I don’t know if you remember how much work it was for us to maintain our property when we first moved to Rincon, but it was some major work. It is quite possibly just as hard now, but maybe we are just used to working in the yard and have gotten better at it. Also, we hired a couple local girls to work the property 24 hours a day. Actually, it is a mom and her daughter and they take care of about one full acre of land…the downfall is that they are indiscriminate with what they eat. Did I mention the girls were horses?

The horses we have won’t eat apples, they won’t eat carrots but they will eat the heck out of some bananas, palm trees and grass. I think it’s a Puerto Rico thing. We surrounded the pasture with new barbed wire fence before the girls moved in and placed the fence about 2 feet back from our row of plants we strategically planted to block the view of the water plant in the summer. Once the horses either trampled or ate all of the grass we had in their pasture they started reaching through the fence and eating grass as far as they could reach (makes weed eating around the fence unnecessary). While they were over there, they found about 4 palm trees and a bread fruit tree and decided to eat them as well.

The horses are only going to be temporary so I didn’t think much of it, I figured I would replant once they moved out and put up a fence that they can’t reach through. Well, all that went out the window two weeks ago when they reached through the fence again and reached another palm, a McArthor palm and the corner of yet another Eureka palm. Conner and I decided to put up some fencing right away to avoid loosing those three plants like the other 5 we have already lost to the horses.

Hopefully this will do the trick, although the little girl (we call her Jackson) is biting at the fence trying to pull it away. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the posts hold up. If they get out of the pasture they would reek havoc on our palm and fruit tree filled front yard.