and even jump one!

Unfortunately, my hubbie has not quite progressed from the acquiring goats to acquiring ponies/horses yet - the barn's not even finished... but I'm not sure he realizes the forces of nature at play here! I'm not sure it's safe to stand between me and my own horse - as a matter of fact, it's what got me to America in the first place LOL"

This is my ideal horse "Altario". He's for sale at the Pangaea Farm in the White Plains: he's beautiful, jumps hunter paces but alas, is very much out of my budget... you can check out him and other gorgeous horses on the Pangaea website.

the goat barn is looking great!

And I am so proud of my hubbie Rolf for pulling it off... though having that "it'll be winter soon" deadline sure was motivating! We just about made it in time, they moved in about three weeks ago, initially without front door and windows but anything is better than a tarp tent, I'm sure. With the last November windstorm Monika aka Mountain Goat did catch a bit of a cold I think, plus Gazelle stopped nursing (and Whitey is safely rutting in the bachelor pad) which made her milk production drop significantly as well with me only milking in the mornings.

I did get her back up to milking fine again, only to find out I would need to stop milking her soon anyway so right now she's dried off and on her date with boer buck Octavian. Not sure why I missed her estrus last month, maybe being miserable from her cold minimized the signs; plus, with the new barn and the cold weather nobody is hanging out with Whitey anymore so he's not as good of an estrus "thermometer" as he was with Thirteen :-)

The barn is not completely done, but mostly done, and definitely working. We have heated water buckets, a place to separate Thirteen from her kid overnight, a large keyhole hayfeeder in the walk in stall, haybales stored within the barn - no juggling flakes of hay while trying to open and close gates - a separate area for the milk stand so I don't have to scrape poopies off every morning, opening & closing double pane windows, a dutch door and since a couple days: light at night! It's funny how "camping out" with minimal resources really makes you appreciate when you do get some!

And why I had to stop milking? Turns out that annoying pain I had in one of the knuckles of my right hand was a (benign) bone tumor - go figure! The milking aggravated the tumor (not used to this sore muscles etc) and made it show it's ugly head before it had grown large enough to be felt or seen, so the removal surgery was not as invasive as it could have been. Still they removed about a garbanzo beans' worth of bone, which was grafted and returned from one of my arm bones to give the knuckle ligament something to anker to. The surgery went fine, and I can still milk Thirteen (one handed) but other than that am pretty much confined to the couch & computer... Bummer!