Mousies B Gone

Trying something new. We've had a problem with mice in the tack room at Maple Valley for as long as I've been there. One year they ate one of our bath sponges. One year they chewed a hole in Katie's nicest Western show pad. That made me really angry. 

We've had traps. Spring traps. Sticky traps.

We've let the cats into the tack room.

One fall a couple of years ago I bought one of those electronic things that once plugged in to an outlet emits a noise that only the mice can hear. Supposedly they don't like the noise and stay away. It worked in our garage. But it didn't work in the tack room.

This week, I got Stay Away. Natural pest prevention. "Guaranteed to prevent and control pests in the spaces you live, work and play," it says.

It's made with an odor that is offensive to rodents, but pleasant to people. I have to admit, I like its fresh balsam fir scent, and whatever is in the bag looks like potpourri. Right now the bag is strategically placed on the floor in between the bookcase (which always has poopy evidence of mice) and the big plastic boxes that I keep my horsey stuff in in lieu of a tack trunk. 

The bag has only been in place a couple of days, so I haven't checked for mousy evidence yet. Figured I'd do that when I need some excitement this weekend.

It's supposed to be good for 30 days. If it works, I'll happily spend another $4.99 on a new bag. Just spotting its little label each day makes me want to say in a low, menacing voice toward the recesses of the tack room ... Stay. Away. Rodent. Except my barnmates might wonder about me.

A perfect night for grazing

Last week we had a heat wave of several days, really quite oppressive for Vermont. Midweek the heat broke, and this was the first night that we could spend some quality time grazing without sweltering in the heat and humidity. I was happy. Dude was happy. Bestie was happy. Cool temps and green grass - life is good.

.

New purchases

A few necessary purchases made today at Guy's Farm and Yard, my go-to for horsey stuff. Haven't been there in a while.

A hole on the left side of Dude's flymask near his temple has been slowly getting bigger. I thought that there must be a game of fly mask tugging going on with one of his pasture mates, but barn manager Paula thought he was rubbing his head on his stall door frame in the morning while waiting to go out. In any case, I decided I'd better get him a new one before the loose fabric ends starting poking him in the eye. The Cashel Crusader seems to fit him best; he has such a large jaw that it's kind of hard to find a mask that fits well. (And who knew Cashel has so many different products; I'd never looked at the site before including the link in this entry.)

After looking at a couple options on the shelf at Guy's, I decided to try the Absorbine Fungasol to treat the creeping crud on Dude and Bestie's back hind legs. I've been fighting this all summer. I don't know if it's that the summer has been wetter than normal or what, but I just can't get it to go away. I've been scrubbing with an iodine solution - which has worked in the past - and also with a tea tree oil wash. A couple of times I've felt like I'm making headway, but then I won't get to the barn for a day and it seems to return with a vengeance. So after buying the Fungasol today, I treated them both this afternoon. The instructions say to treat every day until the crud is gone. It has a scent that sort of reminds me of bathroom cleaner, which is kind of odd.

I also bought a couple bags of shavings, which I haven't needed in a few weeks. There for a while I was easily going through two bags a week, but the horses seems to have a thicker layer of shavings in their stalls recently and I haven't felt the need to add any.

I was going to ride Dude today, but there was a bit of thunder and it looked like a storm might blow up. Instead we had a nice long hand graze not too far from the barn in case we had to get inside quickly. Bestie got her usual "lite" graze - she's rather well rounded at this point in the summer.