We have wood chips!

We haven't had rain for an entire 2 weeks, nor hail nor snow! Since the mud was almost completely dried up, we knew it was the time to order a load of wood chips for our muddy path. Wood chips are all we're allowed to use on that path because it doesn't belong to us. I'd seen on our hay guy's website - lo and behold - he sells footing for arenas and mud solutions. Until now I had no clue where to get such a thing.

He said he'd come out as soon as our field was dry enough to drive a tractor on. As day after day passed with no rain, and I saw the ground start to dry, I became more stressed, that we'd miss our chance and the rain would return and as you know it rained all of 2015 except for April so we never had a time when there was no mud here last Summer. Finally we got the call that he'd come out Friday evening. I took down a temporary fence and hung up my reflective vest so he wouldn't run into some posts.



Eastertime in Germany means colorful plastic eggs on bushes. Mine are tye-dyed, though you can't see that here. That Jostaberry bush got so big I need more eggs for it.


This is our upper grazing strip, opened up for Winter. It has never been devoid of grass like this, ever. Note how wonderfully dry it is! A few weeks ago I went out to clean up poop and I gave up, because I kept slipping in the mud.


Looking across our field, this is much less than January when only the donkey lived here, but also typical for two animals mid-March. In April and May everything will change when the miracle of life returns.


This is unacceptable. This looks like wild boars were here, but no. Mag must have been running around a lot when it was wet out. I was afraid that they hay guy would say our pasture is ruined and he won't be coming to make hay here this year. But he didn't say anything even as he drove over this.


This is the path. It's very kind of the hippies to let our animals cross their land. It would be optimal if we could have put in gravel at the start, but we're finally doing something about it.


This is its mostly dry state, if you can believe that. When the rains return, all the divots will fill with water and the animals will splash up to their knees.


What I was trying to capture with the camera is the way the land has turned into waves. When it's wet, their hooves slip into hoofprints, and over time there are rolling waves of high areas and low areas where their hooves cannot help but repeatedly fall into. These waves are between 6 and 12 inches deep. I try to just walk on the crests of the waves if I must walk through here (I mostly avoid it) but the animals cannot, they slip down. There is a root right of center in this photo that is lying along the crest of a wave. It's nearly impossible to see them from this angle, but I tried.


When it freezes this becomes dangerous, but thankfully we have had only one hard freeze since Mag arrived, where I didn't allow them to walk through here. We've mostly had light freezes where the mud is still slightly flexible.


This photo shows the waves best - on the right you can see wedges of green grass that stick out into the mud that look like steps. Those are the crests of the waves.

J said before we spread wood chips, we must flatten the waves. I said with no tractor this would be impossible, and not even worth trying. He insisted, and he was right. He came out and helped me with a garden rake, scraping at the tops of the high areas, chipping away at the cement-hard crests and letting the mud chips/clumps fall into the low spots. It wasn't great, but it was something, just to lessen the rolling effect would help.


This is our backyard where the geotiles end.


We were such city folk, "Our first wood chip pile!" "I've never had a pile before!"


I was hoping for way, way more.


We kept calling it Mt Wood. Or Mt St Helens, with its flat top, and as we scooped it by shovels-ful into the wheelbarrow to spread, it looked more like the north side of Mt St Helens, the missing area.


10 cubic meters. 320 Euros. It's the stuff, he said, used for riding arenas. I seem to remember it being used at Renn Faires or such to keep mud down.


He says it will last a year. I'm giving it 6 months. We laid it down about 6 inches deep.


Those roots were underground when we built the path. We made up names for different areas out there yesterday. J would say, in English, "Are you taking that load all the way to Shinola?" He dubbed the area by our barn Shinola because it was furthest from the pile. I just asked J where he learned that word and he said from my step-dad. I'm not sure we use it correctly in our family....


We shoveled for 4 hours non-stop, taking turns scraping the mud waves flat, shoveling, and spreading it flat on the path. I came around the corner and found J laying against the pile and I joined him. I was in such a great mood, simply because I could actually walk through my path again, and *gasp* even push a wheelbarrow, what was impossible that morning.




On our land again (by our orchard) we installed some more geotiles. I spent this morning digging up mole hills to fill in the holes in the geotiles so they'd solidify into the ground. The animals don't walk on these if given a choice (Baasha didn't either, because they're slippery), so today I spread wood chips over the tiles. Even if the animals don't choose to walk here, at least I can.


I was afraid, from reading stories in blog land, that the animals would ruin Mt Wood, so I put a fence around it. This is all that was left last night. We'll leave it there and use it to fill in weak spots that become exposed as the animals use the path. They've only been through it 2-3 times and already I can see a weak spot where mud is squirting through.


It's a miracle! Our first flowers.


Mercer likes beet pulp too.

At the end of the day Mag got to meet what was left of the pile.






Today, Sunday, I brought more and even covered up two lanes of geotiles.


At least for now, I can stand here in my church shoes.


This is where the new row of geotiles were installed yesterday, filled in and covered up.


We'll see what happens!