Seeing the sights

After we got through a rainy Sunday and Monday, last week turned into a gorgeous week of sun and blue skies. Yesterday morning I walked the loop from our house and around through Underhill Flats. I've been on the treadmill too much this summer, and it felt good to be outside. 

A couple of years ago, for Underhill's 250th anniversary, a local artist led a flag painting project that was open to anyone who wanted to participate. I had never noticed this horsey flag before; it's right on the Underhill Flats green. All the flags are very cheery and I love seeing them as I drive back and forth between home and work along Route 15. It's really fun to see the variety produced by creative people of all ages.

Friday night I rode Bestie. There was a lesson going on in the old indoor arena, so we went down to the new one. The retractable shades have been down all summer, which keeps a nice breeze going through. She was a little distracted, even though nothing much was going on outside. I think it was because we generally don't ride down there much, and she's just not accustomed to the bigger and brighter space. With the shades down, the road and the fields are visible, so there's a lot to check out. It was such a beautiful bright early evening, I definitely was a little rubber necky too, checking out the sights outdoors as we circled around. It was a pleasant ride. It always makes me laugh when we finish and if I don't dismount right away, she turns her head around to nudge my left foot, like "c'mon, we're done."

A spectacular night

Let me start by saying that these pictures don't do tonight justice. AT ALL.

All day it rained. Probably the most rain we've had in weeks.

Then, right as I was leaving the barn, the weather front started moving through from the west.

That meant that the setting sun slowly emerged and was shining toward the black clouds still in the east. 

It completely lit up the hillside across from the barn.

I thought I would hear some sort of triumphant fanfare from the heavens, it was so beautiful.

Then, driving home with one eye on the road and the other on my rear view mirror,

I kept seeing the edge of the front shifting ... and shifting.

The sun emerged completely from the cloud cover as it was setting.

Wow.

I wasn't the only one leaping out of their car with iPhone in hand.

Vermonters love capturing weather drama.

This was  much  more exciting than my plan A for a post - Dude's latest injury, which I'm thinking might be chapter 4 of his autobiography, "101 classic ways to hurt yourself and drive your owner crazy." Chapter 4 would cover going down for a good roll, getting carried away when leaping up, and somehow 1) kicking yourself or 2) kicking up rocks that nick you.


A brief recap from earlier this afternoon...
Text from barn manager Paula: Just letting you know, I put Dude out this morning in the round pen by himself with 4 other horses in the small paddocks. He got excited and did some acrobatics scratching both front legs. I washed him off and applied antibiotic ointment. :(

My reply: Thanks very much. Will he ever just chill???? :)

Reply by barn manager Paula, in person, after I arrived at the barn: "No. He's Dude."

Cleaned him up with Betadine  and poofed a generous cloud of Wonder Dust on his scrapes.

This week at the barn ...

... Dude spotted a hot air balloon. Actually, he didn't spot it, since he couldn't actually look up that high. But as he was grazing and the balloon approached, he definitely noticed the Darth Vader-like muted roar of the burner, and the tiny voices of the people in the basket. This is his "hmmn, what IS that" pose. 

There is actually another balloon just outside of this shot. It was a gorgeous night; no surprise that two of the balloons were coming up the valley as they probably have both mountain and lake views from this flight path. But since the second one was approaching really low to the ground, much lower than the one in this photo, I decided it might be prudent not to tempt fate. Dude and I went back into the barn.

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.

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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.

Barn art

Boarder Bev is an amazingly talented artist. With new horses in the barn she is doing a bunch of new stall signs. These are some of my favorite signs ... the photos don't truly do the signs justice.