Ring barking trees – stallion style

Someone has asked me whether I still use the horses as lawnmowers on the farm.  And the answer is no.

And here is why. Ulysse, that impressionable young stallion needed a companion.  It saved us having to retrieve him once or twice a week when he would escape and run away to visit his girlfriends down the road.

So Jean Daniel paired him up with another of his horses from the stables. That’s Canaille the pure grey. (Ulysse is going grey, but he’s still has a few winters to go).

And I may be wrong, but Canaille means riff raff.

And he has a riff raff habit. He likes to strip trees. For some reason he has a taste for bark.  And Ulysse learned the trick.

So no trees are safe from this annoying habit.  They can ring bark the younger trees if they munch all the way around.  And I don’t want to lose any of our cherries on the lower terraces to the beasts.

Jean Daniel has lost his best mirabelle just this week.  I don’t really notice the damage on his land; but as I am feeding the horses this week I plod past his main paddock and gawp at the damage.