Eating their greens

It's that time of year when the grass and other greenery is beginning to grow, and it fascinates me to watch Dude and Bestie grazing. I spend a lot of time doing that since it's still mud season and turnout comes and goes depending on pasture conditions. After the previous confinement, we had a run of really nice days, but now we're back to a rainy stretch and they've been inside for two days. I try to get them out for at least 20-30 minutes of hand grazing.

Bestie seems less selective than Dude at this time of year. She pretty much wolfs down whatever she can munch on and often seems to be inhaling it rather than chewing it up. I tend to graze them along the path that runs between the pastures since the grass there is pretty lush. Bestie is like a buzz saw making her way methodically down the path.

Dude wanders more as he grazes; in fact, he's all over the place. At this time of year he tends to grab clumps of young crab grass, dandelions and big leaf plantain along the path. He doesn't like anything fine (that goes for hay, too). Pretty soon he'll start avoiding the dandelions and plantain. I've read that those plants tend to get bitter as they age. His choices are interesting, given that you often hear that horses choose to eat certain plants for a reason. I've read that dandelion is rich in certain minerals and that plantain has a calming effect on digestion.

I recently read an article about growing an herb garden for your horse, which I thought was such a fun idea. The article is on holistichorse.com. Of course they suggest working with a knowledgeable practitioner of herbal medicine before treating your horse.

A run of rainy days

The horses have been in all week because we've had a bunch of rainy days that have turned the fields to mud. I haven't had time to ride, but I have been able to get them both out for a graze each day. One day I was out with Dude and a groundhog came out of the woods to graze about 25 feet away - cute (as long as his burrow is in the woods and not the pasture).

A couple photos of the muddy track and the princess grazing. The sun is due to be out tomorrow, yay!

Monday

Monday. Enough said? Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's ok. This particular one was coming off a weekend where I felt I didn't have enough down time. And the day itself was busy. And I stopped at the grocery store prior to the barn so I was running later than usual. AND it's Katie's long day at work, so I usually do both the horses. This is all called "setting the scene."

Turnout has been a bit sketchy lately due to the wet weather making a mess of the fields. The barn folk helpfully send an email when the horses have to stay in. I checked my email late morning; no note from the barn. Got to the barn and - surprise! - found them in; the note had been sent at 2 pm. I had really wanted to ride Bestie, but now was faced with getting both of them out to shake off a day in the stall, and horsey responsibilities were battling with visions of the fillet of salmon I had just purchased for a nice dinner. The whole scene made me very cranky.

I got Dude out first as he is the most vocal about the terrible injustice of being in for the day. We headed out to the round pen, where he trotted around snorting and tossing his head just to make sure everyone knew that really, he should've been outside all day. Then we handgrazed for a few minutes. The grass really hasn't grown very long, so grazing options are a bit slim, but it was enough to make him happy, and how could I not smile at the gusto with which he attacked the new grass? Then I got Bestie out to lunge her, and she trotted around so slowly, it was like she was a thousand years old. I had to laugh at that - you just never know whether a day inside will set up bucking bronco Bestie or oh-this-is-so-much-work Bestie. After lunging, we went out so she could get a few mouthfuls of grass. When we came back in, Dude had his head out over his stall guard like he was waiting for us; once Bestie got resettled in her stall, he went back to his hay.

As cranky as I can be upon arrival, I never leave the barn that way. Making them happy with a bit of grass, cleaning the stalls, and leaving to the sounds of contented hay munching - impossible to be unhappy when all is right in the horses' little world.

Just another night at the barn

Not much excitement tonight at the barn. I debated riding Bestie, then decided against it since my legs were a little tired from cross country skiing and playing hockey last night. I gave her a good brushing and that was it. Whenever she's on the cross ties she keeps one eye on Dude, who has been known to give the cross ties a yank when the urge strikes. Tonight he was sleepy after a big day out in the snow.

It's been fairly warm, in the low to mid 30s, so I've been putting Dude and Bestie in their fleece sheets at night and then at turn-out time in the morning Larry or Reggie throw their turnout sheets on over the fleece. Love the fleece sheets, but every night after I groom the horses, I groom the sheets! They pick up everything! But they do wash up really well.

Bestie's sheet prior to brushing it off - I'm surprised there were any shavings in her stall!

Dude and I have a little ride

I didn't have to work this weekend, which was nice since it added a lot of hours to the weekend. I decided to ride Dude. Katie has been very busy and is working this weekend, and the poor guy has been looking kind of down in the dumps watching me tack up Bestie. I had brought his bright turquoise saddle pad because the other one we had at the barn got eaten by mice. Burned me up - it was a gorgeous cream, black and gold Mayatex and the rodents chewed a big hole in it. Once I got him saddled up the girls at the barn made a fuss over him in his pretty saddle pad and you could tell he thought he was hot stuff.

We were out in the arena about 25 minutes. It was pushing 40 degrees today, so fairly warm, and it just felt nice to ride and not be super bundled up. He was pretty peppy, and we did a nice big trot. His saddle is so much less cushy than Bestie's; my rear end was killing me toward the end. We had the arena to ourselves until the end when one other horse and rider came in, and it was a lot of fun to bop around.

A couple days ago Katie discovered a little spot just below Dude's left hip that barn manager Caitlin diagnosed as rain rot. The spot is about the size in diameter of a pencil eraser and slightly raised. I scrubbed it with Betadine (then scrubbed the scrubber) and treated the spot with some ointment - Farnham Tri Care - that we have on hand. Have gotten recommendations to use MTG or icthammol from others, but will stick with what we've got for now. The scrubbing didn't seem to bother him. It's the first time we've ever dealt with rain rot, so we'll see how it goes...

Hello blog! I've missed you!

I certainly wouldn't have guessed that the last time I posted was in mid-December. But, really, no surprise; that's about when the ski season began and therefore, when work got very, very busy. Over the last couple months I've found that when I come home at night, the last thing I want to do is get on a computer. I started the blog to have something fun to write that wasn't connected with work, but work is tiring me out too much to have the energy left at night to write. I'm wondering if anyone else who has a day job involving words has the same problem.

The other unfortunate side effect of being busy at work is having less time at the barn. And winter in Vermont means that everyone migrates to the indoor arena, so it is tough to find time to ride that coincides with when I have an open hour or two and a whole lot of other people are not in the indoor. Pre-holidays I was doing pretty well with lessons, and trainer Caitlin was riding Bestie about once a week, which was working well. Post-holidays I've hardly ridden at all and haven't had the $$ to pay anyone else to ride.

I've pretty much resigned myself to grabbing the horsey time when I can. Last Saturday I rode Dude. I hadn't ridden him in ages, and had forgotten how much direction he needs, as compared to Ms. Sensitive. My legs were t-i-r-e-d after 25 minutes on him. I had ridden Bestie a few days before. There was a jumping lesson going on, and she gets very, um, aware, of all that activity, so we basically just walked the whole time. I lunged her today and she had a few moments of snorting and bucking. The fields have been icy so the horses are really just going out and standing around, and she clearly wanted to seize the opportunity for a good buck-and-run (which was fine after the one other horse and rider left the arena).

Dude and Bestie are both shedding and have been for at least a couple weeks. It seems to be happening quite early this year. I'm hoping it doesn't mean we'll have an early spring. We haven't had much of a winter yet, and I'd be fine with some good snows over the next couple months. I've got new cross country skis that I'm excited to use.

Dude celebrated his 19th birthday in late January. He's been part of the family since he was 8. Where does the time go?!

Brief (30 minutes) mystery ailment hits Dude

Last Thursday I decided to run by the barn post-work and pre-yoga class because I knew the horses had been in due to muddy fields and I wanted to walk Bestie. Normally Katie does the barn on Thursdays to allow me to go directly to yoga. She arrives later in the evening, so it was lucky that I went.

When I got there, I opened Dude's door to give him a treat and noticed that he was sweaty. Really sweaty. Sweat rings around his ears, sweat on the neck, sweat soaking his rib cage. I pulled him out of the stall and hollered for the barn manager. He wasn't upset, just sweaty. And his neck muscles were twitching, with his esophagus looking like it was rhythmically contracting. I ran my fingers down his neck but didn't feel anything. The whole thing was Very Odd, to say the least. We took off his turnout and threw on an Irish knit. Caitlin went out to the the indoor with me and walked him around. He seemed perky and pretty unconcerned; basically fine other than the muscle twitching and sweating. He had pooped quite a bit in his stall, so that was good. Caitlin took his temperature a couple times, and he didn't have a fever; also good.

When we brought him back in I put him on the cross ties to watch him and right about then Katie arrived. His neck muscles were still twitching a bit, but the sweat had dried. He hung out placidly on the cross ties, and over the next few minutes, the muscle twitching stopped. Katie walked him and groomed him. I had called the vet and they had said to hold off feed for the night, which we did. When the other horses got fed their evening hay, Dude put his angry face on, and we figured he was back to normal. Barn owner Larry's diagnosis was a mild choke, just enough of a choke to get Dude riled and sweaty, but not enough to have the whole disgusting-stuff-coming-out-the-nose phase. My frantic Googling of varied combinations of "equine muscle tremors sweating" turned up all kinds of scary but unlikely possibilities, so we're going with a mild choke as the best guess. We wet his hay the next day, and he's been _ _ _ _ since. (Not putting the actual word in print for fear of jinxing his return to normalcy.)