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!