Sunday, January 03, 2021

More favorite products and cool things for farm use

Alcohol wipes For cleaning off cell phone and tablet screens, wiping down general sticky gunk from surfaces. I have always carried a few in my purse and now habitually use them to clean phone screens and my car display screen.  Funnily enough, I just recently saw them marketed (for quite the markup) as "electronic device cleaning pads". Guess somebody stole my idea! 

Game sled for dragging hay bales and mucking stalls. I actually bought this sled to use on my small farm to drag hay bales in behind my tractor.  It works much better than I expected, and I plan to buy another!  Even though I don't use it on snow, but over a rocky driveway, it has held up amazingly well, and allows me (an average size woman) to easily transport 2 bales of hay down the hill to the horses.  I can drag it by hand, or with the tractor or truck.  Excellent item!  The bottom is now beginning to be a bit abraded, so I will look for some sort of reinforcement for it, but after a couple years over rocks, no surprise!






Hoof Rasp (Heller) - I frequently rasp my horses' hooves between farrier visits to keep them from chipping and cracking.  The difference a new, sharp, quality rasp makes is amazing!  Literally a few swipes, and boom, you're done!  I had purchased a different brand new rasp last time, and I may as well have been using a cheese grater for all the effect it had.  Just one note... when using this, wear heavy leather gloves!  It will shave the skin off your hand before you feel a thing, and it's very easy to do.  Excellent product. 


Mesh Laundry Bags - These things are super handy for washing stuff like polo wraps and leg bandages.  Also useful for washing tack cleaning rags, tack sponges, and the like.  I also use them for washing my makeup sponges and powder puffs and all my million hair scrunchies. 


Of course, I would wash dirty rags and anything that might have horse poopies completely separate from all other laundry!! In fact, if a saddle pad or something is really dirty, I normally hose it off and do a first wash in a large muck bucket outside before putting it in the actual washing machine.  Sadly, I do not have the luxury of a separate barn washer and dryer, although those that have them are lucky!


Cookie, the mini, pulling a sled!

Miniature Horse sledding  I have been periodically working with my miniature horse, Cookie, to teach her to drive. She still needs a bit of ...