Categories
Epic Barn Project Ranch

Epic Barn Project – First Wall

Today was a pretty fun day. Buzz and Ashton got to use the sledgehammer, saws-all, grinder and claw foot quite a bit. (Anna was finishing up a different project which she should post about soon.)

I only was able to work on it for just under 4 hours today. We did manage to get one whole length of wall down though. Here’s a quick picture blog of the progress we made today:

Epic Barn Project Before
Epic Barn Project Before

Here’s Buzz pushing down the last wall:

Epic Barn Project Before

My original idea was to take down these different wall sections, load them on a trailer and then just nail them back up at our house. Although convenient in theory, it may end up being harder than taking the entire walls apart. Buzz claims to have a very easy way of taking the boards apart, which is the most daunting aspect of taking the walls completely apart.

More to come,
Ashton Anna

Categories
Epic Barn Project Ranch Summer

The Epic Barn Project Begins

We love our Montana neighbors. I (Ashton) have always longed for great neighbors, as growing up in a good part of the city led us to having lots of friends within a few blocks. Most recently, after I graduated in LA, and the first few years in Montana, the neighborly friends decreased in numbers at an alarming rate as friends went off to college and other adventures in LA and not knowing any people in Montana who had anything better to do than “hang out at the bar”…

When we moved out to our ranch where we really could only see four neighbors from our property, we were very fortunate that they were great neighbors.

With that said, one of our coolest neighbors, Buzz, has a 38’x32′ horse barn that came with their house that they don’t really use. Anna and her mother now have more than 10 horses so to make a long story short, we are going to be buying his barn and moving it to our property! Since I already have a post about helping out on Buzz’s Latest Barn, I’m going to call this the “Epic Barn Project.”

Epic Barn Project Begins!

Here are some pictures of the Epic Barn as it looked this morning. You can consider these “Before” pictures.

Epic Barn Project Before

Epic Barn Project Before

Epic Barn Project: Remove Roof

Continue reading “The Epic Barn Project Begins”
Categories
Animals Chickens Ranch

Moving the Chicken Coop

Spring cleaning has officially begun out here. We’ve done a lot of work reorganizing our hay shed. One of the biggest challenges so far was moving the chicken coop.

Last Summer, I built our Chicken Coop of the Ages, and created a “run” for the chickens to run around in:

Chicken Coop
Chicken Run
This has been in the front of our Hay Shed for the last year, and the chickens are making a mess. It’s also taking up extra space where we would like to put hay, so we have decided to move it to the back of the hay shed:
Chicken Run

First we had to clean it up:
Chicken Run Before

Then we built a roof out of wooden planks and a lot of chicken wire. We had to sew lengths of chicken wire together to make a “roof.” We used rocks to hold down the chicken wire where it met the ground (on the left):

Chicken Run After

Then I cut a hole in the wall at the back of the hay shed, and we moved our (extremely heavy) Chicken Coop of the Ages to the back of the hay shed.

Continue reading “Moving the Chicken Coop”
Categories
Horses Trips & Activities

My Trip to Valhalla Farms

I recently took a very exciting trip for almost 3 weeks to Valhalla Farms in Wellborn, Florida. This was my first time to Florida and to Jean Brinkman’s 600 acre farm.

Valhalla Farms

As a lot of you know I breed a type of horse called a Trakehner which is a Warmblood horse originating from Prussia. Jean Brinkman has been breeding Trakehners since the early 70’s and helped start the American Trakehner Association (ATA), which is amazing! I met Jean in November of 2008 at the ATA annual meeting in Los Angeles which I attended with a few of my horses. I told Jean I knew I had a lot more to learn about the breed and she very kindly invited me to come to her farm to learn. After I got home from Los Angeles I figured out the best time to go down there and arranged the trip with her.

Erin Brinkman & Imminence
Erin Brinkman & Imminence

I was gone from April 3rd – 21st and had an amazing time! Flying into Florida was the only horrible part about the trip. I left Montana at 9:00 am and didn’t arrive in Jacksonville until 5:00 am the next day due to the storms over Jacksonville. I stayed in a hotel at the airport and got maybe 5-6 hours of sleep then took a shuttle to the Jacksonville Equestrian Center to meet Jean and her Dressage trainers who were competing for the weekend. It was definitely a great introduction to the trip seeing the talented horses and riders from Valhalla at their best.

Iris & Aura
Iris & Aura

Competing for the weekend was Erin Brinkman on Imminence a young newly approved stallion owned by her mother Jean. Erin was also there with two of her dressage students so I was able to watch her coach them and compete on one of the horses. She placed 1st in all of her classes for the weekend which was very impressive! Also competing for the weekend was Iris Eppinger and her working student Anna Franklin. Iris was riding Prix St George on one of Jean’s mares Aura and did very well! Iris also rode a client’s horse Etoile who was purchased from Jean and the owner kept the horse in training at Valhalla. Anna rode her horse Walden at 1st and 2nd Level and won 1st place. To say the least there were a lot of blue ribbons hanging around our stalls.

Continue reading “My Trip to Valhalla Farms”

Categories
Grub Club Montana Summer

Grub Club Ventures Outside

(FYI, Grub Club is our Thursday gathering of friends. If you’re ever in MT, swing by.)

We finally had fairly decent weather for our grub club, so we decided to build a campfire. For the first grub club campfire of last year we burned a dog house, so we had to come up with something fun and cool that we could do/burn…

Ashton and Anna's Grub Club Photos

Are those Pizza Hut boxes?

Ashton and Anna's Grub Club Photos

That’s right. We made a Pizza Hut Fort! Donald came up with the structure idea: using card stacking methods to build the different layers.

Continue reading “Grub Club Ventures Outside”