Having ended the previous engagement early, I found myself without a farm to go to for a second time. We’d decided that I’d go back to Romeira, but of course that wasn’t to start for several weeks. In the mean time, I’d been talking to my friends at Casével and right when I started looking, they were short on staff. Would they like me to come for a few weeks and help out? Yes, please!

When I arrived, they’d recently opened this pasture to the horses. It was lovely to see them on fresh grass.

It occurred to me that I don’t often show you guys the work that I do, largely because it’s challenging to hold a shovel full of poo and a camera at the same time. Heh. Benoit agreed to take some action shots, so you can see what I spend most of my time doing… delivering hay and shoveling s$*t, the latter generally known as poo picking.

Luckily, horse poo is made up of grasses and other plants, so doesn’t smell as bad as omnivore poop. It also dries quickly and then is relatively light weight. All in all, it’s fairly easy to work with.

At this particular farm, every morning, we used a Kuboto (the little 4-wheel drive) to first deliver hay to all of the pastures and then to collect manure from around the shelters. We also swept out the shelters and depending on the season changed rugs (horse blankets, a sort of coat used in winter for horses who are older, sick or otherwise challenged by cold temperatures) or fly sheets (a light cover used for horses severely bothered by summer insects) or fly masks (a see through face cover for horses severely bothered by insects).

Also on these morning rounds, we checked each horse for injuries and applied ointments, creams and oils as necessary.

We did the same hay delivery and mucking out (poo removal) for any horses that happened to be in the barn that morning. After dumping the poo in the poo pile, we hosed out the Kuboto to get it ready for rest of the day’s deliveries (mostly driving us across the farm to have lunch with the rest of the staff).

The rest of the day was filled with things like putting horses back out in the fields who had been in for the night, bringing horses in from the pasture, grooming and exercising them in the big outdoor ring or the little indoor one if it was rainy, taking them for walks in hand, etc.. This farm had enough horses and staff to warrant a board to track the exercise plan for each horse (above).

I had the pleasure of taking the minis out on walks in the country every day. They were also on restricted diets now, as they were dangerously obese, so they were kept in this large paddock which didn’t have much grass.

One afternoon, after our walk, I decided to sit down with them and get a ‘mini’s eye view’ of the world…

Janice comes over to see what I’m up to. Maybe I have treats. In any case, it’s worth saying hello.

Back in the volunteer house, which was a nice home to be in, albeit a bear to heat with its too tiny wood burner, I made another fun shrine. This one was about enjoying life!

I had a few small dinner parties with several of the staff. That’s where the wine bottles above came from.

This was a fun, easy few weeks. We laughed a lot and enjoyed being with the horses and each other. The weather was great and the work fun. Lovely.