Our First Horse

An 82-year-old man in New York (state) had his eyesight restored by a horse accident. Don Karkos, a World War II veteran, works as a paddock security guard. Two months ago, he was head-butted by pedigreed racehorse My Buddy Chimo in the same spot where he sustained a shrapnel wound that took sight from his right eye in 1942. Doctors had been trying to repair Mr. Karkos’ vision for the past 64 years to no avail. Then one day he was putting a collar on My Buddy Chimo and got whacked pretty hard. Doctors aren’t sure what happened to restore his eyesight but I suppose Mr. Karkos isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.

If you’re ever been head-butted by a horse, you know it can be a moving experience. Mikki and I have both seen stars after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t think Valentine meant to do it but he’s just so darn big and strong. That’s the thing you need to remember with horses and other large animals. It doesn’t take much movement for a 1,000 pound horse to seriously injure a 170 pound human or a 35 pound dog.

Fortunately, in this case the injury had a positive effect.

Source: scotsman.com and New York Daily News.

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Last night I was in the sound room of our church helping push buttons to keep the Christmas program on track when suddenly I got a whiff of a familiar scent. I mostly detected the smell of ammonia but also a hint of day-old horse manure. But I wasn’t wearing barn clothes or my barn shoes. Oh man, I think I walked through the barn in these shoes. How embarrassing. I mean I live in the country and all and many of the people we know have horses but still, I’d prefer to not smell like horse excrement all the time. I’m hoping I haven’t doomed yet another pair of shoes to barn duties. I have a pair of Justin cowboy boots I use for horse stuff…riding, working in the barn and pasture. They hold up well and offer better protection than old sneakers. Once I tried to clean them up to wear out somewhere. Nothing fancy but more than a trip to the feed store, if you know what I mean. Soap and water and boot shine make them look almost new but they still reeked of ammonia. I suppose it soaks into the rubber sole or leather.

So let this be a lesson to us all: don’t wear shoes around the barn that you’ll later want to wear in social situations!

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It still hasn’t really sunk in, but we are grandparents - even though the little guy is two years old now. His daddy was a car fanatic when he was a kid, but suddenly he has become horse crazy. They have neighbors who have horses, and he and Jordan spend a lot of time there. Apparently, Jordan loves horses even more than his daddy! I’m really happy about this, and can’t wait to have them all come visit and see our horses (they still live in Arizona). In the meantime, though, it sure made Christmas shopping for Jordan easy this year!

Jordan got cowboy boots for his birthday this year, so I thought, all he needs is a hat! Unfortunately, as I’ve probably mentioned, we live in the middle of nowhere. So I had to put my trust in Google. There are a lot of kids’ hats out there, but not so many for toddlers. After what seemed like hours of searching, I hit the baby cowboy motherlode. It’s a little site called Small in the Saddle. Not only did I find a hat, I found a NICE hat. It came in the mail today, and it is nicer than I could have hoped. Hopefully it will fit him for a while:

They have more than hats, though. They have clothes and toys and accessories and all kinds of stuff! I had to really control myself, because after all, Jordan’s mom & dad might want a gift too. But I did find a nice tactile book:

And this adorable shirt:

Shhh…don’t tell Jordan!

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The weather was beautiful the other day - 70 degrees in the middle of December. I completed horse stall cleaning while it was still light and decided to take a little walk out in the pasture. I don’t do this as often as I should. I have to force myself to even go outside during cold weather. I’m a warm-weather person, really. But today I’m reminded that horse people need to keep an eye on so many things. I discovered this 8 inch wide, 10 inch deep hole next to one of the trails. It almost looked like someone had dug this hole with a post-hole digger. I was aghast. I can just see my horse stepping in this thing and coming up lame. Since the dirt here is as hard as cement right now, I filled the hole with horse manure, packing it nice and tight. I’ll keep an eye on it. The hole didn’t look like a sinkhole and it’s in a place where I can see it from the house. I don’t think anyone dug the hole but it’s a great reminder that we all need to check the pasture occasionally, for obstacles like this. Here’s the hole, with Mikki standing next to it for scale:

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It doesn’t take long to figure out what products and procedures work well for horse chores. Last night while shoveling horse stalls (it’s more like forking horse stalls), Mikki grabbed the manure fork I normally use and I in turn took hers. After a few minutes, we happily swapped back again. Neither of us found it easy to work with a manure fork weren’t familiar with using. That might sound silly but we each use a different size and style fork and that makes more of a difference than I would have thought. Mikki uses a smaller fork purchased at a tack shop for around $20. It’s the typical style you see for manure duties, with a nice smooth aluminum handle. We bought the fork I use specifically for use with pellet bedding such as Woody Pet and Equine Pine. In fact, I think it’s actually manufactured by the Woody Pet people (I think they call it their “Fine Tines Fork” - around $26 at Tractor Supply). It’s tines are closer together for catching small manure pieces. It’s also quite a bit larger than the one Mikki uses and as a result picks up a LOT of horse manure, which makes it quite heavy to use. For those who use sawdust or pine pellets, cleaning stalls is part scooping big chunks of horse manure and part sifting to separate the good bedding from the little pieces of manure. The larger fork does a great job as a “sifter”, since it’s deep and the sides adequately keep the payload from prematurely escaping the fork. The smaller fork Mikki uses doesn’t work as well as a sifter because the payload keeps falling off the sides. At least it does for me. Mikki has it down, though and much prefers it over the larger stall fork.

Here’s what they look like. Even though the larger one looks like it’s carrying less horse manure, remember it’s deeper. You just can’t see the depth in the photo.

On the left is the smaller fork, with the larger Woody Pet fork on the right. While shooting these pictures, I lost some of the horse manure from fork on the left.

Incidentally, we’ve been using both stall forks for at least 6 months without any of the tines breaking. They’ve fallen down in the barn and used as rakes and shovels (not recommended) and have proven to be durable, despite being plastic. The bolt holding the fork onto the aluminum handle of the smaller one needed tightening once.

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Our routine for cleaning horse stalls has Mikki and I both heading up to the horse barn together. Not only does the work go faster than if just one of us did it, but it also provides good company during an otherwise monotonous barn task. Before we know it, the manure dust has cleared and we’re headed back down to the house. One day we’re headed back in and we realized how different life is for us now. We think nothing of emptying hay from our pockets and socks (how does it get there?), scraping manure from our boots and shaking manure dust from our hair. And this reminds me how quickly a romantic playful mood can change when somebody gets the idea to nibble on the ear of the other. That manure dust from your hair? Yeah, well it kinda settles on the ears until you wash your head. Neck, too. Oh, and no finger nibbling before washing your hands. And guys, if you’re listening, if you just nibbled on her horse poo dust covered ear, kissing her before brushing your teeth or at least rinsing with Listerine is not recommended. Unless, of course, she’s a farmy kinda girl and doesn’t mind horse manure dust seasoning. Hey, don’t knock until you’ve tried it, right?

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