December Trail Ride

Sun Dec 17, 2006

Well, all our snow's gone, back to green grass and blue skies! That was a nice, short winter!

Unfortunately it also means the frozen dirt has turned into MUD, and even though Quzqo is in a new pasture, he now stands fetlock-deep in liquid mud for HOURS, because that's where the hay is. Can't win...it'll be a miracle if he doesn't develop scratches & thrush on all his feet and whatever else!!! (though his scratches/greasy heel on the one hind heel bulb has finally cleared up, thanks to days and days of betadine rinses!). Of course he's got around 20 acres of GRASS he could stand on, but no, we must camp in the soupy mud and stuff our face deep into the round bale and not move except our lips and jaws, scarfing wonderful hay for hours on end, LOL!

There'll be a cold front moving in mid-week, so hopefully that'll freeze that mud up. Hard to believe a week ago Friday I was floundering around in thigh-high snowbanks out there, today I had to put on my rain boots to slog through 6" deep mud!

Happily, Coos has NO new injuries or wounds...he's in better shape with the new herd of geldings than he was with the old herd of boys & girls. No chomps, no scrapes, no broken tails! LOL...that's one thing about a bunch of geldings...standing around and eating IS their favorite thing to do!

Ended up going on a trail ride this afternoon with another boarder. Too beautiful a day to pass up an opportunity, especially on the 16th of December in Michigan!! She'd only taken her young TWH mare out on a trail ride ONCE before, she'd been too terrified to go any more. I gotta laugh...she's SO sure that horse is going to spook and flip over and kill her or act crazy...I have NEVER seen that mare do ANYthing...even out in the pasture when the other mares are running apeshit, little "Annie" will just be standing there, watching the chaos. Sort of a TWH-Quzqo, LOL.

Heh...she had her all tacked up, but was "worried" that Annie was "wound up" so she had to "work with her" before we went for our ride...this, as the horse is standing there, with a big, soft eye, just looking like "eh, whatever". So she brought her up to the indoor arena, with her Parelli-inspired carrot stick (fiberglass rod) with a shopping bag tied to the end, and she proceeded to desensitize the mare by slowly and quietly rubbing her with the plastic bag. The mare seemed to enjoy it... Quzqo's eyes were bulging and his attention was riveted on them..."What the HELL is that!!!" (I have introduced him to plastic bags, and he didn't seem to care one way or the other)

Well, after all that "working" with the mare, she deemed it was safe to mount up, LOL. (can we say "insecure rider"? Sure we can!).

We had a pleasant ride...Coos did more spooking than the mare. We went around some nice wooded trails with steep hills and curves and gunfire and stopped at a mutual friends' house to say hello to their TB & mule. The mare did PERFECT in my opinion...she kept ending up out in front, boldly leading Coos down the trails, despite my friend's reservations, ha!

Long story short, it was a nice ride, nobody died, and my friend had her confidence GREATLY enhanced by the mare behaving so well. Coos did all right too, even marching through the scary water puddles that he wouldn't go near yesterday (probably trying to impress the girl-horse behind him!)

The Emperor's New Pasture

Sun Dec 3, 2006

Yep, it was bad enough having to hike a friggin' quarter mile through deep, sodden, sucky sawdust, mud and horse shit to get to my horse...add on top of that a FOOT of friggin' SNOW, and in the immortal words of Popeye, "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!!"

So for today I left lots of notes for the morning feeder to turn Quzqo out into the "Bad Boyz" pasture...aka the Gelding Pasture (his usual pasture is a mix of boys and girls). Now that Touche' the Paint/Shire Cross with a penchant for destruction and havoc is moved to his own personal paddock with his two pony pals, I figured the Bad Boyz would be safe(r) for Himself, and since it's about 1/4 mile CLOSER to the barn and doesn't involve hiking through any stinking quagmire...

Anyway, got out to the barn around 2 this afternoon, expecting to see a little white carcass, mangled and bloodied and laying in the snow, but no, Quzqo was standing 'round the round bale, face stuffed into the hay, with his new pasturepals (all QHs, one Paint, and the Shire)(not the Shire Cross...this one's a purebred Shire). Nice little walk to get there...one of the QHs decided the peace had lasted long enough and flattened his ears and lunged at the nearest horse, which got them all riled up. Quzqo just stepped away from the round bale and walked over to me like "Hi, what's up?" LOL.

As I suspected, he was afraid of the water tank in the new pasture, so I had to lead the horse to the water, and while he snorted and blew and wouldn't go near it (never mind it was identical to the one he used to drink from in the old pasture), I splashed my hand in the water and wetted his nose (there's a tank heater, so it was quite pleasant, compared to the 23 degree air temperature!). Eventually his thirst got the better of him and he cautiously lowered his head, giving it a little flip to move the lead rope out of his way (cute!!), and got himself a good drink!

Here's hoping this works out! I know that batch of geldings is rather...um...rambunctious...but I haven't heard of any injuries since they moved Touche out of the mix. But then, duuh, the old pasture hasn't been exactly beer and skittles either...broken tail, skinned ear, chunks torn out...he has a patch of skin scraped off the inside of his hock from yesterday, so who knows what all goes on!

Didn't ride too much today because SOMEbody was being a dick! When he doesn't want to cooperate, he lets ya know it!

So, see how it goes. I didn't mind the 1/4 mile walk to get him but it's just ridiculous now, plus he's not drinking enough water during the day, since it's so nasty the horses don't want to maneuver through that crap either!!

Always summit (didn't get to yell at the kids today either, drat!)

Himself today with those impossibly cute little ears (and the snow!!):


I noticed tonight that most the boarded horses at the barn have blankets on...even if they don't need them (fat, FUZZY ponies? The Shire???). IMO, that can cause more problems than they might prevent. My friend with the Paint is dealing with the mare's tail hair falling out from some sort of greasy skin condition on her dock...probably because the dock is covered by her blanket 24/7 & some nasty fungus got in there!!

I kept Tezlu blanketed the last few winters of his life because the poor old fart didn't have any fat to him to keep warm. Coos throws a hissy if I blanket him, LOL (I think he's been blanketed maybe 3 times since I've owned him). It's a closed-front blanket, so it has to slide over his head...he doesn't like that. PLus it was Tezlu's, so it fits him like an army tent, ha!

Coos is SO clean now from the snow...his legs were GLOWING they were so silvery-white...his body fur just glittering silver in the lights of the arena...*sigh*. Why can't they have horse shows NOW, when the horse is CLEAN!