on duty: a painted pony

This morning while I was sitting here reading email and blogs over coffee, I noticed out my window that the painted pony was standing at high alert, looking across the front field and on across the lane toward the neighboring property.

Trusting his judgment, I went right out the front door to see what was going on.

One neighbor's dogs were barking at something I couldn't see, so I stood and listened for a few minutes and, not hearing anything, came back in.

The painted pony moved forward about 20 feet in the pasture, still watching. He smartly placed his quite splashy body next to a big oak tree, so that he was at least somewhat hidden from the lane.

I went back to the front porch. Although the barking dogs were directly across from me, the pony was looking far to the right, so I focused my attention there as well. In the distance I could hear a woman's voice, presumably calling the dogs.

My chief security officer stood tall and alert, pointing my lesser human ears to where the action was. I realized he was no longer looking toward the voice, but had shifted to a spot about midway between the direction the voice was coming from and the two barking dogs that I could see.

After a few moments, I spotted two small dogs, exactly where the pony was looking, but mostly obscured by brush.

We watched together for a few minutes. When the dogs ran off down the lane, hopefully back home, I came inside. He has now determined any danger is gone, and has turned back up the hill to a small pile of hay.

I believe he's going for my Employee of the Week award for the second week in a row. And he will likely get it, as there are literally NO other equines anywhere in the front field checking this out.

letting the cold go, welcoming three ravens

According to the weather forecast, this morning's wake-up temp of 14 degrees is the end of our long cold spell. Later this afternoon we're supposed to hit the 40s (one source says 41, another 49!), and tonight will see us in the 20s. Nights in the 20s are still a bit cool for us, but after many nights in the teens, this upward shift is welcome. The ground doesn't get *quite* so rock hard in the 20s, and the ice on troughs not quite so thick.

I'm eager to get horse blankets off and open the barn up so the sunshine can get in and do its job.

It's hard to believe we're already nearing the mid-point of January. We still have the holiday decorations up, but it's starting to feel like it's *almost* time to take them down. I like the Christmas tree and the twinkling lights though - they make it seem warmer and not so bleak.

This morning there were three ravens in our interior back yard, which represents a kind of victory. For those who have read here since the beginning, you'll know of my long-time association with crows and ravens, and how a group of 3 began to appear everywhere I went for several years. When we moved here, the number increased, and I spent many months trying to get photographs of the beautiful black birds. They were shy, though, and for a long time flew away the moment I even lifted my camera through the window of my house. At some point last year they began to allow photographs, even some close shots, and then we called a truce and I stopped trying.

Since then, they have flocked on a near-daily basis to the arena, in the barnyards, outside my bedroom windows, and they often caw at me from trees when I'm outside. A few weeks ago I walked out to find an entire row of them sitting on the arena fence watching the donkeys play. I love these birds.

Today, the three in the closest space to our house means they have come almost all the way in to our circle. That the number was three just makes it that much more special.

wish I had a picture

This afternoon I went out to give hay to the geldings. The day was gorgeous after all our cold weather - a one-day respite, apparently, before we get some snow and then more extreme cold. It was 46 degrees, sunny, very little wind, and the horses were so happy to be out of blankets and alive.

Salina was marching around searching for the donkey boys, who had taken a jog around the fields. She did her big trumpeting mama mare whinny, which almost instantly brought the long donkey ears into sight at the crest of the hill.

As I opened the gate to wheel the barrow of hay through for the geldings, Keil Bay gave a huge whinny from the bottom of the hill, and then he, Cody, and Apache Moon galloped up in a line and made a big cantering, prancing circle around me.

I don't think I've ever had such a joyous, whimsical moment with horses. I was the center of a living equine pinwheel.

It made my entire day. I'm not even dreading snow! :)

trim notes for december and a few other equine notes

Our December trims happened the Monday after Christmas, and in all the reverie I didn't get around to posting them.

Rafer Johnson got the gold star for best hooves this time. I love the gold star - it challenges me to focus on the good things and it also gets me inspired to look at any issues from a different perspective - i.e. how can I support the rest of the herd so they too can get gold stars?

Our main issue this time around was probably due to all the rain and resulting mud we've had. Several herd members had eroded frog tissue, so after B. left we went on the oil of oregano treatment plan for 4 days, and then took a break from the oil just in time for the arctic blast to hit. Hooves are definitely dry right now - and clean, because the mud is frozen hard! Perhaps one benefit of this frigid weather is that it will allow the hooves some time w/o the daily mud packing.

Overall, the trim notes were good. Keil Bay, who is often the one struggling to build up good frog tissue, has very prominent frogs in all but one hoof right now, and I have to wonder if that's part of why he is moving so well. B. asked me if he had been seen by the chiropractor - and he hasn't - but when you see him walk, he looks like every muscle and joint is working perfectly. He is an amazing example of a 20-year old horse.

On other fronts, Salina got her kinesiology test results. We use Patsy Bullard of Healthy Bodies. She's in Texas, and you swab a cotton ball over the gums to gather saliva, put it in a ziploc bag, and send it with the horse's name, age, job, and anything you want to say about diet and issues, plus a check for $35.

Patsy is almost always running about 6 weeks behind because she is so good at what she does she has many satisfied customers! But when she gets to your sample, she does the testing and then calls you on the phone and reviews her findings, gives her recommendations, and then you can either order the supplements (if any are recommended) from her, or you can buy them yourself elsewhere.

I always buy directly from Patsy, b/c she knows the sources of all her herbs and supps, and she sends them neatly packaged and labeled with precise instructions, which makes it really easy to administer. She includes a sheet with everything she said on the phone written up for your files.

The great thing about Patsy is that she will talk with you at length, answering questions, connecting dots (and often there are many to connect b/c she is so good at finding underlying issues that suddenly pull a mysterious symptom picture into clarity) and discussing the treatment plan.

I've used her with all the geldings with absolutely wonderful results.

I admit I was nervous about hearing Salina's results. But Patsy said everything looked really good except for two things. I immediately thought KNEES, but Patsy said the structure is good. It was liver function and digestive enzymes!

Patsy found that Salina is having an issue with liver toxins, which can result in sore, stiff muscles, and general malaise. The digestive enzyme deficiency can exacerbate this b/c the lack of enzymes makes the digestive system work harder to get the nutrients from the food.

We talked at length about the possibility that the yearly abscess and this more recent abscess are the body's way of getting the toxins out that the liver is not able to process.

Two days later, Salina's herbs arrived. She's now into week 3 of milk thistle and digestive enzymes, and when she finishes the milk thistle she will go onto a liver-building mixture of herbs for 3 more weeks (a total of 7 weeks).

By the second day we were beginning to see some very positive changes. She has not lost her appetite throughout the ordeal with the abscess but suddenly she was moving much more easily and quickly, was nickering loudly for meals, and on several days has resumed her habit of standing right outside the feed room door, as if to hurry me up even more.

At one point she got so frisky she started running from my husband when he gave her the syringed herbs! We have been so happy to see this shift back to her regular self.

She hates the digestive enzymes - they are quite bitter and even getting a whiff of the powder will make your nose go into contortions - so we opted not to mess with her meals (she needs those calories and the nutrients) and what is working is mixing her herbs with some raspberry jam, along with a tiny bit of warm water. It syringes easily and she will accept it w/o a battle.

Meanwhile, I decided it was finally time to send Patsy MY cotton ball, so I am eagerly awaiting her call to let me know what's going on with ME.

Keil Bay's new Rambo Micklem Multi-bridle finally arrived yesterday. It is gorgeous - one of the new black ones - and I can't wait to try it out in the bitless mild configuration. He was not fond of the Dr. Cook bitless - I think the pressure on the opposite side of his face was confusing to him. The Micklem functions as a traditional side-pull, and I think the comfort of the bridle design (which is done to relieve pressure on several parts of the horse's head that are known to be sensitive) will work better for us.

I'm not sure we'll try it out until we get a break in this cold spell - but will report when we do.

For now we have horses in blankets, water trough ice patrol, and heaps of ice chunks growing daily by each water trough. The pony has made me laugh for the past few days - he seems fascinated by the ice and marches over the piles again and again, looking at times like he's wearing high heels because of the huge hunks under his feet.

We'll all be glad when we get back to our more usual winter weather here.

my kind of new year's resolution

This popped into my mailbox today via Sue Ivy's wonderful Quote and Kaleidoscope of the day, which you can sign up for on her lovely blog:



Forget the resolutions. Forget control and discipline...too much work. Instead try experimenting. Go in search of something to fall in love with.

- Dale Dauten