Our First Horse

We had been having a pretty good year so far rain-wise. Last year was desert-like in east Tennessee but this year through July was almost normal, yielding a few cuttings of hay for most fields. Someone must have bragged about it because from August 1 through August 24, we had absolutely no measurable precipitation. And everything died. Our grass died, the hay fields look bad and even some trees seem to be shedding their leaves early. Today marks a break in that dry spell. We’ve had a decent steady rain and more is predicted for the next few days. I’ve never loved rain so much as when I became a horse owner. So much of the horse life depends on rain.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that one of our frisky horses broke through the fence…AGAIN. This is the third time this has happened at this spot and the second time the break resulted in an escaped horse. Apparently horses can’t read signs. Not an exit…NOT AN EXIT! Fortunately I work from home and my office is close enough to this section of fence for me to have heard a loud noise. I went to investigate and found Cash eating grass in our backyard. The other horses were chasing each other no where near the fence. It’s cooler today and raining and it seems to have made them frisky. Our backyard has some yummy grass so it was hard to incent Cash into leaving it. Oats did the trick, along with a lead rope but given our last escapee incident with Cash, I expected him to bolt at any second.

This time Cash broke through a double fence board. I image he must have kicked it because he has no marks on him. That section of fence is a little low so perhaps it was tempting to him. When we get an electric fence, we’re going to bypass this peninsula. In the meantime, I replaced the broken boards with a 2×6 and added a riser to make it seem higher. It’s not the most attractive fence section but hopefully it will do the trick until the electric fence is installed.

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An inside joke

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I love to take pictures so it’s not uncommon for me to go check on the horses with camera in hand. I have a nice zoom lens and was able to capture the following hilarious interaction between Cash and Valentine at the water trough. I especially love the lips and hillbilly expressions on Valentine. It’s like they have their own comedy routine! I recommend viewing the full screen version of the slideshow:

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When we first arrived here at the farm, there was wiring for an electric fence but it wasn’t hooked up to anything. Eventually we removed the wiring because it simply didn’t look good and we didn’t really need it. Now we think it’s probably time to reconsider. We decided to barbecue so I headed outside around 6, just in time to see Moonshine stepping over a section of fence near the barn. She was the third horse to do so. Cash and Romeo were already enjoying the irresistible grass on the other side of the fence. In this case, the grass really is greener on the other side. Valentine, our huge (to us) Walking Horse is the likely culprit for knocking down the fence. He’s always reaching his giraffe neck over to nibble on grass and at almost 1300 pounds, it doesn’t take much leaning to push out nails. I don’t know why the person who built the fence didn’t put the boards on the inside but Valentine has been known to snap boards in half, too. But for all of his brute strength and fence mischief, he’s never escaped after knocking boards down and this time he was far away from the other horses as if to disassociate himself with the escapees.

These horses are on the wrong side of that broken fence.

So I grabbed a bucket with some feed and Mikki grabbed a halter and lead rope and we headed up to coax the horses back onto the correct side of the fence. Mikki headed for Cash first because of that last incident where we chased him through the woods for four hours. He started to walk away but Mikki was able to get the lead rope around his neck, after which he was compliant. Next, I tempted Moonshine with some feed but with a mouth full of yummy green grass, she turned and walked away. Romeo, who lives to eat (and love) came over and happily snarfled the feed without competition. That is, until Moonshine noticed. Once she knew someone else wanted it, she wanted it too and I was able to walk them over the fence again. We led them all to the barn and fed them their evening rations while we went about fixing the fence.

Wooden fences are nice but they require a lot of upkeep. Ours is aging and in need of new paint. Several of the boards are warped and should probably be replaced. Each time this kind of thing has happened (the horses rarely escape but board do occasionally come down), we replace the boards using screws instead of nails. This time we did that and added some extra braces over where the boards meet at the posts.

So that brings us to electric fences. We could go cheap and get the basic electric livestock wire or we could spend a little more and go for something like Electrobraid. We intend to replace the barbed wire with something like Electrobraid so provided the system is expandable, perhaps that’s the way we’ll go. I still like the look of the wooden fence, so we’d probably use it on the inside to keep the horses off of the fence. And because wiring to our breaker box would be difficult, solar is probably our best power source choice.

Have you caught your horses on the wrong side of the fence? Are any of you using Electrobraid or some other electric fence?`

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This just makes me sick. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is considering slaughtering thousands of horses because of budget problems. Why should an animal that was designed to live without human interaction be killed because our economy has slowed? It’s hard to not react emotionally to this story. So we round up horses that run free and wild, hold them captive and then because there aren’t enough buyers for them, we kill them. For our own convenience, really. Disgusting. And I don’t buy the “overcrowding” argument. It’s estimated there are 25,000 wild mustangs in the U.S., some of which are on protected Indian land. Have any of you ever seen a wild horse in the wild? I’ve seen about four. For those of you who have traveled anywhere out west you’re sure to remember the immense distance from rest stop to rest stop, with nary a building in between. I’ve traveled the great American west and can tell you there is no shortage of uninhabited land. The map below illustrates this nicely. All of the areas in yellow are BLM land:

I understand how overcrowding is bad for the animals. But what about the millions of cattle grazing on the same land. Ah, that’s the point now isn’t it? It all comes down to money (Don’t misunderstand me - I’m not against ranching or cattle). And what about the wild west before civilization? What kept the herds from becoming overcrowded?

I’m sure I’m over-simplifying the issue but I just hate to see good animals being killed. It’s been said before but in a way these wild mustangs represent our own desire to be free and keep alive the romantic notion of adventure and the American wild west. Perhaps there’s a parallel between what appears to be the government’s desire to curtail both.

I’d like to hear your comments on the issue. I promise to try and be as objective as possible. And if anyone has any suggestions on how to get involved, feel free to suggest them.

Source article:
U.S. may slaughter thousands of horses
Arizona Republic, 081508

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Mikki and I got our first pole bending lessons last night and we even got the Kid back on a horse, briefly. Horse friends invited us over to try pole bending and it’s something Mikki has been wanting to try on Cash anyway. Even though Cash is a gaited horse (Tennessee Walking Horse), we think he might be good in the poles, especially since we’re sticking to small local events. If we win something, great, but we like to have fun, too. Trying to hel the Kid get over his fear of horses, we saddled him up on our most trained and calm horse, Romeo and made sure the stirrups were at the right height and headed out. I used a bit and reins so he could practice holding the reins while balancing on a saddle but I walked Romeo using a lead rope. The Kid was a nervous wreck since his last ride ended with him on the ground.

Mikki rode Cash, who seemed easy to spook tonight. That’s unusual for him because he’s normally very calm and sure. At first he didn’t like the poles and then something in the woods made him nervous. Eventually he settled down and did pretty well walking the poles. Hey, you’ve got to start somewhere! I hopped on Romeo and did the same. Romeo is an old pro at the poles so it wasn’t hard, though he was distracted by a hot little mare named River who was also trying the poles last night. And since I forgot my spurs, we ended up not going very fast. Romeo needs a little encouragement from at least bumper spurs. We ended up staying late and riding home in the dark, which was thankfully uneventful.

I can’t wait to try it again! Any of you guys run the poles?

BTW, I added a “Barrels and Poles” category.

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