WHAT A BUSY SUMMER AND FALL.

Sorry I have not been doing too many Blogs lately. Got home from Arizona and Utah in late April. We got pretty busy getting our farm fencing finished all the way up the long driveway. We did a bunch of other work around our property as well I have posted pictures below.

We also helped our friends open an exciting new horse camp just up the street from us called Hidden Valley Rustic Horse Camp. So once we got all our work done around the farm we started doing some great rides from the new horse camp. Taking our young horses with us on trail rides to get them us to all kinds of things out on the trail.

This was our driveway when we got home from Arizona before finishing the fencing 

This is the driveway after we finished the fencing 

Here is the gate Ron first put in when fencing was finished down by the barn

He then replaced the gate with this hand made one he did from some of our local dead trees. 

I painted all the large rocks coming up the driveway

More painted rocks all the way up the long driveway

More painted rocks

We built over 20 jumps from all the dead pine beetle kill. The old pine trees make for a good cross country course. 

Slowly making rock retaining walls all the way to the house up the driveway. This is lots of work. 

The next pictures are all of the bird house Ron built and I painted they too go all the way up the driveway. 

I love this bird house 

We had time to take our yearlings out on some rides this summer. Getting them us to traveling in a trailer. 

Our first trip with the boys to Lundbom Lake 

Riding the grasslands of Lundbom Lake area. 

These colts are doing so well. 

The colts getting a pedi

Had a friend come up from the coast with his Drone and Gopro camera. He took some great video and photos of our farm. You can see how much fencing we need to do up the driveway. Over 300 posts and 1200 rails 

Great shot of the house, garage and cat encloser

Another one of my bird houses

We spent some time through out the summer and fall helping local ranchers with there cattle. 

Crossing a creek by Hidden valley rustic horse camp

Riding from  Hidden valley rustic horse camp

Ron and I took a clinic in Oyama at a Extreme mountain trail course

Our stallion "The Huntsman" was willing to go over the sway bridge 

We helped with Back Country Horsemen of BC with the Lundbom Lake improvement project.

The old corrals where is dyer need of repair and replacement. 

Over 8 Chapters of BCHBC and 47 volunteers , close to 800 hours to complete in less the 4 days. 

The beautiful finish corrals

Replaced 12 broken down corrals with 28 beautiful pipe corrals. 

We are excited to say that we have now started a new chapter of Back Country Horsemen of BC here in Merritt. 

Our first ride as a new chapter was a "Christmas Toy and food Bank Ride". We also did a hot dog sale by donation that we made over $200.00 for the food bank. Thanks to the over 13 riders that came out and donated both toys and food bank donations. We thank you and the Nicola Valley Food Bank thanks you. 

The weather is starting to get cold so we are planning out trip south starting next week. Crossing the boarder on the 26th of November heading to Southern Utah first to ride Zion Mountain then to "The Valley of Fire" in Nevada before heading to Cowboy Christmas in Vegas and on to Wickenburg AZ for Christmas and New Years. 

Have a wonderful Holiday season keep posted for new blogs about great places to ride and camp with your horses. 

JUST WROTE MY FIRST BOOK ON HORSE CAMPING

ARIZONA HORSE CAMPING by Kelly Brook Allen | 

  Make Your Own Book

LUNDBOM LAKE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT- PRESS RELEASE

I know many of you enjoy Lundbom Lake every year around this time. This popular horse camping spot in the grasslands of Beautiful Merritt British Columbia is getting so busy that on long weekends it is nearly impossible to find a corral for you horses. So together with the Forestry and Backcountry Horsemen they are planning on rebuilding it so they will be lots of corrals for everyone.

Here is the Press release just released by Backcountry Horsemen BC :

   For Immediate Release!  

The Lundbom Lake Improvement Project

Help Us Help you….ride, ride…. Ride!

     The Back Country Horsemen Society of BC (BCHBC) and Recreation Sites and Trails BC (RSTBC) are working in partnership to make improvements to one of the most popular equestrian camping and trail riding venues in the province of BC.  Riders from all over BC and the State of Washington come here to enjoy holiday time with their horses and mules.   The site is urgently in need of an upgrade!

This is a provincial project spearheaded by  the Okanagan and Yarrow Chapters  of BCHBC.  There are 3 main priorities:

1.  building a concrete lock block manure storage bin

2.  removing existing old pole corrals (10) and replacing with (30) 12x12’ pipe corrals

3.  fencing off the wet area immediately behind the corrals

RSTBC and BCHBC are looking for partners in this exciting project in the form of cash donations, materials (concrete lock blocks, wooden posts, hardware), or equipment and time.  We now have cash partners: 

Back Country Horsemen Chapters:  Yarrow, Kamloops, North Vancouver Island, North Thompson,

Shuswap, Aldergrove and Okanagan.   Recreation Sites and Trails BC: Cascades  District, Chilliwack Riding Club,

Horse Council Zone 2 and Panorama Veterinarian Services in Kelowna.  But we need more help to provide riders with a first class place to recreate.  You can also bring your bike and fishing rod!

If you or your organization wish to help partner in some way, please contact one of the two project coordinators listed below.   A volunteer work party is planned for October 2, 3, 4 and 5^th of 2014.  RSVP:

Rose Schroder 604-854-1245  milkmaid@shaw.ca

Scott Walker 250-300-8415  scwalker1959@gmail.com

 The riding here is some of the best in British Columbia. 

Beautiful views and lakes around the area

Some of you may not ride but the fishing is good. 

IF YOU ARE ABLE TO HELP PLEASE CONTACT INFO BELOW 

 A volunteer work party is planned for October 2, 3, 4 and 5^th of 2014.  RSVP:

Rose Schroder 604-854-1245  milkmaid@shaw.ca

Scott Walker 250-300-8415  scwalker1959@gmail.com

NEW BLOG AFTER A FEW MONTHS,,, BUSY WORKING AROUND OUR FARM

Well it has been a few months since my last Blog. We had a fabulous winter in Arizona and Utah got home to Merritt B.C. just has the weather was getting better. We had all of our exterior fencing to get finish before we could start riding here at home. We harvested all our rails off our property and our neighbours next to us over 800 rails. In less then a week Ron and I got all 150 posts in going up the driveway.  Below is a picture before we started this project. 

Driveway before fencing. We kept our horses in with just one tape of hot wire. 

All the trees for rails were harvested off out property and our neighbours one door down. 

Ron cut each rail to fit

The fencing all finished going up the driveway. 

To make it look real artsy I added some large boulders and painted them. 

I placed large rocks with the tractor all the way up the driveway and painted each one

Because we spend our winters in Arizona I wanted some of the rocks to have the Arizona feel

All the painted ponies where of course Black & White.

Our next project was building a cross-country course in one of our lower fields. A few years back the pine beetle came through Merritt and killed most of the pine trees. We have been cleaning up pine trees since we moved in. We decided another use for them would be jumps

Most of the logs we had to move by tractor

This is a cute little bank jump I added rocks too

A natural rail fence

Made this jump from some of the shorter pine logs

Then we added flowers to them

This is the largest jump on course I call it the Picnic table it is 2'9"

Another thing that has kept us busy is one of our neighbours down by Mamit Lake had an idea to start a Horse camp. They wanted our ideas before they started so my next blog will be about the new horse camp called "Hidden Valley Rustic Horse Camp".