Holiday is over-back to business

It had to end eventually. After a family breakfast Saturday morning at a local cafe, we had to do serious business at the farm. The farrier and his assistant were there, and we had more than enough horses to trim. We may have set a land speed record for getting things done--we trimmed 18 horses in less than 4 hours, with both of them working. All of those horses got groomed really well, cockleburrs pulled from their manes and tails until my hands bled, they were dewormed, and trimmed, and got whatever other sort of maintenance they needed. It was actually pretty fun, but even when I am just the step-and-fetch-it girl, that is hard work. You have to catch them and put them in stalls, and keep them moving so that there are always a few in line and ready to be trimmed when it is their turn. Add in all that other stuff, and my incessant chart-making about what happened to whom, it was a very busy day!

But of course, you know I was also taking a bunch of pics.
Marvin was being particularly handsome. Marvin the ass, not Marvin the farrier, but I am sure he was lovely too. I just do not think about things like that. At least not about the farrier.
He is however, exceptionally good at his job. This is where non-horse people might tune out for a bit--I have to document this stuff somewhere so I can track recoveries etc, so feel free to scroll down to more interesting stuff. We found some issues--Squeaklet had a blowout of some sort. There must have been an abcess and it busted out through a crack in her hoof. I am sure this is my fault, at least the crack itself was, since she was entirely too long as she had slipped through the cracks on the farrier schedule (look, I made a pun. I am such a wit). This will grow out over time, but since the crack is all the way through the hairline, there will likely always be a scar on her foot, but she is not the least but sore, which is what matters.

This is Midget's front right--who knows what she did here, it looks like a hole an alien might have burst through. Who knows. She may have just clipped herself in some sort of freak manner, but it is odd. She too is perfectly comfortable, but has some hoof issues in that her heels are growing funky. Corrective action is being taken.
This is Hammer's foot rear right, I think. Earlier this year, he damn near cut his foot off. I mean OFF. The only thing we can figure is that he kicked through some metal, which is the only reasonable explanation--except we cannot find where, and all the metal on the place that is in kicking range is lined with wood to make sure these things do not happen. That is a horse for you though. From looking at the scar, you can see where he did the damage--his heel bulb was sliced really deeply and ugly. He also cut it high up where you can see the hair doing something goofy. It is amazing to me how it healed so well, and now there just has to be some remodeling of the hoof to get it back in normal condition. He too is sound as a dollar, and thank goodness this happened when he was just a year old, as young ones heal so well and go on to be perfectly normal. In his case, it may have been the best thing that ever happened to him, as he had to put up with treatment every day and he turned into such a sweetheart over it.

That is the end of injury pics for the day--aren't you glad?
This is Vixen, who has been hiding in the hay field behind the ponds. I have not spent any time with lately. If she has not grown up, I do not know what has happened. I did not recognize her at first, which is not uncommon as she and Riot look just alike. She is a year and a half old here. I really liked her when I was playing with her Saturday and I am going to focus on her some more in the near future. Her mother, Foxy, pictured below, has an unattractive head, and we prayed Sly would trump it--he did on Voodoo, the 2 year old, and clearly he did an even better job on this one. Now if these babies are half the horse their brother Chief (who lives in Arkansas) is, we will have hit the jackpot.


Foxy brings a lot to the table to make up for that head though--brains, athletic ability, she is ate up with cow, and pedigree to name a few. She has earned her spot in this herd. After all, pretty is as pretty does.Xan had her hair in one big sheet of cockleburred mess--it took forever to get them all out, and the efforts of three people. She was glad to get away from us--look how frizzy her hair is from being aggravated by us.

I realize Gypsy was just featured on here, but she looked so pretty after her work got done, and she just kept posing for me. Besides, I was trying to pretend that I did not see Barry working on fence repairs--we are in a constant state of standoff over fence boards, and I was afraid that if I called attention to the fact that he was working on it, he would either stop or make me help. I sure did not want to be a part of that. So I just kept taking pics and looking busy.

That scheme worked--he replaced boards that were ugly or broken, or that had just been slapped up in a quick fix situation that never seemed to get revisited. Quite often his fix for a broken section of board fence (which really is the bane of my existence, the wood fence) is to put a corral panel in front of it. I say that is no fix and we need panels for other things. Finally, several of those were liberated from their too-long-to-be-temporary homes, and put to use in other more appropriate places. Not only did the bull shed area have repairs done, so did Squeak's sand pit---she even got a new section added to it so she can travel more.

We attempted to move horses from the middle pasture to the back pasture and hay field where they should live for a while, but they were not particularly cooperative. That is how I got away with taking all these pics, I was trying to do the transition.

Barry also moved hay all over so they will be set for the week while he is gone again. He even brought a round bale over to the house (which is about 2.5 miles from the farm) for the boys, who have not moved since--they like it much better than the round bale they had. They are more than a little spoiled, and it keeps me from having an asthma attack by handling square bales every day.

And guess what I did? I took a nap! Surprise, surprise, I took a nap. It is my favorite thing, and I needed it. He went on a boy outing with Mike, Rusty and Hutch, and after my nap, I took him to dinner and a movie because I was so grateful he did all that work. The craziest thing happened there- we were close to on time, and the movie was sold out! In a town with 8 theateres for 17,000 people--explain that to me. To spend time for a bit before going to dinner and a later movie, we went to TSC and got a new battery for the Gator who has been kaput for two weeks--that makes things a lot harder than you would think. We then had good steaks and swordfish for dinner, and still had time left over, so we picked up a few gifts at WalMart and went to the movies. We were too early for what we wanted to see, so we saw Twilight. It was okay. We forgot the groceries in the car though--as well as his credit card at the bar where he had the boy outing, and of course, they are not open on Sundays so he will be out of town without it. Oops.

I stayed up until 4 am, reading and doing laundry. No wonder my nights and days are mixed up.

Today, we got up and he went to fix the Gator, got the horses moved around and Squeak moved to her new paddock, while I worked on house stuff. It was gross weather, so we went to ANOTHER movie--Four Christmases, which was very cute. Then guess what I did? I took ANOTHER nap. It was swell. While I did that, he tracked down straw for the pig and dogs, and now they are happy, too.

So here it is Sunday nite, and Mandy, Edward and Gabi are now back in Houston, so these are the last of the pics there will be of her for a while. I love these pigtails.



It is so nice to be caught up on things for the week to start. It is even better that he did all the work! Most of the world thinks he does it all anyway, but since he is gone during the week, I do everything then. The weekends are for catch up--and since we are booked solid until the New Year, it is vital that all this get done this weekend.


I am ready to start the week. I am hoping that everything at work will relax a little so we can get back to the business of representing people instead of defending ourselves. I am going back to the gym as I missed every day last week due to everything else that was going on, and I feel kind of gross as a result. I have to order some Christmas presents or no one will be getting anything.

It is supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow, but I will believe that when I see it--it is mostly just sprinkling enough to make things icky.

In some good news though, the NCHA futurity is spinning along and the second round of open competition has ended. Justa Lil Scoot, the son of Justa Swinging Jane, made the semi-finals! He has the highest score of any horse in the limited open as well, which is also very cool. Jane is my Snap's maternal sister, so yay for the family. We will get to see him show when we get there in 12 days, I am excited about that.

There is a lot to look forward to around here in the near future, I just hope nothing disastrous interferes with it. I always feel like I get a little bit ahead and then slammed backwards a few more steps, and I am bound and determined to get through all this to a more secure frame of mind.

Hang in there and surely tomorrow, I will me more interesting in my posts. I hope!

Speaking of asses

We were, weren't we? I tried to find the pretty parts of Miss Pixie to take pics of for detail shots.

I love her sweet ears and her funny little zebra-like mane.

Aww, who am I kidding, I like all of Miss Pixie. She is a nice donkey .
Hard to believe that this one is her father, as he is not pretty. He is not even handsome. And since when did I become an ass connoisseur anyway? What do I know about it, I ask you. I love Marvin anyway, every bit of his big noggin and bones as big around as my legs--he is an oaf but is pound for pound the funniest animal I have besides Bocephus the pig.

Boogie gets ready for his big adventure

Boogie has been turned out since I last was posting about him--when was that, just before Labor Day? So almost four weeks. It has done WONDERS for him. He is not quite back to his old self, but I see more of the real Boogie than the nervous wreck Boogie I did have. It is a huge relief. And look, he is growing a little bit of a butt!
In preparation for Stage 2 of his education, he got his feet trimmed after work tonight. I am so lucky that I can count on Marvin the Magnificent to help me out when I need him, even if it is on short notice--after all, it is not like he can just drive himself over at the drop of a hat. He has to get a ride, or I have to go get him, or something. Today, he ran over after I got off work and was in and out in 20 minutes.

Boogie was a perfect gentleman.

Now that he is all dressed up and ready, he is going to go over to my friend Jackie's where they are going to re-visit things that he should know how to do, and more than anything work on his mental state so that he can handle his education without being terrified. Jackie is a dressage person, so surely she will take much ribbing from her barn about the midget cowhorse, but she is tough--she can take it. I hope!


Stay tuned for Boogie developments, I have got a bit of a soft spot for him after seeing how unhappy he has been.

Donkey see, Donkey do

I do not know why this happens, but it almost always does---as soon as I move a donkey from one place to the other, they lay down and roll. Today I did not so much move the donkeys from the middle pasture to the back, but they insisted on going with me when I went to the back to bushhog (which by the way HURTS when there are such tall weeds like we had--I got thorns stuck all over my legs). That was all right that they went with me, as they have no business in the middle pasture and I do not know why there were there in the first place--but that is the nature of donkeys--they do what they want.


First Miss Pixie hit the dirt---she wallered and wallered and kicked up such a cloud of dust, I almost could not see her.
She is a graceful sort. For an ass.

Marvin waited till she was done, almost like he was studying her technique. Then he flung himself down and had at it for a while. Marvin often sings along with his performance---he grunts and groans and sometimes farts--he really gets into his roll.

All that rolling is hard work, so he had to have a little rest before he got up. He probably had a vision that he was going to be put to work while I was bushhogging--every time I looked over there, Madison was sitting on him, while he grazed or ate mulberries that she was picking.

It was a big day for the donks--relocation, exercise with the kid, taste testing berries.

It is hard being an ass around here

Who is the bigger Ass?

Obviously this top photo was not by design, and yes I know it was not safe, and yes I will likely go to hell for laughing at her losing her fight with Marvin. I think it is safe to assume he is more stubborn than she is. Miss Pixie there on the right seems terribly concerned about why Madison is on the ground.

Even poor Marvin is not safe from this child. I am confident he is rethinking his general status as a nuisance, if this is the results it gets him.

It is pretty funny to watch her hop up on him and expect him to go somewhere. If he does, it is not because she told him to, but because it suited him to go somewhere. He is not what you would call obedient. Most of this action occurs while we are watering the back pasture--because we have to do it by hand rather than using the automatic float (Cash tears it up and makes 300 dollar water bills), it takes forever. That lends itself to coming up with stupid entertainment like the ass rodeo.

I suspect it wont be long before we cannot catch Marvin at all, which is probably a better condition than we have now, where he is always up in your business begging for attention or treats.

Developments with Miss Rondee

I have been looking forward to this meeting tonight since we brought Rondee home from the trainer. I wanted the opinion of another person, but it needed to be someone with a completely different perspective, no vested interest at all, and most importantly, someone with a wealth of experience. I wanted that person to deal with Rondee with little to no knowledge about what had gone on, so they would not have specific expectations.

Marvin the Magnificent was perfect for this. He has known her since she was born, has trimmed her until she went to training, and knows her mother and siblings. He also has an almost cosmic connection with horses the likes of which I have never seen.

Look at the tension in her body in the photo above on the right--and this was after a few minutes of moving her feet around until she seemed to become a believer in him. Things started changing immediately.

His first conclusion was that she is right smack in the middle of either turning squirrelly or making amazing strides. She is a reactor not a thinker, and is so to the extreme. His first comment is that she needs to be taught to think...never occurred to me that you could even teach such a thing, they either are or are not a horse that thinks. What a great thing to learn!

I settled down with the camera and watched them play for a while. It is like a clinic every time he is here, so I count my lucky stars that it happens a couple of times a month. Tonight was a whole other deal though, the changes in her in a short period of time, and with different manners of approaching or asking her for something. It so illustrates how horses feed off of us.

She initially did not want to be touched, and I have always known that she is herky jerky about her head and face being messed with. Marvin calls her claustrophobic, but even that receded over the next half hour or so. He tried several differrent things with her to guage her reactions, and one of the most interesting was designed to make her think, I assume--he used virtually every part of her body to lead her. I have seen people do that with a rope around a leg, and seen him do that a lot with babies when teaching them to trim, but the rope around her ears was a new one on me. It was bizarre how the lightest touch could get her to follow her ears around. She would plant her hind foot and move around it with just a tiny pull on the rope.

She learned or maybe the word is evolved so quickly with him tonight. This horse standing free to be trimmed is NOT the same animal that spooked at her shadow when leaving the trainers, and is most definitely not the one that was still wearing a drag rope in her stall after four months there.

I feel so much better about things with her now, seeing how different she can be when placed in a different situation, with different handling, and different attitude. Now for me to learn enough to capitalize on it.