I am happy to pass on what I learned in planning and building the farm. 

Property:   Constructed in 2007, the farm has a 6 stall Barnpros barn, large covered arena from Vulcan Steel, 8 competition stalls, 2 creeks, a slew, and a future trout pond.   The farm consists of 59 acres on the Mackenzie River.   Of the 59 acres, 25 or so is an island accessible during the summer when the river is down.   We have an approximate 5 acre Derby Field for events held on the grass.

Excavation:  First of all, I could not have made it through this project without Wendell Dieltz and Cutting Edge Construction.   He moved a lot of dirt and helped me avoid pitfalls along the way!

Arena:   The arena is a steel building with straight columns and is 84' x 204'.  It is open on all 4 sides.   It is continuous with an approximate 80' x 132' outdoor arena, for a total arena length of 336'.

Arena Base & Footing:  The arena was constructed on

• a sub-base of 2' - 3' compacted river rock and soil
  
• 4"- 6" of compacted 3/4 minus rock
• 8" - 12" of 3/8 minus rock
• 2" - 2 1/2" of beach sand (Florence, OR), this sand is virtually dustless
  
• 1/2" of planer shavings
  • The sand and shavings mix was formulated by Baudouin Hallet of Hallet Training
    

Event Stabling:  We have 8 event stalls with a floor of  "Stall Skins" placed over 3" of sand.   The stall skin product is amazing, I highly recommend it.  

Cross Country Course:  We currently have two bank complexes, a variety of different sized ditches, and we are working on the logistics for a water complex.  All are located in the Derby Field.  In addition, in the fall of 2010, we added over 30 professionally built cross country jumps, with beginner novice through preliminarly obstables.  We have chevrons, corners, skinnys, combinations, and so much more.  Come check out whats new at Make Your Mark!!! 

Fencing & Pasture Creation:  Our soil here is 60% sand, with riverbottom soil and river rock.   Our pasture fence was installed by Kiwi Fencing.  It is Centaur HTP fencing.  Of interesting note, Kiwi drove the fence posts into the soil without first drilling a hole.   Especially in our soil, using an auger tends to make the holes very large, and concrete is ineffective in stablizing the posts.  Our Pasture seed mix was designed by Kiwi Agritech, their pasture maintenance division.