Horsing Around: This weekend's upcoming project

​The current situation: Much despised due to the very real fear that Jacob will injure himself in the open panels and the very real reality that free-range chickens are a nuisance sometimes.

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Every now and then, we have been known to put the cart before the horse when it comes to homestead projects. I fondly remember that one time when we bought a pair of adult, super-sized goats and brought them home despite having not one existing fence or outbuilding ready. They slept in our garage. It was ... fun.

We have gotten much better about planning ahead and actually preparing before any major poultry or livestock acquisitions. Jacob, the paint horse, may have been a recent exception. I say 'may have been' only because we were not completely unprepared. We at least had a plan in place for his immediate housing, nutritional needs, and safety. However, it wasn't an optimal plan and we knew that it would all be very temporary. We immediately set out to find a proper horse stall. Used options were quite limited - which is probably good because we would have had a hard time loading and unloading prebuilt stall walls anyway. New options were not only incredibly expensive, but just as limited as the used options. We were told that stall components were backordered from all of the major suppliers.

​By the end of January, we gave up on the idea of finding that sweet spot between price and availability and ordered a complete stall kit. That stall kit finally arrived this week.

The stall wall frames. Metal is currently crazy expensive.

The wood kits for filling the stall frames. Wood is currently crazy expensive.

​All five of us will be tackling this project bright and early Saturday morning. I have been itching to start working on it since the materials arrived, but nothing is ever so easy. A good portion of this job will involve setting up a temporary pen for the donkeys to keep them out of our workspace (and to keep Loreto from stealing my tools), while there will also be some floor preparation to do before we can really get started. Once we start, we will have to finish as we can't leave anything unfinished (and, therefore, dangerous) inside the equine enclosure. I can't wait to see this one done and will surely update on our progress this Saturday just because I will be so darned proud of us and will need to share.