horses – Page 49 – The Hermits' Rest

A Date with Nature and Livestock

Nature’s creatures have nothing to do with human organizations, judgmental humans, or unnecessary drama. Their drama is, at least, necessary. So I dumped social media and went outside on this nice day.

Half the day I added to my collection of observations for our Master Naturalist group’s summer bioblitz. I missed the spring one by being in North Carolina, so I wanted to make up for it. Here, enjoy some things I found:

The rest of the time, I hung out with my animal friends. I’m sure if I had grandchildren I would not take so many pictures of animals.

The chickens love to dust bathe in the sand.

Enjoy what really matters in life and let other stuff go. You’ll be healthier!

Things I Never Thought I Would Say: Poop Edition

Since moving here, I have found myself uttering phrases that the old Suna never would have come out with. Things like: Hey, I only sweated through two bras today!

With all these animals, of course the topic turns to what comes out of them. More than once I’ve had an in-depth discussion of what makes a healthy cow pie, and why it’s okay for them to have the runs at certain times of the year. So, yes, I’ve said, “Wow, that’s some fine looking cow dung!”

Today’s phrase I never would have thought I’d ever say is:

I really enjoy shoveling horse poop.

But, it’s true! I find myself looking forward to cleaning Apache’s pen while he and Drew eat their delicious food and supplements. It’s fun chasing all those stray horse apples, honestly. And it looks so great when you are done (which lasts approximately zero minutes to one hour, depending on horse digestion).

Hey, you just cleaned this, so I needed to make a new deposit. You’re welcome.

It sure makes it smell better, too. Of course, some poop shoveling is not fun. I put trying to clean the stock trailer in that category. It’s a really nice trailer with flooring that helps the animals stay steady on their feet. However, that flooring makes it very hard to remove poop, and let me tell you something, an animal placed in a trailer will poop, probably before you finish tying them up, or shut the door.

I went out this morning when it was “cooler” to finally tackle the trailer after Apache’s lesson a week ago. Wow, that was a frustrating job, but at least most is out. Obviously we need to pressure wash it, which will happen when we have a pressure washer that’s not stuck on one hose in the back yard.

And apparently, if you create an enclosure, equines will poop in it. I had left the “gate” to the round pen open so it could get mowed, and sure enough, Fiona ONLY pooped in there when she was out free ranging. That makes it fun for the human in the center working with the horse, or walking around with it.

Thank goodness, now that it’s mowed, the Fiona poop isn’t so obvious.

In good news, I went over to Sara’s and got the cones I forgot I owned (bought with the portable round pen and the other dressage accessories). I can now set up my circle much more accurately for our schooling practice.

They don’t have to be fancy cones to do the job. Here, they are up high so the grass can be cut.

Sounds like I have a fun weekend ahead of me, with poop shoveling as a feature, not a chore.

And feeding me, too. Don’t forget to feed me.

The Other Horse Gets a Turn

I’ve been concentrating a lot on Apache lately, but that doesn’t mean I have forgotten Drew! He won’t let me forget him, anyway, since every time he sees me, he comes up to see what’s going on. That’s really a good sign! He’s doing a good job learning not to crowd me, yet be close enough for affection. That’s got to be hard to learn (they call it staying out of my bubble).

We are in each other’s bubbles on purpose, here.

He continues to learn in the round pen, and I want to try some of the things I’m learning with Apache, but I am not going to step right in front of a cantering colt to get him to pay attention. I’ll figure something out, since I do have the long coach whip. He tends to ignore it, I guess because he hasn’t felt it. The other round pen issue is that he stumbles on his back feet occasionally. I am going to have him checked to see if it is just young horse awkwardness or something else. He does not appear to be ill.

He has put on some weight and is all muscled. It’s fun to watch him run.

But otherwise, we have great fun going for walks and not eating grass, so maybe he won’t form that habit. The idea is if his halter is on, he doesn’t eat, which is a thing I’d been inconsistent with on Apache. I know Kathleen will keep me honest with that. We can all learn new tricks!

I really enjoy his spirit and ease being around me, the dogs, the chickens, and Fiona. He is just a fun little guy.

His eye is still goopy, but better. Other animals here also have it, and we humans, too, so we are chalking it up to allergies from the very wet year we’ve had. Speaking of the other animals, the other four horses here have had a nice week or so of pasture rest. They spent a lot of it licking a cow mineral block with molasses in it, and had very brown faces. But, they finished it and look more normal now.

Granny’s muzzle is back to normal. She is the friendliest of the bunch, and always comes to see me to get her daily does of scritches and pets. She remains thin, but she’s old.

All the others are looking quite healthy. Mabel especially seems much better since her injuries were addressed. She is filling out and looks like a race horse or something. Her legs are amazing!

Suna just says nice things, because she wants to ride me someday.

The two buckskins stay together all the time. It’s very sweet to watch them out grazing. All in all, they seem to be a happy herd that will be ready to do more work soon. I enjoy watching them!

We are holding a memorial service for the empty cow mineral bucket.

Fiona is a very happy donkey. She gets to wander around the property during the day, eating whatever she wants, wherever she wants to. She actually doesn’t go very far, but it’s nice to just walk up and love on her while I’m dealing with the chickens and such. Things are settling in nicely!

Feeding time for my guys. Everyone gets their own spot. I clean poop while they eat, just as I learned from Kathleen!

Oh, and one more thing! Now that I finished my Friends of La Leche League newsletter I have time to do things I should have done a long time ago, and I finally blocked the shawl I made for Kathleen. It should be dry and looking much more like a shawl by tomorrow! See, I don’t spend all day every day with horses.

This clash of colors is a bit nauseating, but I think the shawl will look cool with its little scallops on the edges.

When You’re Irritated, Go Outside

No matter how many times I try to convince myself not to care to much about my work, I keep doing it, and the way things are set up now, I really need to just roll with the changes. But, I’ll try to do that again, next time.

Goldie is rolling with the changes. Keep on rolling, keep on rolling, as REO Speedwagon advised.

So, today I made a point of going outside and enjoying a relatively cool August day with the animals. I did some excellent breathing, then went out to see how the horses were doing.

What, I’m supposed to be rolling? Usually you make me stop!

I got Drew out and tried to groom him. Oh my gosh, he, too, had been rolling. In the sand. While sweating. He was now an orange horse. He had clay-like clods in his mane that would not brush out. I got my exercise in!

I don’t know what she’s talking about. I look just fine…from a distance, backlit.

We went for a walk, which was fine until Harvey took off after him and he bolted away. Drew is very pretty when running. And he waited for me. I took a deep breath and we finished our walk. Then we went in the round pen, and Drew totally made up for running off. He has improved so much! At least I feel like I’ve taught him something. He slows down, stops, turns, and comes to me when asked.

I’m not so bad. Also, Fiona’s empty dish tastes better than mine.

Then I fetched Apache, who was much less filthy but more bothered by flies. I see why Drew was rolling in the sand. Both got fly spray, so they will be better for a few days. I put Apache in the round pen to see if he’d move better after some pain killer the night before.

He acted like normal Apache. He trotted around and around until I asked him to stop. He turned around when asked. He just kept going. I think maybe it’s just he abscess growing out.

We had a good walk, and when he started wanting to eat every time I stopped, I practiced starting and stopping after different numbers of steps. That made him think, and his head stayed up.

Sara has me reading a depressing article on sugar in grass. It makes me feel doomed at slimming him down again until winter. I can’t let him out only between 9 pm and 3 am. Sigh.

I can’t help it. I was born this way. Or mismanagement. Or something. This is my bad angle!

By the time I did all this, I felt better. Keeping myself centered to work with the horses helped a lot! Animal therapy. I’d say it’s free, but horses are not cheap.

Going Cuckoo over Gloomy Beauty

It’s time for another post with mostly photos. The rainy day brought a lot of sights, from a bird and insects I’d never seen before to animals dealing with water. That’s right, the title of this post isn’t an insensitive ableist phrase, I actually saw a cuckoo!

In the center is a yellow-billed cuckoo!

I knew we had them here, but I’d never seen a cuckoo before. It must have been recovering from the most recent downpour. I read that these birds are called storm birds, because they tend to sing after a storm. This one wasn’t singing.

The other fun part of today was enjoying the wet animals. Poor Fiona thought she was trapped in one of the pens until Apache walked over and showed her it wasn’t a lake.

Here are some other images from around the pens.

Here are my insect finds. most are new to me, but not the fire ants. They messed up my foot night before last.

I’ll close with more moody weather photos. It was a pretty interesting day after all.

Progress, Despite Heat

It’s the time of year that we can’t get much done outdoors, but Lee and I are getting a few things accomplished (mostly Lee). His pond project has made it to the “proof of concept” phase, in which he connected all the parts, added water, plugged in a pump, and saw it work. It makes a nice sound, and you can even hear it over the sound of the giant fan we need to make sitting on the porch possible.

The dogs like it, and it’s getting prettier and prettier as he adds rocks and such. Plans include adding river rock and some larger rocks around it, and then adding more water features, like a stream bed and another pond. I’ll wait and see how that comes out before trying to describe it.

When he first got it running. The top fountain part is a concrete planter.

Lee also did a lot of work on the small pond, mainly smoothing out an edge, for easier dog and frog access.

He also added more rock to the front walkway, which I think makes the front of the house look better. It no longer looks like the house was just plopped down in the middle of a pasture (which it was, of course; in fact the concrete was poured seven years ago, yesterday).

Finally, some landscaping is in progress!

What Was I Up To?

Meanwhile, I had to stay inside much of the day, due to not feeling up to par (I am sleepy so much, and can’t figure out why!). I spent a long time on yesterday’s blog post (thanks for the nice comments!). Then I decided to start another knitting project with some interesting yarn I bought years ago. It’s called Haze, from Queensland, and has corn fiber in it, along with cotton.

I had been looking for a pattern, and didn’t think I’d found exactly what I wanted on Ravelry, but then my knitting friend Terri posted a photo of what she had started. That looked like what I wanted. It turned out to be one of the projects I’d already been considering, so I knew it was right. It’s a popular pattern from back when the Bones television show was on, named after Dr. Saroyan. It will be fun to knit. The leaf pattern edging is weird, but it ends up looking nice.

Eventually, I knew I had to go out and mess with the horses. Sara came over and we sat in the shade, which wasn’t too bad, thanks to a slight breeze. I practiced making Drew stay out of my space, but also enjoyed him and Goldie (and precious Fiona).

Eventually, we got up the gumption to do some work. I got Apache in the round pen, to see if Sara thought he had lameness or what. We are still not sure. Next, we got his food and put it in the trailer, because I want him to be comfortable getting in and out for lessons in Milano. Feeding him in there is how Sara had gotten him used to her trailer many years ago.

I’m in and eating! Of course, the first thing I did was poop. Sara got a picture of that, but you don’t need to see it.

I didn’t have much trouble at all getting him in. The trailer makes some weird noises and has a floor surface that was new to him, but he handled it fine. The main problem was that Goldie kept trying to “help” and when we were busy with Apache, she snuck in and ate his food. I do not want my fancy supplements going into the dog, sheesh.

I do plan to clean out the poop before the trailer is used to haul more of Anita’s stuff. But, we successfully got Apache in and out twice, despite the dog’s “help,” so I’ll practice a few more times before next Saturday, when he’ll actually go somewhere for the first time in a long time!

Here are some pictures from this morning of all the animals I saw.

Otherwise, it’s a burning hot weekend, so I’m mostly going to relax. I’ve been out petting and saying hi to the other horses a bit, but they’re just happy in their pasture. Everyone needs a day of rest; I guess that’s why so many religions mandate them!

Late afternoon sky to the south. No rain found us!

Broody Hen, Moody Horses

What better thing to do on a full moon than to try new things? Right. I did it anyway. Good ole Star went broody again, and with something taking the eggs every night, it was fruitless to let her set on them. What to do?

She was also hogging the preferred egg-laying spot, which made me worry about the new chickens when they go to finally start laying. Hmm.

Enjoy a passion vine in bloom while imagining me trying to figure out what to do.

Finally, reading the backyard chickens for newbies group paid off. Someone shared that if you put a broody hen in a dog cage with airflow under it, they would feel the cool air under them and go back to normal. It’s called a broody breaker. Why, there’s one of those in our coop. So…

I thought I’d need help, so I gathered Lee and Kathleen around. But all I needed was someone to open the door for me. I just picked her up and set her in there, with food and water. She is not happy. I hope this works!

It’s cute how all the other chickens keep checking on her. Bruce is especially concerned. He’s such a good rooster.

Moody Horses

I’m not having a lot of horse luck. I’m beginning to think it’s user error, and maybe I should not be riding until I get my lessons going. After not having much luck with Apache the previous day, I figured he’s not feeling well, so I just walked him (and Fiona) around.

He had just gotten out of his pen, so he really wanted to eat. That was frustrating, but we had fun anyway. Fiona followed us, and really seemed to enjoy exploring her new territory.

Hey, wait for me! (She’s that fit in the horizon)

Both of them liked the change of scenery, and I enjoyed the restful interlude.

I then tried to ride Andrew. I managed to eventually get the saddle and bridle adjusted for him. And he did okay in the round pen, but will now only go one direction. Anyway, I mounted, and he acted all barn sour and was hard to get to move out. Eventually he followed Dusty some, but I had to hood on through some spooking, and he crowded poor Kathleen and Dusty. In the end, Kathleen walked us around until neither he nor Dusty would do anything but investigate a feed dish. I’ll try another day. Who knows where the issue lies? I need help, but will get it soon.

I’m so glad Jim mowed. There’s hay everywhere. All I want to do is eat and gain weight and go lame. I’m a load of fun.

I just want a horse I can go riding on and learn new skills. I can’t do any of the exercises in the working equitation book, because I don’t have a clue what driving through the hindquarters means, and no horse of mine can side pass. I need patience! It’s not a race and is supposed to be fun. Maybe I’m the moody ones here.

Saturday Morning Ranch Sightings

Here at the Hermits’ Rest, weekend mornings start early for some and slow for others. But there’s always something lovely to see or fun to do. This morning was typical. Lee has started taking a walk every morning and asked me to join him. He may not do it again, as I had him go with me to feed the chickens and move Apache into his pen for the day, but we did eventually get to walking and looking at what’s growing and changing along our arroyo, which is still springy after the recent rains. I’m rather fond of the native plants and even the bad ole invasives (the water primrose) that line the stream.

Heck, to me tie vine is as lovely as fancy morning glories, and the ruellia is as pretty as a garden petunia. Plus, they are free!

A plant I hadn’t noticed much before is blooming right now, and the blooms are so tiny and hidden among the leaves that you almost wouldn’t notice them. It’s called scarlet toothcup (Ammannia coccinea). It’s a riparian plant, which means it grows in moist areas along streams and such. I think the little flowers are lovely.

Lee and I enjoyed many sights. What a great start to the day!

Next it was time to do some work, since the rest of the household had already been up working with horses and other chores. I got to help cut mesquite down where Sara’s horses currently are, in preparation for the cows that live here to rotate there. That was a lot of fun, and I saw some beautiful iron weed growing in that field.

It was good to be able to help by loading branches and opening gates. Plus, I got to see the other horses and more native plants and insects. I’ll spare you the endless supply of grasshoppers.

Everyone was busy this morning. The tenants were haying and Kathleen was horsing with her herd. I enjoy watching her ride. They’re all progressing according to plan, from what I can tell.

The dogs are just having fun, as usual, swimming, running, and rolling. I love seeing a happy Alfred!

All the Horse Health News That Fits the Blog

With all these skinny new horses, we have to keep an eye on their health. Kathleen was getting worried about some cuts on poor Mabel’s legs, and we both thought she seemed sad. We weren’t sure if she was sick or what.

So today they took her to yet another equine facility, and Kathleen liked them a lot. Mabel got all bandaged up so she can heal from what are apparently rope burns from being tied, from a previous owner. That makes us all even more glad she is here now. Other than her weight, though, she’s okay. Her sadness is just her taking time to adjust to her new surroundings, which makes sense.

I think she already feels better, because while confined to the mini-pen we discovered can be made from our flexible gates, she actually came up to me and asked to be rubbed on. What a good sign!

Meanwhile, my little pony Andrew (not really a pony) is also feeling better. Today’s the first day his eye hasn’t been all goopy in a week! I’m sure he’s glad people aren’t messing with his eyelids anymore!

These guys love each other, but Remi picks on Granny Amaretto

Today Lee had to take his car in for recalls in Rockdale, so I followed him and took the opportunity to get horse supplies from Tractor Supply. The highlight, for my steeds, was new hanging feed bowls for them, like Kathleen’s horses have. These hang on the fence and give them a chance to eat at a different height, which I read is good for them.

I also got a different girth for Drew, the kind the nephew recommended, and wormer for Fiona. She will love THAT. Plus, I got new treats. No sugar, low carb ones for a certain tubby paint horse. He ate one, so I guess they’re ok!

Don’t worry, dog lovers, my next blog will feature them!

Progress Report on Horses Drew and Apache, Plus Future Plans

Here we are at mid week, and things have calmed down at least a little. We’re getting into a routine with all the new horses and our very workable facility. While there will be improvements, like more roof and the tack room, what we have now feels quite luxurious!

Drew wishes he had Apache’s dinner, but it has very few calories, so he wouldn’t get much out of it.

It is so nice to have the round pen right there to warm up horses and to work with Drew. I’m happy to say that he is a lot better on the lunge line and now walks and trots more than trotting and cantering. Plus, he is starting to figure out that I am asking him to transition. He is also being a much better citizen when walking on a lead, and only crowds me in crowded spots. There’s work to do, but also progress. On the other hand, I have not found his “back” button.

Wow, exercise area, feeding area, pasture, shelter, and even a temporary washing station are here!

I’ve been riding Apache as often as possible. Yesterday, he acted like his right back hoof hurt and did not want to trot in the round pen, so I’m watching for another abscess. Yet, we went for a very long trail ride all over the cow pasture, front yard, and such, and he did just great. There’s a lot of progress with him, too, and I’m relaxing my feet more in the Western stirrups.

And look at this! We have trails mowed into the pasture for us, on both sides of the fence. We sure appreciate that!

The new horses of Kathleen’s are enjoying their lives very much. She’s been riding Dusty for hours every day, and they also are making huge progress. It’s fun to watch them. She walks all the horses daily and does tons of grooming. She’s the horsiest!

Dusty says, I’m enjoying riding around with Kathleen, and I’m gaining some weight!

Mabel has been looking sort of droopy, though, so she’s going to the vet ahead of schedule, just to be sure she is all right.

I’m eating a lot, but still working on filling out these old ribs of mine, says Granny Amaretto.

As for me, I know I am not equipped to train a young horse myself, so I have been talking to a local trainer whose philosophy and ideas agree with mine about getting him started the right way. She’s the woman who was the judge at the Working Equitation show we went to a while back. Starting in October, Drew will spend some time learning manners and skills, and I will also learn how to work with him the way he’s been trained.

Excuse me, I’m a teenager. I do not need manners. But, at least I’m clean, says Drew.

In the meantime, I’m going to start going to lessons with Apache, to help the two of us get more in tune and refine my riding and his horsing. I really look forward to finally getting some real lessons in horsemanship, after all these years of not doing it. It’s an investment into my future retirement fun. I can’t wait for Apache to get more balanced, so I can ride him at a trot and canter and maybe help get some of that weight off.