Barn Time, 1: and then the rain came

As if I don't have enough series rolling, here's a new one which seems to fit these hot summer days: barn time.

I've been going out to the barn each morning and getting lost in the routine of readying six equines for their day. They've been out all night, grazing hay, much like they do in the winter. After a month of no rain the grass has dried up almost completely, as has the ground.

I was thinking the day before yesterday that in some ways this level of drought, speaking only of November Hill, works pretty well. With a herd of easy keepers and really wonderful organically grown hay (hay grower lives in another part of the county with decent rainfall this summer) that tests below 10% sugar/starch and is easy to balance mineral-wise, cutting grass mostly out of the forage equation works well for this crew. As does the dry earth on hooves.

A few minutes after having that thought two days ago, it started to pour rain. For about a minute, until I lost my focus and raised my arms up to the sky saying THANK YOU - then it stopped.

Yesterday I decided to stay in the moment and not think about all the implications of rain/no rain. I walked out in the heat, which was more intense yesterday than it had been, and felt the dry ground under my muck boots, perused the crunchy brown stuff, the dried out red clay soil, and started thinking about Cormac McCarthy novels. West Texas and Mexico, dry heat and cracked earth, brown dust on boots. Extremes. When I think of Cormac's novels, I think of extremes.

After swaggering around in the sun for a little while, I went back in the barn and got in the moment with horses. Keil Bay stood in the feed room door while I made tubs and his happiness at being given that privilege made me smile. He is happiest when he's my partner in all things, without the divisions of gates and stall doors and lead ropes tied to things. Recently he found me in his stall, mucking, and he was in the barn aisle. We had the most wonderful moments of role reversal as he walked up to the stall door and I hung MY head over from the inside and let him nuzzle me. I was closed in and he was free. He seemed amused and then his eyes took on a questioning air, almost as if he was worried that I might not be able to get out.

We enjoy freedom here on November Hill. Although you might think a nearly 1400-lb. Hanoverian whose nickname is The King would be bossy and rude, he isn't. He responds very well to simple and polite requests, and goes further - he is often quite helpful.

Like yesterday morning, when I had set feed tubs up but needed to run back into the house to get something I'd forgotten. I told the horses I'd be right back, sailed down the barn aisle, and then remembered I'd left the feed room door wide open. Not a great idea with two donkeys and Keil Bay standing there gazing at all those full feed tubs. I stopped, turned around, had the thought  I need to close that door and Keil Bay reached around with his nose, hooked the edge of the door, and slammed it closed with a nice resounding bang.

How's that for being helpful?

The horses and donkeys are all laid back and happy on summer mornings. They've been out all night, are ready for fans and breakfast and nice clean stalls where they can hang out during the heat of the day. They get brushed and checked over, they get herbal fly spray and full mangers. We try to make things comfortable and pleasant for them. I'm rotating one gelding over to the other side of the barn each day, to give that one a break from the pony, who is really making a big play for herd leader this summer. Usually I go to the paddock gate and call out, and one of the geldings will come out and walk through to the other side. They actually do a decent job of alternating so the rotation is equitable.

After I got inside yesterday I made a comment on Facebook about the farm feeling like a Cormac McCarthy novel. An hour later, the sky was dark and we had a huge thunderstorm. Extreme. Lightning struck numerous times right beside our house, so close that sitting on the front porch I could hear the sizzle before it hit. The goldfinches were fussing in the sweetgum tree, darting in and out in flashes of yellow.

Kyra Corgi was shaking, so I came in and offered Rescue Remedy, which she took, and Bear Corgi wanted a dose too even though he wasn't shaking, so I gave him one as well.

It rained solidly for about 40 minutes, steadily but not so hard or so fast that we got water washing around - it soaked in, which is exactly what it needed to do.

My daughter and son were in the barn feeding Salina and giving more hay. At one point Keil Bay and the pony ran out into the front field and got under a tree. My son convinced them to come back to the barn.  Teens and equines weathered the storm together.

Last night I was in the barn for evening feed. Salina got her Summer Whinnies off for laundering and we put some ointment on her eye when we took her fly mask off for the night. She and the donkeys were staying near the barn for the evening in case more rain came, but I opened the arena gate so they could meander around in there and be close to the back field where the geldings were.

Keil Bay was out scouting the back field but appeared, almost as if by magic, as I checked the water troughs. I stood with him while he had a drink, and then we walked off together, my hand on his wither, connected. A few times since moving here with the horses I have felt like their energy carried me along with them - my feet not needing to move, not really even on the earth. Last night was one of those times. It's like being grounded, but through the horse's body, not my own.

Earlier I'd been grounded by two donkeys as I sat in the barn aisle giving neck scratches and ear scratches and a butt scratch for Redford. The donkeys both have silky smooth areas now and a few scruffy areas that haven't fully shed out yet, and the sensation of winter coat and then silky summer coat on my fingers was wonderful. I had the thought that it would be nice to be able to see each of their deep, all-knowing donkey eyes at once, but with my human eyes, could only gaze one way into Rafer's and then the other into Redford's. Still, I soaked in that donkey calm. It's a potent mixture that anyone with donkeys knows can cure you of almost anything, at least for a time.

I think I've written this here before, but there is sidereal time, there's kairos, and I think there's a good case for yet another kind of time. Barn time. There is nothing else like it.

where I was last week, where I am today

Last week I was here, working on book two in my Magical Pony School series, titled Fiona and the Water Horse.  It was the perfect place to write in general, but if more than perfection is possible, that was true about writing a story about a girl and a water horse in a setting that made it easy to imagine each detail of my story.

The second day we began to get rain, and the creek got big and fast, and that made it even better. Although right now I am drawn back to that first day, when the creek meandered past and I was just settling in with pen in hand.

See the pool of light here? That's where the water horse might have been, at least that first day. If you squint your eyes tight and then let them open the tiniest bit you might be able to see him there.

Today, back on November Hill, I've been doing some cleaning. And watching Bear Corgi, who has been very busy doing all the things he does in a day.

He lies flat out like a Corgi rug on the bathroom tile, to cool his belly. He trots smartly out into the living room if he hears anything that might mean we need protection. Or herding.

He follows different ones of us around and camps at our feet. He keeps tabs on Kyra Corgi and tries his mightiest to keep tabs on the cats.

Periodically he piles his bones on his bed and works on them for awhile. Sometimes he works on other things too. He's shifted from stealing rolls of toilet tissue to stealing razors and kitchen knives! We have to be vigilant around here.

Right now it's overcast and I wish it meant we were getting some rain. Who knows - it has skirted around us numerous times so I suppose the one day they're not predicting it will be the day it comes.

Mostly I'm experiencing summer on November Hill, which is lovely, and remembering the beauty of summer on a mountain with the creek rushing by all day and all night. It was gorgeous but there was no room for horses! So I'm also thinking about how to keep the memories from the travels close at hand - like little gifts inside the mind that I can open and enjoy.

a few little odds and ends

I'm home from my writing workshop and was of course drawn immediately, even before my tire tracks crossed the November Hill property line, back into the whirlwind of activity here on the hill.

First, Salina had a middle of the night accident of the very scary kind, scraping around and right up to the edge of her remaining eye. Both upper and lower lid were swollen, and I was frankly ready to call the vet. But it was evening, she was eating and drinking just fine, the scraped area had been cleaned and protected by a clean fly mask, and I decided to implement my eye routine and wait for morning.

One dose of banamine, then alternating doses of arnica and symphytum until bedtime, plus a thorough rinsing with an herbal eye rinse containing calendula, goldenseal, and eyebright.

Limited turn-out with her donkey boys in the grass paddock and barnyard.

By morning the swelling was almost completely gone and now we are very close to being back to normal. The scrape is scabbing and she has not missed a beat eating and drinking. She's still on limited turn-out just because I'm being extra careful. It's fine with her, but the donkeys are getting a bit stir crazy and both went on a little donkey adventure yesterday and today to break the monotony.

In other news, Dickens now has a battle wound - a split ear that has healed as fast as he got it - and the pony is walking around with his own personal flock of birds again. Everywhere he goes, they go.

We are in need of rain, on the one hand, but on the other, there is no grass to speak of and so these easy keepers are doing fine without the sugar.

My first sugar baby watermelon appeared to be ready yesterday. I picked it, chilled it, and then we cut into it. Alas! It was not yet ripe. But equines got a nice treat and even Keil Bay, who would not touch the melon, enjoyed smelling it as I doled it out to the rest of the herd.

We have made a dent in the fly overpopulation using plain, old-fashioned sticky strips. Between those catching the adults and the fly predators targeting the larva, I think we're getting back to a manageable number at this point.

One of the barn fans lost a blade, fortunately encased in the cage of the fan, but according to son, it sounded like machine-gun fire going off in the barn, and when he got out there all equines had abandoned the vicinity and were waiting for help turning the hideous noise off! He unplugged the one fan, replenished hay in mangers, and they went back in without fanfare. This is one reason I would never leave them closed in without one of us in earshot. And while I wish they didn't have to deal with a broken fan on a hot day, it did relieve me that they simply vacated the barn and stood calmly while someone fixed the situation. 

The summer solstice came and went as I sat by a rushing mountain stream working on Fiona and the Water Horse, book two in the Magical Pony School series. My hope is that the heat and dry weather so early in the season means we are in for an early and long-lasting autumn season.

Meanwhile we are considering doing a rain dance and finding ways to stay comfortable. After we make it past the fourth of July and the possibility of fireworks, it's one long slide toward my favorite season.

come join me this Friday on LitChat!

Carolyn Burns Bass and LitChat have been providing fast, intense, and insightful discussions on Twitter since January 2009. Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4 p.m. EST, Carolyn moderates lively discussion about all things literary.

This Friday, June 24th, I'll be guest-hosting as we talk about Taking the E-Road. I hope you'll stop in and join the discussion!

two gorgous seniors and a company I love!!

 

Late last week I had the pleasure of giving some business to a company I love: Whinny Warmers!  Long-time readers will remember a hard winter we had several years back when I worried and fretted over Salina's arthritic knees in the cold.

Late one night I sat fretting, thinking, if only there were leg warmers for horses! Lo and behold, I googled and there they were. Whinny Warmers! I ordered two cobalt blue pairs for Salina and hoped when they arrived they would actually work.

They arrived very quickly and they were gorgeous. I wanted to wear them myself! But we breezed through the learning curve of getting them on, and Salina immediately knew they were something good, so she cooperated completely. They worked perfectly and her stiffness during the cold winter months was much decreased.

Not only did the Whinny Warmers work, they turned out to be a durable, easy to take care of product. We have washed and dried the 4 whinny warmers many, many times. They have gotten muddy, caked with shavings and dirt, stretched, and generally have been very well used. And right now as I type they are clean and packed away for the summer, ready for another winter season. (although I am told the new Whinny Warmers are far superior to the pairs I ordered several years ago - frankly I don't see how, but I trust that they are - this company never stops working to make better products)

As if this weren't enough, shortly after I blogged about the Whinny Warmers those years back, with a photo of Salina wearing hers, I got an email from the owner of the company, thanking me for sharing the word about my satisfaction with their product. He also asked if I would send him the name and address of my favorite equine rescue so he could send a donation of Whinny Warmers in my name as a thank you.

I sent not one but two, asking that they pick whichever they preferred - and Whinny Warmers generously sent numerous pairs to both Primrose Sanctuary and the NC Equine Rescue League. I was incredibly impressed with the product, the customer service, and the generosity of a small company whose bottom line was helping horses and donkeys.

This year, this summer, we are having the worst flies I've ever seen. Our fly predators are doing the best they can, and even at its worst here on November Hill, it pales in comparison to what I've seen in other barns who don't use fly predators. BUT... it's bad enough that I decided I had to kick in with some extra protection for the horses.

We don't use chemical sprays. The herbal concentrate we use for mixing fly spray does a good job - it's not perfect, but normally we don't have that many flies so it works well.

Late last week I realized Salina was being harangued by flies on her lower legs. With her arthritic knees she doesn't stomp. She just bears it. I had gotten an email from Whinny Warmers a few months back about their new Summer Whinnies. I went online and ordered a complete set of 4 for Salina.

Within a few hours I had an email with the subject line: Billie!!!

It was Whinny Warmers. They had recognized my name when the order went through and were emailing to offer me the discount they'd offered way back in the spring - the email I'd read but forgotten - and even though that offer has come and gone, they offered to apply it anyway. When my order arrived this weekend, there was a second pair of Summer Whinnies enclosed! They said they appreciated my support in the early years of the company and wanted to say thank you.

This kind of attitude is why their company is thriving. Great products, great customer service, and a truly personal, genuinely caring attitude toward their customers - and the horses who ultimately use their products.

I'm happy to report that we put Salina's Summer Whinnies on for the first time yesterday. Once we got the first one on, and she felt the immediate relief, she lifted up the next two hooves before even being asked. We had to work a little to get the last one on - her right leg is always the hardest b/c lifting it means she is bearing the weight on her left knee - the most arthritic - but she continued working with us so we could get it on.

Last night I was in the barn and she looked like she had lost at least a decade of age. Between jiaogulan (I'll write about this later) and the Summer Whinnies, she's a brand new horse.

Cody will get his later today, and as soon as my budget allows, I'll order sets for every equine here. This is a terrific product. Check out the gorgeous Hanoverian seniors on November Hill! Salina, left, is 28 years old. Keil Bay is a spring chicken senior of 22.  He told me last night he wants his own Summer Whinnies - he always wanted to sport a little "flash."  :)  Redford donkey felt the photo was not complete without his handsome self there too...