Greener pastures: Manitoulin stable owner gets eco-friendly.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: GREEN - Kyla Jansen's farm in Manitoulin, Ontario, Canada

Kyla Jansen's farm didn't become environmentally friendly by design. But when you live in a rural area where services are limited, adaptability is your best asset.

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"There's no hydro--basically going green was my only option," laughed Jansen, the owner of Honora Bay Riding Stables on Manitoulin Island. "It wasn't initially necessarily because that's what I planned. It is now a fairly large focus because, number one, it's much healthier and if I can do stuff like that, great. But it wasn't my initial focus; my initial focus was to find a place for my horses to live."

When the Islander acquired her property in 2006, it was with the intention of providing riding lessons and trail rides. In under a decade, she's transformed the former gravel pit into an equestrian's playground, with riding trails, a barn, boarding stalls, an indoor riding arena, and acres of pasture where she provides trail rides and riding lessons, and hosts clinics in everything from horsemanship to vaulting.

And she does it all with the health of her horses and the environment in mind.

Last year, Jansen's farm was recognized by the Ontario Equestrian Federation as one of the most eco-friendly in Canada, earning the 2011 Just Add Horses Environmental Award, which is presented annually to the individual or group "who have been deemed most dedicated by their equine peers to have helped raise the environmental bar."

Her quest to reduce her environmental hoof print began about five years ago when she installed a frost-free nose pump for her horses, a system commonly used with cattle, but still unique in its use with horses.

The system, which comprises an insulated culvert drilled 20 feet into the ground, allows the horses to pump out their own water by pumping a paddle with their noses. Water travels up the pipe and drains back down when the horse is finished drinking.

"I never have to worry about water freezing, I don't have to worry about me missing pumping water for the and they are not drinking from a pond, which could be contaminated," Jansen said. "So they are self sufficient and I know my horses are getting water."

The pump was so successful, she installed a second one last summer.

Tired of using a smelly, loud generator to access hydro at her property, Jansen then installed a solar array that supplies her with about 2,000 watts at full power--equivalent to that used by an average household--which powers the arena lights, heaters in the winter...