Refuge Farms (www.refugefarms.org)

Saturday, April 21st was the 5th Annual Progress Days at Refuge Farms. Now just what, you ask, is Progress Days? Do we study the horse? How to work with the horse? How to disc the land? How to use technology to make progress?

Not quite. In fact, Progress Days has nothing to do with the horses and everything to do with the horses. Have I got you confused yet?

What we do on Progress Days here at THE FARM is this: We tidy up the place after the long winter and in preparation for another summer of guests and events. Sounds pretty simple and relatively easy, doesn’t it? Tidy. Such a nice little word….

Here. Let me fill you in on just what we tidy'd:

Kathy and Cathi worked on the West Lawn. You see, throughout the fall and winter, we store our round bales of hay on the West Lawn. And with our equipment, every time we move a round bale, we end up “tunneling” under the bale and dislodging hunks of earth and sod. Plus, when the round bales freeze to the ground, as they most likely do, our moving them will leave frozen clumps of hay and mesh netting behind. All of this – the ruts, the hay, the mesh – was cleaned up by these two who were armed with hay forks, rakes, wheelbarrows, and a ton of muscle!

Meanwhile, Betty the Human and OSRose were on their knees. No, they weren’t praying (I don’t think!). They were cleaning and grooming feet and feet and feet of Memory Beds. They cleaned Lassie and Moritz and Squeak and Ono and Ima and Lady-the-Dog and Frannie…. Every Memory Bed was cut back, raked, and it’s a miracle! I can see the beds again! And guess what?! There’s new growth coming out of the ground under all that stuff left over from last year! Amazing!

I lost count of how many huge wheelbarrows OSRose and Betty hauled to the burn pile. All I know is that there are now clean gardens out in the yard again! Wonderful! And the Memory Beds now reflect the respect that we have for each of these creatures that has graced our lives with their presence.

And while all of this was going on, Sabra walked the ditches and the yards over and over again. Picking up sticks and Little Man deposits. Not a fun job, I’m sure! But she kept smiling the entire time. And I really did chuckle a few times as I drove by on the Allis. You see, I would watch Sabra pick up some sticks and clean an area and then methodically move in a new direction. And with those Southern winds, sometimes right where she had just completed was once again littered with a new stick freshly blown out of the trees! No wonder the job seemed never ending!

And while all these people were doing all these chores, another herd of us was moving sawdust from the Old Barn to the New Barn. Bucket and bucket after bucket after bucket. The old Allis never missed a beat. Ran out of gasoline twice, but never missed a beat! I’m guessing we moved 30 tractor buckets of sawdust in to the barn. Seems like a simple job, doesn’t it?

Let me tell you, it took four of us to accomplish it! You see there was Lynn up here in the Old Barn to rake and scoop the sawdust away from the walls and to cover each load with the tarp and then drape our logging chains over the tarp. Why do this? Because of the same wind that blew new sticks out of the trees on to Sabra’s clean lawn! That southern breeze was a good strong and steady wind. Without the tarp and the chains, all that sawdust would have ended up north of the freeway!

Mary stood by the gates to insure one of the horses didn’t sneak out on us. And every once in a while she would retrieve one of the chains that had slipped off of the tarp on the journey.

Then once the sawdust made the journey to the New Barn, Mark and Kate would pull off the chains and the tarp so the load could be dumped. Once the tractor was out of the barn, they needed to use the forks and shovels to get it to the walls or in the end stalls. I think out of all those loads, not a one was left right where it was dumped. Not an easy job and certainly not a clean job!

We broke for lunch in shifts since Kathy had started to till up Slim’s Memory Bed somewhere in there. A good start on Slim yielded hunks of sod that Cathi and Heather used to fill in a big dip in the yard. Nothing goes to waste here on THE FARM!

After lunch, the Horse & Pony Club joined us for some horse grooming and a bit of time to just enjoy The Herd. This herd of rejected horses that we work so darn hard for! Tilling the earth, patching tractor ruts, raking hay clumps, cleaning gardens, picking and picking sticks, moving sawdust…all these hard labor tasks simply because we all love these horses and treasure them so much that we are willing to sweat for them!

At the close of the day, Cathi could barely walk. Lynn was filthy. Kathy was riding a child’s bicycle down the driveway. Betty the Human was still working on Memory Beds. And Mark, bless his heart, was asking, “What else do you need me to do?”

Oh yeah, where was I the entire day? I was the one driving the Allis. Simple. Simple. Simple. But it gave me the chance to survey these generous people who gave of a beautiful Saturday to come to Refuge Farms and to work hard and to get dirty and to take pleasure in their progress.

The gift of Progress Days is to look, at the close of the day, and see a difference in the place. The gifts of Progress Days to me, personally, are those snapshots in my head . . . Betty on her knees in the yard for hours. OSRose stepping through Frannie’s Memory Bed so carefully. Cathi limping along. Sabra picking up stick after stick. Lynn and Mark full – totally full – of sawdust! Mary’s smile every time I passed the gates.

We are all sore today. But pleased. We made Progress!!!

Enjoy the journey of each and every day,
Sandy and The Herd