an interesting turn-around

Earlier in the day I was down in the labyrinth area spreading manure, and I noticed the most fascinating shift.

Last spring and summer and on into fall, the entire area down there was green and almost jungle-like with the wildflowers and brambles and brush growing like mad. My labyrinth path was a fairly narrow band of pine shavings and manure that wound around through this jungle. By summer's end the walls of the labyrinth were taller than my head, and because of the chiggers, my husband was often down there cutting back the growth to preserve the path.

Over the winter the trees were trimmed back down there and the machines made a mess of things. I decided to work on the woodland path for awhile instead, until I saw how to proceed on the labyrinth itself.

Today when I went down there I noticed that all the brush areas are the browns and faded tans of late winter, but the path itself is a vivid green. Apparently, the manure and the hay scraps that were spread along with the shavings had seeds, and now a gorgeous swath of orchard grass is winding around the area, like a giant reached down with a big paintbrush and made a spiral of green.

It was sad to see my labyrinth the way it was last spring and summer fade into the winter and the tracks of huge machinery, but I smoothed it out as best I could and let it sit, figuring something different, but equally good, might come of it when I finished the woodland path. And so it has.


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And another turn-around:

Last week we were fighting to keep ice out of water troughs. This afternoon Keil Bay is in the back field doing hoof trough baths for himself, Cody, and the pony, who line up beside him while he goes to town with his hoof. They all get a cool-down and the tub - well it then needs to be cleaned, but the Big Bay knows his personal maid service will be out in short order to take care of it.

swamped

And not the kind that comes with lots of rain in a short period of time!

This is just one of those days when my perspective has gone wonky and I feel like there is NO WAY I will ever be able to get all the things done that seem to be front and center on my pile of things to do.

I would like to ride Keil Bay. Laundry is piled way up. My desk is a monstrosity of things to be done, none of them boring yucky things, and yet there are so many I can't sort out where to begin.

Edits to do, a pony story to continue, my equine nutrition class homework, which involves using a more accurate calculation to get a better estimate of their weights, so that I can begin to figure out how many Mcals they need in a day based on weight, personality, age, and amount of work. A very practical bit of homework that will involve some time. Client paperwork.

A load of furniture to configure. Boxes to unpack. Shelves to empty and then fill. The regular chores of the day.

Part of this is that I never really "caught up" last week, and now everything is snowballing. Or so it seems.

The thing I have to remember is that tomorrow I'll wake up and most of the same things will be calling to me, but the voices won't be as loud, and my sense of it all will have shifted.

Could be spring fever. Could be a hormonal blip. Could be brain chemistry.

In any case, I am going to do the next load of laundry, print out some client forms, and then decide what will come next. One task at a time.

alchemy in the feed room

The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.

-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist



I got two scales yesterday for the feed room, and spent an hour last night and again this morning weighing feed ingredients to get more exact about amounts and ratios.

I should have taken photos this morning, of the vivid green of alfalfa pellets, the mixed and more muted green of the beet pulp, the light brown fluffy wheat bran, and the beautiful oats, layered in the white bowl sitting on the big scale.

Cody's coconut oil is iridescent in its tiny glass, and the vitamin E capsules are a rich amber liquid. I use a pushpin to puncture a hole in each one so I can squeeze it into their tubs.

Right now I'm doing one horse's feed at a time, using the nifty bowl scale which allows you to zero out after each addition so you don't have to calculate as you go. The smaller gram scale is for the few things I am feeding in smaller amounts, like flax seed, and measuring individually for each horse.

Once I get everyone on the exact amount by weight, I can convert back to the easier measurements, i.e. Salina gets two scoops of this, that many of that, etc.

I keep the best sized scoop for each ingredient in the bins and a white board with instructions so nothing gets confused.

This morning I also took my new coffee grinder out so I can start grinding the whole flax fresh each feed. It turned out beautifully and smelled really good. The horses were intrigued with the grinder, not at all afraid of the noise. Salina and Keil Bay actually seemed to be happy hearing it - the warmbloods love food and I suspect would put up with anything if it meant a feed tub was the end result.

My husband was not thrilled with how long it took me to get all the tubs done. I know there will be times when it will seem like a lot of work, but for the most part, I truly enjoy it. The scooping and measuring - just the sight of the flax seeds in the little scale bowl made me happy. I had NPR on, and the sun was shining through the feed room window. I have a pretty vinyl tablecloth on my work table in there, and a container full of measuring spoons and scoops.

I fancy myself a sort of equine nutrition alchemist, mixing up potions that keep them healthy and well.

It's time for a spring cleaning in there, and I have a dark green wicker love seat that came from the foyer outside my old office, so if there's room once I clear and shift things, I may get the seating I've been longing for. There's a lot of good energy in the feed room, and I'd like to be able to sit down and soak it in.


I learned that the world has a soul, and that whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things. I learned that many alchemists realized their destinies, and wound up discovering the Soul of the World, the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Elixir of Life. But above all, I learned that these things are all so simple they could be written on the surface of an emerald.

-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

catching up

With all the rain last weekend, and then the snow, a lot of things got pushed aside to deal with the extra work of having horses and donkeys in the barn, so yesterday and today we're catching up.

I spent a lot of time with the horses and donkeys. After breakfast, I worked for half an hour getting all the tarps off the shavings pile and laying them out in the sun so they could dry. We've got a big load of shavings coming too so I wanted the remains of the pile to dry and be clear for the big truck.

It was much warmer yesterday, even in the morning, when I didn't need gloves or even a jacket. There was a little breeze, and as I began to lay the tarps out they ballooned up like parachutes. I got caught up in this and played a little, letting the tarps float up, listening to the billowing sounds.

The horses and donkeys were all in the back field, but within about a minute, Keil Bay, Salina, Rafer Johnson, and Redford all trekked back up to the paddock and lined up at the fence to watch. There's a big deal made about de-spooking horses to tarps, but what I have found is that they do it themselves if the tarps are used for practical purposes around the barn, which ours are, and the horses are allowed to graze/relax in the same space as the tarps.

All of our equines will walk on tarps, stick their heads under them, and otherwise mostly ignore them, but yesterday the Hanoverians and the donkeys seemed ready to play.

I briefly thought about letting the four interested equines into the barnyard with me, to explore the tarps laid out everywhere, but the possibility that the shavings truck might come made me think twice. So they watched over the fence while I flapped.

Around mid-day I gathered up all my de-wormer boxes (I do double-dose Ivermectin in February, but it got pushed back due to the cold weather) and my daughter grabbed a lead rope in case we needed it.

The herd had come up to the paddock again to see what was going on, so I opened two tubes and climbed through the fence.

Rafer Johnson is the king of de-worming. He has always been really cooperative with this, to the point of following me around and asking for more. The Ivermectin I use is not the flavored kind, so I can't imagine why he wants it, but it sure makes life easier.

He saw the tubes and marched right up. I let him smell the tube, he positioned his head, and I gave him the double dose for his weight, then went in search of Redford to finish off the tube.

Redford wanted to check things out longer, but he too offered his head and took his medicine with no fuss. I only needed the hand holding the de-wormer tube.

The intriguing thing about this is that the other horses see what's happening, and if they wanted, could head out to the field. But they never do. Their curiosity sometimes gets the better of them, and there have been times when I've been encircled by all of them, pushing their heads close for their own dose of de-wormer.

Yesterday they stayed where they were, within about ten feet of one another, and let me go to them one by one.

My daughter put the lead rope over Cody's neck, as he sometimes wants to walk away from tubes (especially after the foul-tasting digestive enzyme debacle awhile back). However, I tried the one-handed approach on him (he had to get two full tubes) and he too stood and took them without moving his head at all.

Keil Bay smelled the tube, raised his head high and lifted his upper lip, and then took his tubes with no fuss.

Salina has gotten over her hatred of tube syringes of all kinds. The key with her is to slide the syringe flat along the side of her face/cheek, and the insert the tip from the side. She doesn't like the tip going at her mouth, and now that we always do it the way she likes, she knows it's coming and takes it easily.

All done, and it took nothing but a dangling lead rope on one horse's neck. We piled the hay-barrow high with orchard grass hay and rolled it out to the field so they could munch.

Later in the afternoon while my daughter rode Cody I took a brush and currycomb to the back and spent an hour brushing donkeys and horses. The donkeys stood quietly and did their quiet happy snorts, and Salina closed her eyes and enjoyed the day.

Keil Bay likes to exercise his right to march around while being brushed, and the pony was not too happy initially but when I persisted, he relented and let me get the mud off his coat. It's time to bring out the grazing muzzle and I dread it. But he's gained a little weight already, and the muzzle is better than separating him from his herd.

It was nice brushing in the field while watching Cody move under saddle, calm and relaxed at the walk, trot, and canter. He is looking better and better, and my daughter showed off her sitting trot at the end of the ride. She really looks like she's part of the horse, with no bouncing, no artificial pumping with the pelvis, and no head/shoulder bobbing. It's a delight to watch.

By sunset I was exhausted and slept like a rock. Today I can finish catching up and hopefully get most of the office stuff incorporated into the household so we can roll into the weekend free and clear.

cross of invocation

Yesterday afternoon I was out at the barn, enjoying the sunshine, the mid-forty degree temps, and the sight of four horses and two miniature donkeys soaking in the sun. Although it is still a bit of a mud-fest in the paddocks and high-traffic areas, they had nice hay, clean water, and good company.

My daughter had just shown me something neat - a number of hoof prints in a muddy patch that had filled with water and then frozen. When you stepped into the print, the ice made a satisfying crunch and interesting patterns.

There was nothing monumental about the afternoon, but it held a sense of peace and a good feeling that is, I suppose, easily missed if you're not paying attention.

I happened to look up, and a jet had made a sign in the sky. For years I would see what I call giant runic crosses in the sky, and my habit was to take each of them as a good omen, a sign of fulfillment and good things. I haven't seen as many of those in the past year, which doesn't mean things aren't good, but perhaps that I no longer need the symbol to remind me.

Yesterday's giant symbol was one I'd never seen before. I enjoyed it in the moment for what it was, feeling blessed in some way and also intrigued that as I continued to work in the barnyard, the entire symbol floated east in the sky.

Later in the evening, before dark, I was answering someone's question about an arthritic protocol for horses I'd mentioned on a forum, typing that it was something I'd looked into for Salina. I ended up on the phone with my husband, talking through the whole thing again, thinking about whether this medication is something we should go ahead and try for her, even though most of the time she seems to be fine, given her age and the condition of her knees.

Just about that moment I heard a commotion in back, and looked out the glass doors just in time to see Salina galloping in from the back field, leading the herd, bucking and kicking up her heels like a young filly. Rafer Johnson and Redford, her Donkey Guard, were bringing up her flank, one on either side, doing their fanciest donkey trot with heads turning right and left, like young officers in a magical and elite formation.

"I guess she doesn't need that medication just yet," I said into the telephone, and then marveled at how she always seems to sense my worry and does something to reassure me.

This morning I went in search of the symbol from yesterday's sky, and found that it's called a "cross of invocation."

It was often used to mean "take this medication with a blessing" - and has made me think today that sometimes all the medicine we need can be found by simply looking.

A giant mark in the sky, a galloping black mare, ice in a hoof print.