Stonedust Pad for the Gate Area

Last fall I added a stonedust pad to the gate area of my "winter paddock." It was a very worthwhile investment that basically eliminated the mud issue there. Here are some photos of the project, which I did in late September before the ground started turning muddy:

First I used the bucket of the tractor to strip the grass and top layer of dirt. I'm definitely no expert so the bottom was a bit wavy. I used the dirt to build up a low-lying area elsewhere on the farm. 

To choose the dimensions of the pad, I looked at photos from last winter to see how far out the mud extended at its worst, and tried to cover that area. This is what I came up with.

This is what almost 44 tons of stonedust looks like! At this point I was thinking I had gone a little overboard, despite doing some calculations and thinking I might even need a second load after this one (I did not!). This quarry calls it "31-#10 dry dust" and it was perfect for my purposes--not too stony, not too dusty! This pile cost $913 delivered.

Here I've spread out and flattened about half of the stonedust. I ran over it with the tractor repeatedly to compact it, in addition to using a rake and shovel to fine-tune the grade. There's still a pretty sizeable pile left for the second half. I ended up using some of the extra stonedust in the dry lot shed, where I had previously gotten a crappy load of super-fine stonedust that was dusty and didn't compact well. I also used some of it to build up thin spots in the path between the barn and the field, and some to make the gravel driveway more barefoot-friendly. I still have a small pile left for whatever comes up. All in all I feel like this pile has served me very well! 

After putting in the stonedust pad, I kept the horses off this paddock for a few weeks to let the stonedust get rained on and hopefully compact. This photo shows that when I then turned them out on it in November, the stonedust was quite deep and not as compacted as I would have expected.

To firm up the deep footing, I ran the tractor over the pad repeatedly again. You can see from the much shallower hoofprints that it was pretty effective. I haven't had to repeat the process or do any other maintenance since.

Here is the stonedust in action! In December 2019 (left) there was a fair amount of mud, compared to February 2021 (right).

Winter 2020-2021 Pasture Management

 Last year (2019-2020) I experimented with allowing my horses access to one of my three acres of pasture all winter. It seems a bit silly after investing so much money in a dry lot (which is still well worth it to keep the high-traffic areas mud-free!), but it really makes the horses happy, cuts down on morning yahoos when I open the gate, and reduces the amount of manure I have to clean. I was quite happy with how well it worked out and how quickly that acre rebounded in the spring, so I thought I would post an update after this most recent winter. You can see last year's photos in a previous post. 

During the second year, I still found this a reasonable practice for my situation: two horses on three one-acre paddocks that get rotated the rest of the year and tend to be extremely lush in the spring. There were a few days here and there when I kept the horses in the dry lot after heavy rain or snowmelt to let the water drain a bit, but for the most part they had full-time access to the field. We had another average-to-above-average precipitation year here (not much snow though!).

I did make one really helpful improvement in 2020, which was adding a stonedust pad to the gate area of the "winter paddock." I'm going to do another post on that project very soon!

Here are some photos of how the paddock held up throughout the winter.

December 28

February 5

March 4

March 28. Not my traditional pasture photo, but I found it and was really impressed with how quickly the grass improved between this photo and the next one, only two weeks later. I think Z would prefer if it stayed a little muddy though!

April 11, after the first mow of the season

May 9, mid-mow

As you can see, the grass has rebounded extremely well again. This acre has been resting since the end of March (about 5-6 weeks) and the horses could have easily been back on it before now. I also should have mowed it again much sooner, but life got in the way.

Here's a comparison of the gate area in December 2019 (left) vs. February 2021 (right). I'm very pleased with how the stonedust has cut down on the mud and made the area much safer!