Man vs. Wind vs. Canvas vs. Horse

A wild race through the mud

I mentioned in a previous post that we needed to add a wall in our barn so the fairly open building would do a better job blocking the north wind.

Round the far turn.

Contradicting this notion is the one that I don’t want to build anything permanent in the barn at this time, since this farm is definitely a work-in-progress and we have not finalized our building design yet. 

My husband and I were kicking around ideas, when I happened to notice a mention of a canvas wind-block in this blog post (link here), from “I Am Boyfriend.”   This seemed like the perfect solution, so we hung one up yesterday, anchoring it all round to posts and weights.

Even though the pastures are slick with mud, I put the horses out before we started working on the ladder, and this caused a happy race around the pasture that continued for several laps.

Dee wins by a length.

When our work was done and we brought them back in, the new canvas caused  high anxiety throughout them, resulting in several, panicked flights out of the barn, especially when the canvas gave a nice, flappy pop in the wind.   Having a meal of hay spread inside helped convince them to come back in, but what sealed the deal was when I planted my butt on one of the tires we are using as weights for the canvas.  I guess my calmly sitting next  to the new, scary thing gave them the chance to observe that I was not eaten by it, so maybe it wasn’t as dangerous as they first suspected.

This morning, they were all inside and ready for some more hay, and the canvas had lasted through its first, blustery night here on the hill. Just this piece of canvas makes a noticeable upgrade in the snugness factor inside their run-in.

He's back on the ladder, recovered from surgery.

Highly suspicious

Intense scrutiny