June, 2001

We have had no luck in being able to have the cows slaughtered on the farm. It seems there are many hoops to jump through and legal requirements that mean a trip to the abattoir is inevitable. In the interests of being fully informed of our animals' journey we are wanting to visit an abattoir to see what actually happens there. We've read about it, even seen some bits on TV, but it's important for us to know what will be encountered by the beings we send there. It will be next month now.

The abattoir. What an interesting place to do business with. Is there another business on earth that takes your produce, does what it will with it, then lets you know how much they are willing to give you for it? This is the way of the abattoir. They will take our animal, slaughter it, butcher it and then let us know how much they will pay for the meat!

We finally chose a heifer and one of the steers who were both about the same size. One was being sold through the abattoir shop, the other was being given to the local butcher to hang and cut for beef for the freezer. We did this mostly as a comparison, to see what return each path gives us.

Our farm track, which has been cause of great upset for neighbours and visitors alike has finally been repaired with about 280 tonnes of road plannings! It is pretty smooth with a couple of speed humps near the farmyard (so watch out if you're visiting). Hopefully that will last a few years. We had hoped to put a top dressing on it to hold it all firm, but we were quoted £12,000, so that's not on our "to do" list at present!

Summer is definitely here. Taking our lead from our neighbours, we found a contractor to cut about 20 acres of silage for us and mid June found us with some very neatly trimmed fields and 63 round black bales of silage. It's funny how excited we get over stuff like this. It's a huge achievement to us that we can bring everything together (albeit with a lot of guidance) and actually see results of our plans. There is still a little more to cut, then we hope to make some hay for our horses from the rest in another month.

Though it might not seem like it from the amount they've been mentioned, horses still play an important part in our lives. This month, Jazz and Crystal were joined by the horses of friends of ours who live nearby. We are all interested in creating as natural a lifestyle as possible for them so have pooled our resources. The horses seem to like it, they're all looking very good anyway. To celebrate our expanded herd, we had a barbeque... out of a wheelbarrow. We sat and ate under the shelter of an old barn and watched the horses as they got to know each other and tasted the grass in different parts of their field. Quite blissful.

We have dreams that one day we might open a Natural Horsemanship Centre where people can come and learn about this for themselves... but for now we just dream...

Our horses are barefoot and we have been learning to trim their hooves. This is a most precious task to perform and the correctly trimmed and naturally functioning horse's hoof is truely a miracle of nature. We had a visitor this month who wanted to know more. Lorraine found a knackers yard locally where we might get some dead hooves to look at and practice on. Mark wondered how on earth he had got to a point in his life where the email "Hi sweetheart, will you collect some hooves from this place on your way home this afternoon?" just didn't faze him at all!

The barefoot movement has come in for some criticism in more traditional circles and we have been labelled barbaric and unqualified amateurs by some. However, here at Vowley Farm, we are trimming not only under the guidance of a vet and hoofcare specialist, but also a registered UK farrier. One of these hooves we collected from the knackerman was in a very sorry state and we grieved for the pain that pony must have been in before it was put to sleep.

It showed signs of laminitis and had obviously been attended to by a farrier because it was shod with iron and pads galore... we wonder how a professional could have left the hoof in such a dreadful state. The heels were very high, the toes had been dumped and the whole hoof looked like a little stump on the end of the leg. Although this is not an uncommon traditional treatment of this ailment in the UK, we have learned from Dr. Strasser how the correct trimming, and natural care of horses and ponies will lead to not only reduction in the cases of laminitis, but the healing of cases that do appear. This she does on a regular basis with horses that visit her Hufklinik in Germany. It leaves us with the view that "barbaric", like so many of our human judgments, is all a matter of perspective.

As June closes, we find ourselves watching and participating with a master in the horse/human training world, Mark Rashid. Visit his web site here and see what we mean.

See you next month!