Any ideas for help on my arena footing? Fall is coming!!!

[RunForIt]

I've also posted on the Around the Farm forum, but hopefully I'll get some ideas from fellow eventers. The drought has made work in my fields impossible except at the walk. I've been horribly frustrated the past 10 days because the old truck is in the hospital and while resurrecting it is better than buying a newer truck, my "redo the arena" funds are now long gone. BUT, ever the optimist, I hopefully made a nice discovery this morning while feeding Doc his morning carrots...

We have screened stone dust in my arena, put down probably 9 years ago. I'm the only person who rides in the arena. Long story short...the stone dust appears to have compacted a bit over the years so I thought there wasn't enough footing and the only option was to have the arena redone. (I teach school and have a retired husband = not a lot of extra $$$). A while ago I went out to the arena with a pitchfork and dug in a few inches (pretty easily), turning over the footing - WOW - LOTS OF IT! I did a couple more dig down and turns and I had a pile of lovely, fluffy footing! Maybe, just maybe, the little drag we've used behind the tractor has just smoothed the surface over the years with the weight of the tractor packing stuff down.

How might we harrow the arena to get down 3-4 inches (there's at least than much) to turn over and fluff the footing? What type of harrow would be needed? Anyone ever had a similar problem? Would love some experienced folks to jump in here with ideas...Thanks for the help! :cool:

[netg]

Do you even want it that deep?

Know anyone with a tractor with a rake attachment? It probably doesn't take fluffing work, just raking it deep enough to get to it?


There's always the option of hand raking. Which is NOT fun... but what we just did to our arena before our new footing was delivered because we had to pull and cut out roots from the vegetation we cleared. Hours and hours of work, but SO worth it. My guy bruised his sole with the clip of his shoe and was taking forever to come back - last night he discovered (on the longe line, thankfully I wasn't riding!) that the new footing feels great, and so does random leaps into the air followed by either bucks or rears. We actually went with something called "1/4 minus chat" from a local dealer, which turned out nicer than the samples/this picture:
http://www.acmesand.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/MCHT.jpg