Warning – Dreary Monday

Work: PM1 heat session/EVE grooming scheduled.
Report: lots of yawns. While I am all for happy horse, I wish there was a way other than hindsight to tell if this quantity of mouth motion meant permanent progress or just temporary satisfaction.

Ramblings for the day: started off by reading a moving description of the loss a horse, The Grasshopper, and spent the day in gloomy, weepy mood. Mind you, I have never met Hopper or his rider. The story made me realize how much I still miss Previous Horse. Okay, he was a cranky, opinionated PIA. You get no argument from me. He never loved me about all else, as Hopper apparently did. Caesar only ever loved Caesar. He cared not a whit if I fell off. But I totally trusted his athletic ability. If I could stay over the top, he would get us out of whatever hairy mess I tossed us into. Provided he deigned to go near said hairy mess in the first place.

It’s been a 2 years 9 months and I still choked up as I wrote a sympathy message on the post. Can’t swear to being dry-eyed as I type this either. Yet, Caesar’s passing was in the fullness of time. He was well into a happy retirement when he passed away suddenly and, as far as we could tell, painlessly. If I was an enlightened sort, I might be able to accept this as the circle of life.

The point? I have no point. I want my horse back.

I’m Ready For My Close-up

Work: day off, for no particular reason.
Report: My plan to put everything off until spring includes not fussing – or at least attempting not to fuss – if I don’t get to the barn 3 hours a day, every day [3 sessions @ ~1 hour per, excluding feeding]. I must learn to stop putting in more than I am getting out. That way lies madness.

Ramblings: from our Christmas photo session, the reason it is so hard to get a decent picture of Rodney:
On the other hoof, Mathilda hates having her picture made. The sound of a camera shutter will send her galloping off. After 22 years, we probably have that many pictures of her.

Your horse(s): camera hog or camera shy?

A Thing of Beauty

Work: PM1 heat therapy/PM2 company walk.
Report: The gentlemen joined the ladies for the first part of the mare walk. I would have said that Rodney was pulling on the halter more than circumstances required. Greg saw it as a 17+h Thoroughbred having trouble gearing his long legs down to strolling speed for a 15+h geriatric Quarter Horse. They went back to the barn and we proceeded. At aphelion on our final lap, Rodney crested the horizon at Mach 2 with his halter on and leadrope blowing in the breeze. Therefore, I’m gonna vote that my analysis was closer to the mark.

Ramblings for the Day: Rodney & Mathilda eat twice the amount of hay that Mathilda and Previous Horse ate. That means four times the amount of manure spread over eight times the area around the feed buckets. When one has more fertilizer than land and weather can process, one needs a drag to spread the piles. Voila:

Build from two fence posts & a leftover bit of fencing and driven on its maiden flight by my in-house mechanic. I tell you, he’s a keeper, the occasional horse fit not withstanding.

What is your favorite piece of farm equipment?

Scheduling

Work: PM heat therapy.
Report & Ramblings: Our second session in which we did groundwork has already slid off the agenda due to short days & my inability to get my act together in the morning. Now it looks as if the walks are disappearing as well.

I originally started walking him after his therapy figuring that he would be at his most amenable. Now I’m thinking that the converse may have been operating. Working immediately after was not letting him get the maximum benefit from being heated & rubbed down. I know after bodywork I certainly don’t want to go anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone.

Greg has not completely bought into my horse attitude/cold weather inverse relationship. I think it has enough merit that I am willing to let things slide for a few weeks see to if warmer weather works in my favor.

Or perhaps I’m just lazy.

Daddy Dearest

Work: PM heat therapy/EVE groom.
Report: walked mare immediately after heat session. Rodney went into the barn for 1/2 a lap, came out, ate hay, went back in, & when we were done went back out to graze with her. I have no idea what, if anything, all of this means.

Ramblings: Yesterday, Sara Light-Waller of Sacred Touch Healing, suggested that emotional issues might be a contributing cause to Rodney’s biological gas attacks. Plus, “holding of some memory trauma in his intestinal pathway” would explain why he reacts to gastric medicine as if he has ulcers but does not display the standard ulcer symptoms of colic (thankfully) or weight loss (no way!). I had not thought about an emotional component. Not surprising, as I mostly try to reason my way through life.

If you want trauma, I can’t think of much worse than being attacked by one’s father. I don’t mean in a cutesy, anthropomorphic, I-am-Rodney’s-mommy fashion (which, BTW, I reject utterly). I mean literally. Rodney’s breeders ran the horses in a herd. When Rodney and his half-brother were about a year old, the stallion decided they were excess to requirements. He savaged both of them along their backs and withers. As I understand the timeline, the two yearlings were swept up by the folks from whom I bought Rodney 10 years later. They developed raging infections to the point of almost losing one or both of them. Imagine going all at once from contented, rambunctious foal at momma’s side to searing pain, separation, weaning, and a new barn.

Time will tell if releasing the scars has any effect on Rodney’s way of going or on his attitude. I am too hyper-rational to believe any of this emotional trauma, energy pathway nonsense. However, I have seen it work. Do as you will with that contradiction.

New Age horse techniques, yeah or nay?

What A Stinker

Work: day off.

Over the last many months, I have been working to loosen an old scar on Rodney’s back. Forty-five minutes of heat results in less than a millimeter of progress. As I work on his back, he gives the usual happy horse signs of yawning and farting. On days when I have made more progress than usual, his waste products – both gaseous and solid – are absolutely vile, almost sulfuric. This can continue for several days. I like to think of this as a sign that I have opened up important energy pathways and that his body is getting rid of toxins. Or, it could be complete coincidence with a particularly smelly patch of grass.

Any massage therapists care to weigh in?

Hay Is For Horses. But Why?

Work: as yesterday, with 30-minute lunch break between Rodney’s heating session and Mathilda’s walk.
Report: Caught mare. Rodney eating hay. Rodney comes over to survey the carrot situation. As we pass the barn, he saunters in. After our first lap, he emerges, gives an abandoned foal scream, and goes back to the hay. Will continue to experiment with the parameters.

Ramblings: Would you be ecstatic over a steady diet of granola, beef jerky, & water? Horses are. We bring them the same thing day in, day out. They go nuts, day in, day out. I don’t care if dinner was Waygu beef hamburgers served by Chippendale waiters, after a while, I’d want a change.

Our horses not only want their hay, but when we bring in a new load, they insist on sampling it to test for quality. Then, once served, not all hay is the same, even within a bale. Hay gets pawed thru and spread around. It’s dried grass, I have to wonder what are they looking for. With one load, Mathilda would root through each flake, eating what she considered to be the good bits and leaving the rest. The difference was invisible to us.

Then there is the hay versus grass decision. Since our horses are fed in their pasture, they can chose to eat their hay or wander off and graze. Clearly, fresh Kentucky bluegrass would beat any hay. But our land is not KY limestone and the grass is of commensurate quality. As spring comes, we can see them weigh hay versus grass. Part of the equation is convenience. Hay requires no activity other than jaw motion. Grass must be hunted.

Last year Rodney appeared to prefer hay over grass, partly because he did not like leaving the barn area. Already this year he is grazing farther and farther away. Could it be that it is just taken him this long to settle in?

Any hay antics to report?