...That wasn't enough, so we ordered 3 more loads of lovely dirt. Our horses played in the dirt like little kids. They climbed the dirt piles, pawed at the dirt, chased each other around the dirt piles and bucked and kicked. They had a blast. Who knew? All this time we just needed a dirt pile for the horses!
I should have written YOU when I had to fix the swamp in front of my horse's shelter!! The floor of their shelter is cement, it opens to the south, but we have had 2 wet years in a row and my horses, who canNOT stay out of their "clubhouse" shelter were wading through 2 1/2 ft of water. Plus, the cement had a 1 ft wide notch, like a keyhole. I was expecting to have to pay for a Vet bill and had to do something. EVERYBODY I spoke to told me that sand and gravel would NOT work.
I bought 3500 pounds of sand from Menards. I prayed that my Dodge Cummins 3500 wasn't going to break under the load driving it home!!!!
Would have had to explain to my DH that I broke his truck!!
But, it didn't. Then I ordered 9 tons of limestone, like for a driveway, and had it dumped in front of my barn, accessible but not in anybody's way. I paid some help to move it all.
First we used buckets to "drain the swamp". They we dug all debris that had fallen in from soiled bedding and manure to make it as dry as possible.
My two guys dumped the sand in first. It Looked like some of the sand was going to be swamped, too. But, then it started to pile up. Then, one of them left and came back with his dad's old tractor and then shoveled from my pile and dumped in into the ~ 14' x 12' area of bog.
There was a little bit left over, so I asked them to pile it outside of the entrance, just in case I needed some more, bc I could shovel it in by myself.
Didn't need to. My horses spread it out for me.
By the way, I hired these same two guys to put up 450 bales of hay (in two deliveries) into my loft. I told my hayman how I fixed my problem. He was just aNOTHER naysayer, that it wouldn't work.
My help told me that they drove the tractor over the gravel to clean up my shelter for me and were quite confident that it was solid underneath, bc the tractor didn't sink.
Horses are like cats. They DON'T like the toys that you buy them, but WILL play with the water hose if you leave it within reach.
So....where are the pics of this new horse? 
