09/15/2024
Just wanted to share another one of our agricultural projects for the horse community. This one was an amazing revitalization of a generational farm in Wyoming County.
Our customer was once a little girl who loved horseback riding. Her dad raised prize winning beef cows on their picturesque hilltop farm, but reserved a portion of the pasture for his little girl’s horse & also built a small riding arena for her. As the years passed, the pasture & riding arena fell into disrepair as she grew out of the sport. Now, years later, her daughter has taken to riding so we were hired to revive & modernize the facility.
We started by removing the paddock fencing that was in grave disrepair. The 3 small paddocks were eliminated in favor of a larger, open pasture. Less fence-line means less maintenance. We expanded the pasture to include the arena area & exclude the cows from accessing the arena, which helps when it’s riding time! Next, we rebuilt the board fence along the road & installed horse-safe rope fencing for the perimeter. Next, with the help of modern equipment we were able to eliminate the steep cuts along the barn, above the arena, & around the arena. Using the fertile farm dirt on-site we tapered the grades to allow yearly mowing maintenance with a brush hog instead of requiring w**d wacking. To revitalize the arena, we built a road along the entire length of the barn & over to the arena with our red shale road base. This allowed us to truck in dozens of loads of sand but will also serve as a dry, solid area for horses to get away from the spring mud while also being outside.
Using red shale lowers the cost of road construction since less stone is needed than a road constructed solely from crushed stone. To dress it up, we like to put a generous layer of 2A modified on the top for a truly first class road.
There was a great emphasis on ease of maintenance. An equestrian hobby can easily loose its luster if the chores are difficult. We effectively planned for drainage & maintenance. Our experience & expertise in this should provide years of benefit & enjoyment.
Overall, we had lots of compliments from passers-by & our customers were thrilled with the finished product! Hopefully this project yields years of enjoyment & maybe helps another generation fall in love with horses!