Man Vs Horse: 3 weeks to go!

I have turned my hand to many horsey disciplines over the years, nothing world-beating, some regional affiliated success with a few mediocre forays at national level, but always producing my own horses and having fun along the way.

Bought as a foal to sell on 9 years ago(!) my grey mare Easter turned into a true all-rounder and a best pony pal.  From gaining points at affiliated dressage to wild days hunting to sedately and carefully teaching others to ride she is my go anywhere, do anything girl.

The one thing I have little experience in is Endurance riding (the proper stuff...not the four hour pub rides or the six hour booze filled days hunting!).  So when looking for our next challenge at the end of last year I thought it was about time we tried to get into the Man vs Horse Race, I entered with a bunch of others thinking it would be a great fun ride if we got in and ended up being the only one who got a place!  Without the support or camaraderie of others I thought I'd better treat this a little more seriously and soon realised I had a lot to learn!

In endurance riding terms 24 miles (38km) is not a huge distance where horses and riders often cover 80km in a day, but the skill is to ride at a steady unrushed pace, usually trotting for 2 hours without a break.  It is imperative that you get to know what the speed feels like and get to know your horses vital signs to check their progress and recovery rate.

• Average horse vital signs 
• Pulse: 24 - 33 beats per min
• Breaths:  10 - 24 per min

I have experience in fittening horses for racing and hunting but I have alot to learn about conditioning for distance.  The biggest learning curve will be on the day with adrenaline, an unknown route, other horses and runners to contend with!

Easter has hunted all winter and we have been progressing our hill work and road trotting for the past six weeks accumulating in an 18 mile ride in the pouring rain on Saturday taking 2.5 hours.  I was really pleased with how Easter coped, she understood the "game" and settled into a great trot which she kept up without breaking stride for the first 5miles, the trick came on the soft tracks where we naturally wanted to canter but it then took a while to settle back into an economic trot, something that apparently takes years to develop.  

Using a Sports Tracker App on my phone we averaged 6.8mph / 8:45 mile a bit faster than the 10min miles a five times Man vs Horse Vetran advised, it is very easy to go too fast, something I need to remember on the day.

It was great practice and important to see how our kit worked and how Easter recovered the next day.  Her boots rubbed (even with tubigrip underneath) so her legs are a little sore but her back was good after carrying me all that way.

Soaked, tired but happy after our last big training ride 22nd May 2016

We have some hacking and a hunter trial this weekend (the true utility horse!) and I will wind down her training to short hill work sessions and hacks round the block.

The farrier is also due and I need to get some ice boots to ensure her legs are cooled at the end of the race.  Woody has also "volunteered" to crew for us providing vital support halfway round at the vet check where we will need water and a friendly face.  Quietly terrified, as I don't want to break my loyal pony, I am also confident that we can do this and add to our tally of adventures.

The Man v Horse race is on the 11th June 2016 in Llanwrtyd Wells, Brecon Beacons.  Entries for the 2017 race open on the 1st January for a short period as both runner and rider spaces are limited.

Useful links:
Endurance GB
Feeding the endurance horse
Perseverance Endurance Horses

More projects?!! A distraction...or a well timed solution?

Woody is now installed into his exciting new job while I continue with work and life here, running home command making lists of weekend jobs.

We have not yet limed/fertilised any of the pasture as we had hoped we would, funneling  the money into setting up the house instead.  We have had to face the facts that the grass will be too poor to graze until we do and I will have to keep buying hay.  That's fine as long as I know in advance to budget for it.

With the past week's intense days of sun, torrential rain and high humidity everything has started to finally green up.  With temperatures around 18-20 degC, steam rising and clouds low on the hills it's all looking and feeling rather like the mossy mountains in Malaysia!

I am still keeping the horses tightly corralled and feeding hay, we're all quite sick of it now they'd rather be on fresh salad!  The winter paddocks are yet to recover their decimation and our flat summer paddocks, rested since October, are only just coming to life.  All the beautiful meadow flowers are back; bluebells, wood anemones, violets, common Orchids, lousewort and all the common favourites and not so favourite, Ragwort!

We are on a mission to get some sort of all-purpose store to house the hay we now realise we need all year round, the tractor and to be able to corral the horses undercover in the winter.  We could put temporary/portable stables up but that would very much limit what we could use them for and frankly where others have done it we think they look ramshackle and scruffy.  

Another option is to raise the roof height on the cow shed and tank/re-lay the concrete floor (it floods!) but to be honest there's only so much you can patch it up and really it needs knocking down and rebuilding.  Basic architect drawings and planning will cost about £1500 and we are unsure if they will approve a barn.  Groundworks and the concrete base are probably £2-5k (only because we will do most of the work ourselves) and a barn could be anything from £5-15k.  An architect is on standby to submit the proposal...and then we found a possible unexpected solution......

There is a paddock of 2 acres and large modern barn coming up for auction only a mile down the road.  Well hedged, Level, square, with road access.  It requires some perimeter fencing (grrr our favourite thing!), repairs to the barn and a good tidy up but it could solve our winter problems and allow Woody to use more of the our current land to plant his woodland (the main reason for wanting land in the first place!).  The guide price is a little out of reach without further borrowing but the thought of an instant solution is very tempting.

We are in a pickle now as it is perfect, but are we taking on too many projects?  Too much risk? Spreading ourselves thin? Does "10 little acres" really have the same ring about it??!  I know one thing, I cannot do another winter like the last one, and the horses certainly cannot, I am still dealing with ongoing hoof issues that standing in the constant wet caused.

Woody's home this weekend so we will do some serious thinking and look at the figures.  A solution or a red herring....we're really undecided!

Orphans

We are finally in and getting settled, Woody and I took a huge decision when we bought our house in that we would have to divide our lives for a while due to work commitments.  At first this made perfect financial sense but in the first week reality bit and with everything we have been going through recently it felt like a particularly daft thing to be doing.  Hopefully this will pass and a new "normal" will evolve.  I will just have to be uber organised with the lone care care of dogs, horses and er....squirrels....

Crouchy called us the day the removal men arrived; "do we want some baby squirrels?". He'd been on a job, cut a tree down and the nest with it, he was about to throw them in the chipper!!

Squigs 2007

It's been 9 years since I met "Squiggle", my first hand reared squirrel, and I never quite got over her disappearance after 2years of living with me.  She was very affectionate, playful and extraordinarily protective of me making her strong willed and grumpy at times.  The call of the wild was too much for her to ignore and after several escape attempts, a couple of over night camp outs where she came back exhausted she finally peeled back the lead on the windows popping a diamond shaped piece of glass out and off she went never to be seen again.  I often wonder if she made it to the woods to find a new life or if the farm dog had her, I'll never know.

A surprise house
warming gift!

I found myself apprehensively agreeing to two more babies, boys this time, knowing that they can be destructive, requiring bottle feeding every 3hours, warmth and later on space, a varied diet and something to climb and learn how to be a squirrel (and they are complete time wasters!!).  In my head this was purely to save them, feed, grow and send back to the relative safety of our land (in a non-red squirrel environment).  A little counter productive you may think when we want to plant young trees but there is already a population of grey squirrels alongside Buzzards, Tawney owls and Foxes.  "Do not get attached" I warned myself "this is just a transaction of my time for the next 6 weeks".

I was not expecting to fall in love with these little scamps.  How naive.  How stupid.  I should have known...

 

For those of you who have met a squirrel you may think "yes cute, fluffy, something for dogs to chase, so what, it's just a tree rat" but they are not like hamsters, or gerbils they are more like ferrets or puppies.  Extremely intelligent, gregarious, problem solvers they just want to play, interact and cause mischief, using me as their climbing frame.  I am their walking tree!  However they are also very tactile towards each other and me, wanting to groom and reassure one another loving company they are very vocal in their chatters, purring and barking for communication.  Check out this instagram squirrel Jill to see examples of the noises they make. this_girl_is_a_squirrel

(I was not always this soft, they were once "vermin" and I had enormous fun shooting them at weekends....something I struggle to get my head round now seeing it akin to shooting dogs for fun.  For someone who eats game and hunts this is a very strange twist of fate).

There are plenty of good websites to get advice on raising squirrels, much advice is from the US with a few more popping up in the UK these days;

• www.squirrels.info_Lookingafter.pdf  
• www.squirrelrescue.org
• Eastern Grey development

For the past 5 and a half weeks I have followed a recommended and previously successful hand rearing programme:

FEEDING SCHEDULE GUIDELINE – (Goats milk)

4 wks fully covered in short hair but eyes still closed - 3-4ml every 3-4 hours
5 wks eyes starting to open - 5-6ml every 5 hours (may skip night feeding, do not go over 7-8 hrs)
6 wks more aware and starting to play eat - 10ml 4-5 times per day
7-8 wks now look like miniature squirrels starting to curl their tails over - 10-15ml 4 times a day (should be eating a variety of nuts, fruits and vegetables)
9 weeks - 10-15ml twice a day
10-11 weeks - 12-15ml once per day/wean

The Legalities

Grey Squirrels are a non native "invasive" species originating from North America.  The Eastern Grey has been in the UK since 1876 rapidly growing in numbers they spread to most of Britain by the early-to-mid 20th century.  Although physical aggression has not been proved they compete with our native Red Squirrel for food, territory and are a generally more robust and bold breed making their spread easy.

With that in mind you have to consider your motives for taking squirrels on, thinking about the long term commitment you can give.  If you choose to you can apply for a licence to keep them; www.gov.uk-grey-squirrels-apply-for-a-licence

Even when speaking to vets, licensed rehab experts and even defra there are grey areas around keeping and returning them, they admit the policies are either vague or have been removed without substitution and rules are different for Wales and Scotland where there are still pockets of Red Squirrels.

There are still some difficult decisions to make and measures to put in place for our two boys.  I'm not sure what sentence harbouring squirrels holds (!?!), so to avoid any difficult legal issues I will end their story here.  However if the opportunity ever arises for you to help hand rear an orphan, grab it, gently, with both hands it is quite an experience.

Snoozy Sofa Squirrels