Our First Horse

Last night was a sad night in our little corner of the world. Yesterday afternoon, our pastor was doing some groundwork with a young horse, Nipper, when Nipper spooked, reared, and fell, hitting his head on the ground. You can tell by the title of the post how it turned out. The fall apparently caused a brain injury; he was bleeding from one ear and didn’t rouse for quite a while. He eventually came to, ate hay and neighed to his stablemate but couldn’t control his head movement and couldn’t get his back legs off the ground. After 11 hours of sitting with him, watching him periodically struggle to get up, they decided it was best to let him go. The vet came back around 11 p.m. and put him down. It was very, very sad. They have two little girls, 9 and 8, and it was just heart-wrenching to see them cry over their horse. The pastor’s wife took it even harder. They got this horse when he was only 6 weeks old and raised him. He was two years old.

And as rough as yesterday was, guess what they have to deal with today? A thousand-pound horse that’s laying in their pasture. I can’t remember if I’ve addressed this issue here before - I think I have - but a sad fact of horse ownership is that you need to have a plan in place if your horse dies. The reality of it is, a horse is really big and really heavy. You can’t just get the shovel out, dig a little hole and lay him in it like you would the family dog. So what do you do? There are a couple of options.

Our pastor (and we) own a big piece of property, so a good option is to bury the horse on the property (that’s what our pastor will do, and we would too). The problem with that is, most people don’t own the equipment necessary to dig a hole large enough for a full-grown horse, and to move that horse to the burial site. Luckily, we know people who do.

Another option is cremation. There are companies who will come and get the horse and cremate the remains. I imagine it might be kind of expensive, but I haven’t checked into that. There are also agencies - municipal, county or state - who will dispose of an animal for you (again, probably for a fee). And for those of you who aren’t as soft-hearted as we are, there are even companies who will take the body and render it for goodness-knows-what. I’m all for recycling, but I’ll have to draw the line there.

Whatever you think is the best choice for you, plan ahead. You think it won’t happen for a while, you pray it won’t, but it does. And it seems that things like this happen at the most inopportune time - late on a cold night during a holiday week, the night before it’s supposed to rain, for instance. So, as painful as it is to think about, I urge you to be prepared. It will make a difficult time a little less of a burden if you have a plan in place.

(If the photo is hard for you to see, the inscription is “The air of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears” and is inscribed on a memorial to Mary, Lady Towneley, on the Pennine Bridleway in Derbyshire, England. I found the photo at www.idonohoe.com, a mountain biking site.)

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A few weeks ago we posted about the guy who is riding across country (he’s currently in Tennessee). In the comments Elise mentioned her friend’s aunt did something similar. You’ve got to check out End of the Trail.  Bernice Ende rode 5,000 miles on her 8 year old thoroughbred mare Honor and with her dog Claire. She made the trip alone, human-wise, over the course of 16 months from May 2006 to October 2007. If you click the “Current Information” link at the top of that site you can see more information and pictures. I really admire someone who can take a 16 month horse ride. I imagine it takes a lot of skill, some money in the bank and a very comfortable saddle. During her trip, Honor went through 14 sets of horseshoes. I hadn’t heard the term before but I read this kind of trip is called “Long Riding”.

I’m not sure I’d want to take that long of a trip but I can appreciate the desire to get away from the world and live without deadlines and much responsibility. I’m sure she discovered a lot about herself and America along the way. I’ve bookmarked her site so I’m ready in case she decides to do it again.

Thanks for the note, Elise.

Also, Bernice probably couldn’t have done it without a decent sponsor and it looks like a company called Outfitters Supply filled that role. It looks like they really helped her out along the way so I think it’s worth clicking over to their online store to check them out. They carry a lot of trail gear I haven’t seen in the other online stores I’ve been to. I’ve never done business with them, they’re not paying me anything for the link and we’re not affiliated.

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We were tagged by Show Your Pony to share eight things you might not know about us. Since there are two of us, we’ll both go. (Do we only have to do 4 each? Just kidding…) But after a year and a half on this blog, I can’t imagine there are eight things you don’t know about me already that you’d want to. But here goes:

1. One of my first horseback rides was at Girl Scout camp. They asked whether I was an experienced rider, and either out of pride or naiveté, I said I was and got a horse named Charlie Brown. He proceeded to take me under every tree on the trail going after grass to graze, because of course I couldn’t control him. I got a good chewing out by the camp counselor for misrepresenting my riding skill.
2. Another memorable ride - although I don’t remember this horse’s name or even who I was riding with - was a ride from the woman’s home to a nearby park. To get there, we had to ride across Phoenix city streets (there were almost no cars). That mare was pretty well-behaved, until we got to an intersection that had recently been painted. There was nothing I could do to convince her to walk across the bright white “right turn only” arrow. That thing completely freaked her out.
3. I’m going to write a novel next month. Wow, does that sound awe-inspiring or what? It’s not as cool as it sounds, but I should just let people think it is. November is National Novel Writing Month; check out www.nanowrimo.org for details. Basically, people all over the world try to churn out a 50,000 page novel in 30 days. No one else reads it, unless you want them to. It doesn’t have to be any good. It’s just kind of a challenge to yourself. If you succeed, you get a cool certificate. If you don’t, you tell yourself that next year, you’ll do it, by crikey!
4. I have a tattoo. It’s a rose, and says “Bill.” That’s only shocking if you really know me. People who know me in person are always shocked. I guess I don’t appear to be a tattoo kind of girl. Anyway, just play along and say, “No way!” in your head.
5. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a psychologist when I grew up. Then when I grew up, I wanted to be a lawyer. Then I worked for lawyers for 18 years and decided that wasn’t such a cool job anymore. Now I think I just want to be a cowgirl.
6. When I was growing up, my grandma’s nickname for me was Grace. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment. I do, however, think it was fitting.
7. The first time I rode my horse, Valentine, I fell off. Well, not exactly while riding him; when I got off, my foot caught in the stirrup and I kinda fell out and landed on my back. Nothing was hurt but my pride - but Bill did get the whole thing on video. And no, we will not be posting that footage. Ever.
8. I met and had my picture taken with Patrick Swayze at the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show in 1992. I’ll have to dig that photo up and post it here.

So, I guess you’re supposed to tag some more blogs here, but I think everybody we know that’s animal-related has already been tagged. Except for these (and I think it’s fair that Bill and I share these, don’t you, since we know all the same blogs?):

Bridlepath

Coppertop

Hoofbeats

Horses, Cows and Goats, Oh My!

Horseshues

Triple H Horse Farm

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I was making my way through the October 2007 issue of Horse and Rider magazine this week when I came across what I thought was a great premise for an article. It’s called “Barn Names” and it discusses something near and dear to my heart - the names we actually call our horses on a regular basis. For those of you newer to horses than I am, the official or fancy name (as I call it) given to a horse is typically derived using a combination of the names of the mama (dam) and daddy (sire) horse. So if Mitsy’s Goober and Trackside Smooch decided it was time to have a baby horse, the foal could quite possibly be referred to as Goober Smooch, Goober’s Smooch or Smooche’s Goober. That’s actually a cool name but usually it’s something like “YR All Dun Playin”, a real life example given in the article. I can’t imagine many people go around calling their horse by their fancy name (”here YR All Dun Playin. Who’se a good YR All Dun Playin?”). That’s why most of us have come up with cutesy, easy to say barn names like…well…Moonshine and Valentine.

The article was interesting but a little disappointing. I guess I expected more funny or clever names. Still, “Beau-Zo”, “Preacher” and “Lolly” are all fun and they all had stories behind them. But I know there must be some doozies out there. Have you come across a particularly interesting barn name? Do you know the story behind it? If you have a horse, what do you call him/her and why? I’d love to hear your stories.

You probably already know this by now but here are ours:

Valentine - our first horse. He had another name when I bought him but since he was a Valentine’s Day present for Mikki, the Kid and I came up with “Valentine”. It seemed to fit and it’s easy to say.

Moonshine - my first horse had some goofy fancy name that had the word “moon” in it. I couldn’t remember what it was (still can’t) so as a joke I called her Moonshine. Hey, we live near the mountains in east Tennessee and moonshine was a big deal around here during prohibition and some say it’s still made by the old-timers. So it was kind of a local joke, too. And lastly, she sure is pretty. I think she stands out like the glow from a moonlit night.

Okay, your turn!

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According to our thermometer, we hit 104 degrees yesterday, in the shade. Everything is dying or dead. The trees are giving up and dropping their leaves, our lawn makes a crunching sound as we walk over it and our horses are draining the water bucket at a record pace. It’s hot and everything outside is miserable. I feel bad for our horses because they’re black and they stand out in the sun for a good portion of the day. I mentioned a few days ago that Moonshine has a patch of sunburn on her nose (thanks to the those who suggested in that thread that we apply waterproof baby sunscreen, SPF50). Despite the plentiful shade in our pasture, they still hang out in the sun. So I grabbed the hose and decided to spray them down for some temporary relief. One thing I’ve learned about horses in general is that they don’t like “spraying” sounds, sudden movements, cold water on their what-nots and in general, things they haven’t pre-approved. I started with Mikki’s ex-show horse, Valentine, since he’s had more experience with things like cold showers. I let them smell the hose first, carefully turned it on so it sprayed a little and let them explore it with their mouths and nostrils. It’s the horse-way. Valentine loved it and began taking a drink from the hose (see picture). In fact he took a 10 minute drink from the hose, during which time I got a good soaking myself. I then gently sprayed his back, neck and undercarriage. He loved it! Moonshine stood nearby, wary. She was curious about the squirty thing, curious enough I was able to bring the hose to her mouth. She took a drink and I rubbed her neck and told her how pretty she was, in an effort to relax her. I tried to spray her down but even on a gentle spray setting, she didn’t really like it.

So for the past few days this has been our routine. Around noon when we see the horses coming to the barn for a drink, we head out to fill up their water bucket and spray them down to cool them off. And since it’s watermelon harvest time, we bring them some chunks of watermelon as a treat.

Have you been doing anything special to get through the heat wave?

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A few weeks ago we helped out bringing in the first cutting of hay for this year. It’s been 20 years since I helped “put up hay” and since I don’t have to do it for a living, it seemed like a fun idea at the time. I’m here to tell you, putting up hay is HARD WORK and I have a whole new respect for those who do it for a living. Here’s the square bale harvesting process in a nutshell:

1. At harvest time, a tractor pulls a hay cutter over the field being harvested.
2. Although not required, these days many farmers choose to use what’s called a hay tedder (some spell it “hay tetter”). A tractor implement, the hay tedder has circular rakes that spin as the tedder is pulled through the cut hay. This effectively fluffs and spreads it the cut hay to speed up and more thoroughly dry it. It’s important that hay be dry prior to bailing or else bacteria and mold will grow in the moist warm hay. I like to call the hay tedder a “hay fluffer”, much to the amusement of hay farmers.
3. After drying, the hay is raked into rows for the baler (using a tractor with a hay rake).
4. A tractor drives over the rows with a hay baler (some spell it “bailer”) implement. The hay is fed into the baler which compacts the hay into neat bales of a specific size (although somewhat changeable, we stuck with 50 lb. bales), cuts each bale into slices and then ties each bale with hay twine before spitting it out the back onto a hay wagon or onto the field, depending on what’s happening in step 5. There are lots of things that will stop a baler from working properly. This is the one single machine that seems to cause the most headache, as it’s in need of frequent maintenance, repair and kicking.
5. Up until this step, most of the work is done by machine. Step 5 involves manual labor. If you have a hay wagon, the baler spits the bale towards the wagon where someone reaches down and throws the bales to whoever is stacking the hay on the wagon. If you don’t have a hay wagon, the baler drops the bales onto the ground. These are then picked up and thrown onto whatever kind of trailer will be used to haul the hay (often a car hauler) by people following the baler in the field. We had several people collecting the hay and throwing the bales onto the trailer. The stacker had an easy job until the bales started stacking up. We stacked five rows high and that fifth row is a pain!
6. Once a trailer is full of hay, it’s sent off to wherever it’s going. Typically this means it’s unloaded into a barn that same day. Lots of manual labor here as someone needs to throw the hay up into the barn and someone needs to stack.

Trust me, by the end of the day, a shower is MANDATORY and you’ll be finding hay in places where you’d least expect it. The temperature that day was in the mid 80’s and humid so everyone was covered in sweat. Working with hay is itchy. I remembered not to wear shorts but forgot to wear a long sleeve shirt. It’s hard to wear long pants and long sleeves in the hot, humid summer but I’d rather sweat than be itchy all day.

Although the Kid and his friends came along to help, 50 pound bales were too much for anyone under 16 or so to move. Because of that, the 10-ish kids got to experience something far more fun. Farm kids learn to drive in the field during the hay harvest. The Kid LOVED it. I was a nervous wreck. Thanks to the ability to take pictures and video with my cell phone, Mikki was a nervous wreck, too, almost 2000 miles away on her trip. I put the drivers seat up as far as it went, raised the pedals, put the truck in four wheel drive low, dropped it into first gear and instructed our 10-year-old Kid to drive our air conditioned truck slowly behind the baler so the rest of us could do the heavy lifting. And he did a great job. This is one day when it paid to be small.

I want to close this post by saying how much respect I have for the farmers who do this kind of work every day. These people do it for a living and have strength and endurance that’s lost on those of us who are consumers only. I normally sit at a computer all day during the week and my out-of-shape body could barely walk the next day. I worked for five hours straight but these farmers were out there all day without much of a break and did it again every day that week. Amazing. Fortunately, I’ll forget how much work this was before the next harvest and will volunteer to help out again.

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