For the first couple months we've been here we have had horses occasionally show up on the upper part of our property. We used "bad" spanish to let the rancher know we liked having them there, and he would rotate them on and off the property. We started to work on that part of the property though and realized that the horses had made trails (which will be useful) but had kind of evil eating habits. They prefer only grass and new grass at that. They ignore vines, plants with stickers and pokey seeds etc. and continue to tear off new growth. This gives the weedy things a competitive edge. These horses are big, and you can see how much green there is on the hill - unfortunately it is mainly vines! Horses eat 30 pounds of grass a day.
These two ponies were our favorites...we could pet them, and feed them green grass and water.
This is the male and pregnant female (she was scary) We didn't like her much.
So after the last time the rancher moved them we started to pile sticks (trees have been cut down for years) and we started to pull vines and realized it is a mess up there! We love the horses, but we want to put some ornamental plants and fruit trees and a star gazing platform up there and can't do it with horses there. They will eat all the special things we plant. If we want grass up there before the rainy season we have got to pull vines, get sticks out of the way so Jeff can weed whack and let the grass go to seed. So that's the plan -- NO CABALLOS. So long horses...we will miss the creepy sounds of large things moving around in the night...of horses stampeding toward the fence for fresh grass...and knowing that the clap clap clap of horse hooves in the street meant they were coming to our house.
Our last memory is of feeding our little group fresh grass down by the Corazon tree...
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