Our First Horse

A few days after our horses got loose, we were talking with some friends and discovered that the little runaway scene the other night did actually cause some property damage. The friends that caught our horses for us had a suspicious break in their electric fence. Now there are other ways this can happen but it’s likely our horses ran into it, probably got the shock of their lives and scooted off, wide-eyed and wide awake. They ended up in the front lawn of the house and that was the beginning of them being captured. It’s a good thing our friend’s cows weren’t in that pasture or it could have been a bigger problem. We, of course, offered to pay for the fence repair and it caused no ill-will but it goes to show you horses getting loose can turn out to be a big deal. At least here in Tennessee property damage caused by loose animals in the responsibility of the animal owner. Even car insurance companies will sue animal owners to recoup damage expenses.

We have learned quite a lesson here. Of course we didn’t let them out intentionally and have always been concerned about leaving a gate open but now we triple check!

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Talk about an exciting evening! We stayed up late tonight because it’s Friday and we’re night owls. At 11:21 someone pulled into our driveway. Someone coming by unexpectedly that late at night is rarely good news, and this was no exception. It was the father of our horse friends, the Watsons, wondering if we were missing a couple of horses. Bill, who answered the door, said no, of course not. Why would we be missing any horses? “Say…what color are they?” “Black,” replied Mr. Watson. Uh oh. It suddenly occurred to Bill that we had put our goats out in the pasture earlier and when we brought them back through the gate to return them to their pen, we might, just possibly, have forgotten to close the gate.

So Bill came back in to tell me that the police had our horses rounded up down by the road. He ran up to the barn to get their halters while I changed out of my jammies (hey, it was coming up on midnight!) and ran down the road after him. You would not believe the sight that greeted us! About a quarter mile down the road from our house, in our church parking lot, were flashing lights (the police), a half dozen cars, and about a dozen people. As I got closer, a wildlife officer, who had also responded, drove by and said out his window, “Y’all lose some horses?” (Duh!) And there, about 25 yards from the busy highway, were our two fugitive horses, tied to a telephone pole.

Oh, and if all this weren’t embarrassing enough, let me remind you that we live in a small town. In addition to Mr. Watson, there were at least three other people from our church that we know well, in addition to our other neighbor, Mr. Raper, watching from his porch. Ack!

Amusing as this all was - and since it turned out okay, it is really quite amusing - it was also quite a scare. Those horses may have been out for more than two hours. They wandered a good half mile from our house, and ended up right next to a very busy highway. No one but Mr. Watson and Mr. Raper even knew we had horses; I’m not sure how Mr. Watson ended up in the mix, but thank goodness he did, otherwise who knows where Valentine and Moonshine would have ended up? (Do they have a horse “pound?”) And that’s the least scary outcome. Several people there commented on how good-looking our horses are - some less reputable person could have come along and decided they wanted them for their own. And the worst possible scenario, of course, would have been if they actually walked out on the highway and got hit.

Let me tell you, we were thanking the good Lord the whole time we were walking our runaways home. And we probably won’t forget to close that gate from now on.

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Our garden is doing so well this year! A little too well, in fact, at least as far as the melon goes. We’re kind of newbies to the gardening thing as well as the horse thing (I did grow up in the Arizona desert, after all), so we’re making mistakes. Here’s one: when the seed packet says to thin the seedlings once they sprout, you really ought to follow that instruction. Bill thought the new watermelon and cantaloupe plants looked a little puny, so he left all five of them. On each mound of plants. All four of them. That’s right, we have 10 watermelon plants and 10 cantaloupe plants - in a garden that’s about 20′ by 25′. It’s now actually a melon patch with a few other plants struggling to maintain a foothold. Our pastor described it best when he compared it to kudzu.

Luckily for us, our friends like melon, and so does my horse. We learned that watermelon is a safe and fun treat for horses, so of course we had to try it. We found out that Moonshine isn’t that crazy about it, but Valentine LOVES it. He ate all we brought, and wanted more (we decided that moderation is probably the safest way to go - too much of anything, especially something new, isn’t a good idea).

So now we know about the watermelon. I haven’t been able to find anything on cantaloupe, though - do any of you know? Hurry, we have a zillion cantaloupe ready to ripen, and not nearly that many friends.

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Our new farrier, “J”, came out on Thursday, and we are cautiously optimistic. First of all, he showed up on time, which was a pleasant surprise. He brought his teenage son as an assistant, and they were both polite, friendly and quietly competent. Both horses were less of a pain than usual (although it’s possible that we woke them up when we called them up to the barn); because of that, and the fact that he had help, it took him a good 45 minutes less than it did G. Their feet look great, and J guarantees that the shoes will stay on for at least six weeks - he’ll come out and replace any shoe that falls off before then, no matter what the reason. We didn’t even know farriers offered that kind of guarantee; G was going to charge us $20 to replace the shoe Valentine lost after only 2 weeks - if he had ever shown up, that is.

We feel very fortunate to have found this farrier, and even more since he told us that he doesn’t accept new clients. He only agreed to take us on because (1) some of our neighbors are already clients; and (2) more importantly, he’s friends with one of our friends. So we’re very grateful.

There is one downside, though - isn’t there always? J charges about 35% more than G ($150 vs $110, for both). However, he returns our calls in a timely manner, shows up on time and guarantees his work. I guess you get what you pay for, right?

Once again, we’ll keep you posted.

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I’m no expert, but personally, I think it’s better for a horse to be barefoot, if at all possible. It just seems more natural, and it’s still a little creepy to watch the farrier nail a hunk of metal onto my horse’s hoof. However, there are many good reasons to shoe a horse, and for several of those reasons, our horses stay shod (or at least, they’re supposed to). Here are our reasons:

• Tender feet. Moonshine couldn’t care less what’s on or not on her feet. She was barefoot when we got her and was perfectly happy to stay that way. Valentine, on the other hand, practically limps when he loses a shoe. If he’s missing a shoe, he invariably favors that foot.

• Soft hooves. Some horses just have softer hooves than others. Moonshine, tough as she is, gets really dinged-up hooves when she doesn’t have shoes; the big baby Valentine, ironically enough, wears his hooves down, but they don’t get any chips or cracks.

• Unfavorable terrain. Our pasture is rocky and rough in a lot of places, and the horses like to walk through there. I think if it were all nice, soft grass and more forgiving soil, they would both be fine. (Of course, the trails around here are pretty rocky too, so we’d most likely shoe them both anyway.)

Here’s a new reason we discovered the day before yesterday, too. At this point, I have to fess up to something: before Wednesday, I hadn’t cleaned out my horses’ hooves for quite a while. Weeks, in fact. Shame, shame on me! In addition to that, with our ongoing farrier problems, they haven’t been shod in about 10 weeks, and are missing one (Valentine) and three (Moonshine) shoes. But here’s what we discovered:

• Shoes keep hooves clean. Our soil, in addition to being rocky, is heavy on the clay side. When it’s muddy, that stuff gets all packed up in the hooves. Then it dries out, and the mud stuck up in there dries out too; and it turns to CEMENT. I’m not kidding. I picked up Moonshine’s right front hoof and found a hard, smooth, un-pickable piece of marble.  They were all that way…except on the hoof with her one remaining shoe. On that foot, I was able to pick it out with no problem at all. Same story on Valentine: on the three feet that have shoes, the stuff inside was soft and brushed right out with very little picking at all. On the foot that’s missing a shoe, I’d need a mini-sledgehammer to knock it loose.

So, needless to say, I’m very glad that my horses have all four feet covered again. That’s right…we had a farrier come out yesterday! Hopefully our shoeing woes have finally come to an end. We’ll tell you all about the new farrier tomorrow!

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As you probably know, we don’t own a tractor (yet) so we need to call someone to bush hog our pasture occasionally. I haven’t done that in a while and as a result, the pasture is kind of overgrown at the moment. The good news is that our pasture is some kind of haven for wild blackberry bushes. Our neighbor told us that he and the previous owners used to pick baskets of blackberries out there each summer for making jam. Although we’ve never done this, we thought we’d give it a try. Curious creatures that they are, Moonshine and Valentine came over to see what all the fuss was about and immediately took a liking to our basket of blackberries. Mikki and I picked while the kid ran circles around us, being chased by our horses. One those guys had a taste of blackberries, there was no going back. The blackberry bushes didn’t have many berries on the outside; all of the berries were deep inside the thorn-covered bushes. I’m sure the birds and bunnies enjoyed them but I wonder if our horses stuck their noses in any of the bushes for a snack.

I’ll have to write an update on our garden soon. The watermelons are almost ready and I’ve heard horses love watermelons, too.

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