Bestie has a birthday and Dude has a bad day

April 30 was Bestie's birthday, 19 years young. She celebrated with a carrot. I usually don't go to the barn on Thursdays because of yoga, but because I was going to be away over the weekend and because it was her birthday, I drove over there after class. There was just enough light to get them both outdoors for a few minutes of grazing. The fields are still mucky, and not all of the fields are usable, so the horses are on short rotations of a couple hours outside in order to give all of them some much needed outdoors time.

Bestie's longtime pasture mate Sadie left last week. They've been going out together almost since we arrived at Maple Valley, so, hmmn, I would guess 6 years or so. They just kind of did their own thing happily in the field - primarily grazing, with occasional acknowledgements of each other's presence. It seemed like a pretty peaceful relationship. To my knowledge, there was only one mysterious altercation in all those years. That occurred in the last month, a little tiff with no repercussions, thank goodness. Sadie is being leased by a young girl, who took her home for the summer. Bestie seems no worse for wear over Sadie's departure.

Now, Dude, on the other hand...

Dude's bad day was yesterday. I got to the barn after work and from the wild and woolly look of him, I could tell that he had gotten worked up about something. Barn manager Paula filled me in. Dude's girlfriend on the left, Berry, had left Sunday to go to a new barn, and a gelding moved in to her former stall. Dude was Not Happy about that. And Eve, on his other side, is in major heat, constantly whinnying and swishing her tail at him. So even though he generally is not attached to her, for the moment, he thinks he is. Also, when they did the turnout shift swap, it made Dude Very Angry to have to come in. But when they put him back out, he took out his anger on his pasture mate Nate, bossing poor Nate around and boxing him into a corner of the field.

So Dude was brought in to hang out in his stall with some hay, which most horses would be perfectly fine with. But by the time I arrived, it was clear he'd been stewing all afternoon. It was like he had decided he was mad at the world but couldn't really remember what made him so mad. Paula quietly observed that it was just not a good day for Dude. I took him out for a half hour of grazing ... the magic cure to calm. And today he was fine. He didn't even look at Eve when she started carrying on. Kind of embarrassing for her.

Time for a saddle cleaning

I was a total loser as a rider this winter - just couldn't do it with the frigid temperatures. Particularly in the older indoor with the metal walls, it was like riding in a freezer. Not fun. My last ride for the winter on Bestie was in early January, and I just got back on her (once) about a week ago.

In the interim, the saddles accumulated a lot of dust in the tack room. 

A couple weeks ago the May issue of Western Horseman arrived, and I read the article "The Secret of Suds" with interest. The saddle cleaning tips in the article are the shared wisdom of Canadian saddlemaker Ken Cameron. 

I liked it right away because he started with the assumption that  your saddle had not been used all winter because you'd been in hibernation. Yep.

I learned that my main problem is rushing the job. I soap it up, rub it down, apply conditioner, and off I go. To do it right, you should soap it up - and Mr. Cameron is ALL about plenty of soap suds; in fact, he describes the goal in the soaping process as "a froth." The next step is to let it dry for two or three days before doing anything more. Giving it plenty of time to dry minimizes the chance of rot, particularly if you're applying some sort of sealant/conditioner-type material after cleaning.

I learned that Murphy's Oil Soap can be used as a saddle cleaner.

I learned that using too much oil in our damper climate could lead to mold and mildew.

All in all, a very useful read.

While I couldn't find the actual WH article online, Mr. Cameron does share his tips here