Drought and little outside tour

I thought I was due for an update here... Dolly is one week into her trial and I haven't had any updates yet, so I'm assuming things are going ok so far. I'm still looking for another horse, but haven't really found anything worth getting really excited over.  I won't be able to do anything until Dolly sells, so I'm mostly just  window shopping at this point.

We are in a bit of a drought here - I don't think my area has had any rain in over a month. Things are very dry and crispy. The local farmers were able to get a decent first cut of hay, but unless it rains soon, that is all they will get. I won't be at all surprised to hear of hay shortages here over the winter months.

dry, hard soil

My lawn is completely dead, except for a few hardy weeds.  My riding ring has dead grass, which is actually ok. lol  I mowed it really short a few weeks ago, hoping it would die.  I don't want to spray weed/grass killer on it, since my cats are outside now.  I'm hoping to have the ring disced sometime in the coming weeks, or just start riding on the dead grass and hope that the sand starts to come back (assuming I get a horse sometime this summer!)

riding ring - will it get used this year????

 This is a shot of my front pasture - I had it bushogged in early June and the grass hasn't grown one bit. Which is ok, really, since there are no horses to eat it! I also need to do more major fence repairs here, but that will probably wait until the spring.

I took a short walk around the outside of the pastures - there is a bit of open space where I would like to make some trails over the coming months.  I think I can do a fair bit with the whipper snipper to get the really long grass down and then probably drive the lawn tractor through on a high setting.  There is some exposed rock back there though, so I'll have to be careful.  I was also thinking a scythe (who knew that there are several sites to buy scythes!) would come in handy! lol

wondering if I can hack out some trails...

 I have a few minor repairs to make to the electric fence in my main paddock. The braid is a bit loose in the picture below, but it won't be a big problem to sort that out. I also have to get rid of the pallets in there - that is just an accident waiting to happen! It has been so hot here that I haven't done much around the barn.

The previous owners also left me a large manure pile that they also started filling with branches and yard waste.  It is totally overgrown now and will be a bit of work to get it all sorted out.  I'm thinking it sounds like a good project for the fall and cooler temps.   If a horse comes home in the near future, I will probably just put up a bit of temporary electric fence to keep it away from that mess. Some of the grass in that area is over 5ft tall!

 That's about it for the outside at my place right now. When I finish cleaning and organizing the barn, I'll get some pics there.  Keep your fingers crossed that we get some rain soon!