Tack Room Clean Up

I love it when other bloggers post pictures of their horses' stalls, runs, and turn outs. Even more than those photos, I love pics of their tack rooms and trailers. I've discovered that what I think of as normal horse-keeping is anything but. Everyone does it differently.

Below is a "sketch" of my BO's barn. I think she did a lot of the design herself. It's a very cleverly planned barn that suits our hot climate quite well. The heavy line represents the roof. The two stalls on the left side have a wall at the edge of the roof that is about 8 feet high, but it doesn't touch the barn roof. This is the windy and hot side of the barn. This creates an "inside" that extends as far out as the cross ties wall. The right hand side of the barn doesn't have a wall, but the stalls are longer and the roof covers a bit larger of an area.

Each horse has an "inside" and outside run. The wall at the cross ties is about six feet high and solid. For the hay cube and grain bin storage areas, the wall is a heavy gauge wire so that air can pass through and the horses can see each other. No horse shares a wall so there is absolutely no bickering, fighting, biting, or kicking.

Each run has two access gates: one is under the roof near where each horse is standing, and the other is in the farthest, diagonal corner from each horse.

The hay cube section is completely open to the outside so you can drive a vehicle right up to unload. Between the the hay cubes and the cross ties there is a short wall (3 feet?) with a human-sized pass through gate for easy access. The tack room is completely closed in with its own roof which keeps out the dust and makes it cooler since it's actually "double-roofed." There is a large, swinging door on both sides of the tack room. The grain bin area is also open on the backside to allow vehicle access when necessary. I did a video when I first moved in that you can check out here.

On Monday, Hubby needed me for a full day appointment so my planned rides were postponed. I did have enough time in the afternoon to tinker around at the barn though. My side of the tack room was pretty dusty so I decided to move most everything outside and give it a good sweeping. As I started moving stuff, I noticed that the Daddy Long Leg spiders had set up quite a community along the ceiling and corners so they got the boot.

I forgot to take a before picture until I was partway done moving stuff out. Here they are.

Right side ...

Left side.

Yes ... all of this is mine with the exception of that rickety cloth covered shelving unit. I do have stuff in there, but we need to replace that thing. I am not sure how it's still standing! I didn't move it out as I am not sure it would have made the journey. Our bridles are hanging on the inside of the tack room door. 

Once the floor was swept and the ceiling de-spidered, I hauled everything back in. Sweeping and moving stuff served a second purpose: Sydney got a really long turnout which I think he enjoyed. After the tack room project, I moved on to the stalls so Speedy got his turn to roam as well.

All finished!

Now that I look at the photos, the end product doesn't look as good as it did in person. All of those tubs in the shelving unit had been covered with a layer of dust which is now gone. The blankets were also covered with dust which I beat off with the broom; they look better, too. I rearranged my mountain of saddle pads so they're no longer about to topple off as easily. If nothing else, I got a good workout and Sydney got some time to wander around and play. Some days, nesting is just a peaceful thing to do. And after my semi-stressful Monday, it was a good way to spend some time at the barn.