Day 8 - About the Barn

Day 08- A little about the barn/stable you ride at

From Clover Ledge Farm

I ride at home! This has been a dream come true for me and it took some sacrifice to get here. If you want to know more about the farm than what I talk about in this post, please go to my farm blog at Firefly Ranch!

I chose the name Firefly because we're big fans of the show by the same name (It's where we got Kaylee's name, after all). And then our first summer here we were just swarmed by fireflies. The sky is lit up and sparkling all early summer. It's magical.

The property is on 5 acres in southeastern Michigan, minutes from Metamora Hunt Country.  The majority of the property is pasture with three different areas for rotation. There is a 3 stall barn, hay storage, a tack/feed room and a grooming stall. There is a small sand arena that was professionally put in by the previous owners and drains like a dream. Each stall has its own run off the barn, with an overhang, though I need to suss out why the overhang roof is leaking right now. Grrr.

The house is gigantic with a partially finished basement, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths with wonderful vaulted ceilings in the master bedroom, living and dining room. The first time we toured a house in this town, I knew that's where I wanted to be. The original house we saw sold before we were ready to make offers, but then we toured this house and I fell in love. It was still available when we were ready to buy.

Picture from when we went to look at it on a cold late winter/early spring day

Back of the house

The hill in the winter pasture

Stall

Hay Storage

When we went back to do an informal walk through with the owners so they could tell me about everything since they'd set up the horse stuff on this property. Early Summer.

Sand arena

Grooming stall though lately I use it for storage

Plus hitching post!

I've managed to keep the pastures nice, though the winter one could use some improvement. They're good enough that I don't bother feeding hay in the late spring, summer and early fall. It keeps feed costs nice and low. I feel a bit bad though because the property is not as nice as when we got it, but the previous owner literally ran her business out of this property and this was her job. I'm hoping to add more property maintenance in now that Hazel is older.

We do have a big hill (Big for this area of Michigan, lol) so Gwyn maintains a bit of fitness walking up and down it. I'll lunge on the hill for extra oomph and go up and down it while riding. I've set up a small cavaletti in the front pasture and hope to add more. It has the most maneuverability and decent enough footing to be a grass jump field. Otherwise, I'm limited by how the property is set up with the jumps I can have.

I really love this place. It's small and just the right size for us. The commute is a killer to where jobs are, but we had to make a tradeoff in commute time, affordability, and availability of horse property.