assorted and sundry

We had sunshine this afternoon, lots of wind, reportedly a stunning double rainbow, and then a terrible hour of wind and rain that blew so hard and so steady I stood in the barn with the horses so I could deal with a crisis if one happened.

A lot of folks have had trees come down today, and I am never sure which is safer for the horses - pasture (with trees and electric lines and fences and blowing objects) or the barn, where they could be trapped if something fell in. Our vet says if the barn is solid, keep them in. I let the geldings have stall doors open, and I stood in with Salina and the donkeys.

They are all so good. The pony helped me hold the flashlight with his teeth. They stood quietly and the geldings watched the roaring wind out back. At one point, after dark, there was a big boom and the power went out. I had prepared for that by filling all the water buckets earlier, and I had the big flashlight. I discovered that I can hold the handle along with the rake handle while mucking, a sort of "muckrake headlight."

Fortunately the wind began to slow a bit and we had power back within two hours.

This was the odd light that came right before the dark skies, hardest wind, and rain blew in.



And while uploading that one, I found these from last week, that I'd forgotten all about. The stare down!



Salina modeling her new knee warmers. I highly recommend these - although a bit of an effort to get on and off, they are warm, can be easily doubled to make extra layers, and they stay where you put them w/o being too tight. They also wash and dry back to perfection. You can find them online by Googling Whinny Warmers.



And, more donkey play. Rafer likes to be the Boss Donkey. Redford seems to be just fine with it.

yesterday was so chaotic I thought it was monday!

It was Tuesday.

Today it's raining, still more, and the wind has blown in. I'm glad for the wind's help in drying things out as the rain clouds leave, but with the ground so saturated, I'm worrying about big trees coming down.

It looks like we'll have some sunshine by tomorrow morning, and hopefully on through the week.

It feels impossible that today is Wednesday, like time has gone out of whack completely.
The funny thing is, there are calendars everywhere here and I still don't know what day it is!

I'll try to add some photos later in the day.

slightly chaotic monday

It was raining. The back gate was left open by accident. All the geldings were soaked to the skin when I got outside to feed breakfast. Massage therapist was due in an hour.

I got them in, fed them breakfast, closed the stall doors, mucked while they ate hay, and then came in and got cleaned up to get my hot stone massage first, in hopes that they would dry out.

One Corgi climbed into H's hot stone case. The other one tried to leap onto the freshly made massage table. Mystic-kit played music on the table cords with his paw.

I was telling a story about Dickens E. Wickens when the door burst open. It was Dickens. H. shut the door back and continued. By this time there were two dogs and two cats in the room with us.

Mid-massage, I heard my kids. "Keats! What IS that?" Keats the cat had brought in a bird, which was upstairs in our tree. The rest of the cats ran up (H. had to open the door again to let Mystic and Keats out) and chaos ensued. H. asked, "What do you want to do?"

"Just keep massaging," I said.

The kids opened the upstairs windows and the bird eventually flew to safety.

After my massage, I went out to help get the horses set up. Cody was being very antsy, so I ended up holding him. The pony was nervous about the hot stones, as it was his first time with them. I ended up holding him.

Keil Bay stood at his stall door and quite literally begged for a massage the entire time. The donkeys propped their little velvet noses on the stall door across the aisle and begged to come out. Salina knew it was not her turn for massage and she munched hay and kept an eye on the donkeys.

Keil Bay eventually managed to let himself out of his stall and into the barn aisle, where he stood gazing at the big bowl of hot stones.

H. brought me a bitless bridle to borrow and we tried it on Keil Bay. All the buckles had to be put to the last holes, his head is so big. He loved modeling the bridle. He was somewhat upset when we removed the bridle and he did not get that massage he wanted so badly.

Alas, it was still raining so no trial ride today.

H. and I decided that our word for 2009 is "balance."

H. made the very astute statement that perhaps mine is "balance w/o symmetry."

H. sent me in to take a hot bath with epsom salts to get warmed up.

While I was in the bath, jets going full blast, the power went out. It came back on.

All chaos aside, though, it's been a great day.

more rain and barn improvements

We're having more rain. The ground never truly dried out from the last rain, so this morning when I looked out there is standing water everywhere. The only thing that saves us from total mudville is that the property slopes both in front and in back. The barn sits on the highest point, and the previous owners wisely made very slight "ditches" in the various paddocks so the water can drain away.

The riding arena drains like a dream, so it is nearly always rideable, and during times when we have lots of rain, I often use it as an exercise paddock for bored horses. The footing cleans and stimulates the horses' feet, they get a bit of activity, and the fact that Cody will almost always roll before I can stop him is a small price to pay for the satisfaction they feel coming back into the barn.

Yesterday I spent a little while thinking about improvements I'd like to make. Like a gardener pondering seed catalogs in the middle of winter, I'm sitting inside thinking of ways to make various areas better, while outdoors the rain keeps falling and horses munch hay.

Last night I found a site with photos of the exact thing I was thinking of - screen panels with pea gravel or crushed stone. My plan is to make a path from our back gate up to the barn door, where the stone area will extend maybe 5 feet out in a sort of box-shape. I'd like to do the entire small barnyard, at the other end of the barn, this same way, since I use that area for cleaning feed tubs and for hosing/bathing in the warmer months.

At every gate and water trough, I'd like more "squares" of screen/stone, so those areas don't get muddy and horrid when it rains a lot.

I'd never thought of using this system in stalls, but after the great putrid stall spot debacle of a few months ago, I think I might test this system out in one stall to see how it works. The stall base, then the panels, then the crushed stone screenings, then the stall mats, then the bedding. It seems the panels would keep things nice and level underneath.

I've also been thinking about feeding hay inside the barn. We have mangers built in at ground level in each stall and they do keep the hay contained quite nicely. However, unless we totally pack the hay in, the horses seem to run out at some point during the night. I've been reading about slow feeding hay nets and bags, which make the hay last, keep the horses chewing longer, and keep them occupied. None of ours are locked in stalls, but even so, to have the hay last and reduce waste would be a good thing.

The small mesh hay bags were my original choice, but then I couldn't quite figure out how to secure them in the mangers so they wouldn't be tossed all over the barn like beach balls.

These feeders look interesting. They would stand right inside the mangers, and should anyone ever need soaked hay, voila, they would do the job nicely.

I've also priced potable hoses, which I can get immediately. I've been reading about garden hoses and what happens in the sun to the plastic, and don't want to be adding that to my horses' water.

There was also a similar concern about the hard plastic water troughs sitting out in the sun, and someone suggested old porcelain bathtubs. Yikes. I actually thought the hard plastic Rubbermaid troughs with stainless steel inserts would be perfect, but to my knowledge, they do not exist. I'll keep looking and thinking about that.

I'm thinking about making a barn "wish book" where I cut and paste pictures and jot in ideas as I have them. Sometimes living with things a while changes my mind, so it's always good to let the ideas for change sit and simmer for a bit before I carry them out.

NOTE: The slow feeders are VERY expensive, but perhaps provide a model for designing your own, or worth the money if you need the soaking option for an IR horse. Obviously, nets are the cheapest way to go.

thinking riding

Daughter came home last night with some books checked out from the pony club library. One, called Thinking Riding, by Molly Sivewright, has completely pulled me in.

The copyright is 1979 but it seems like a classic.

This, in the first 50 pages:

Correct work, fresh air and a certain amount of relaxation are necessary in the horses' daily routine for their proper development and general well-being. By nature, from their ancestors, horses are creatures of the plains; they love freedom and wide open spaces for their minds as well as for their limbs. The horseman can feel and share his horse's contentment as his equine eyes take in far-distant views and activities in the countryside, as he is allowed to pick his own way on a long rein, at a purposeful yet leisurely walk.

The full value of walking exercise is often underestimated; there is no better gait for putting on and establishing a horse's condition, for at the walk the horse moves his head and neck extensively, and all the muscles of his top-line are brought into play and are worked and developed, providing he is ridden correctly, and yet at the same time stress and concussion are less than at any other gait.

I love the writing style, and there are nice sketches throughout.