And Then There Were Four

  My mama done lost her mind.

Now, I love her, and we do a lot of crazy things, and she's had some weird ideas, but this one takes the cake.  She said it's my fault.   We were training for competition a few months ago, and we galloped into a turn, I lost my footing and we went sideways.   Now, she was asking me to run, then she said I was going too fast.  I say she should have let me run out in the open and blow off steam.  But no matter.  My foot and leg hurt.  Some days worse than others.  The vet has looked at it twice, took crazy pictures of it, made serious, concerned noises, and stuck lots of needles in it.  Now I'm out in a pasture by myself and mama keeps telling me to take it easy, no running.  I don't like it.  Mama doesn't seem to happy, either, but this is what we do.  And she said since I am hitting middle age, and need to take most of this year off and rest, it was time for her to think about bringing along something younger.   She had planned on that with Willie but he didn't work out too well.

So she comes home with a colt.  No lie.  He's 2 years old, and doesn't know a whole lot.   I spent the first two days he was here letting him know that I was the BOSS.  It hurt my leg to keep running at the fence to scare him, but it was worth it.  Boy he's a goofy kid...always picking stuff up and playing with it, not finishing his breakfast, playing around all the time.  Lucky for me the colt likes to annoy Chuck, so I get some peace and quiet when I'm out with the rest of the horses.   But anyway, my mama asked me to introduce the new kid, because he's still not too good at writing so his part will be short.   So here he is - CLs Don't Be Fooled, but my mom calls him Joker:

Hi!  My name is Joker.  I used to live out by the NC coast, but this lady came out to meet me a few times, and then she had another lady she called "doctor" look at me, and then she shows up with a trailer.  Well, that trailer ride was long!  And I've never been trailered all by myself!  I got real scared.  I couldn't even try to talk to the new lady when they stopped part way to check on me.   I heard her call another "doctor" and thought oh no, not again!  I guess these new people were worried.  I didn't get to meet the doctor that day.

So we finally get to this farm, and I've never been away from home like this before, and I was scared. The new people put me in a pasture by myself, and there were new horses on the other side of the fence.   They were weird.  One of them kept making mean faces at me.  And I slept in a barn at night!  I learned not to eat the bedding, it doesn't taste good.  Nothing tasted good those first few days - I didn't like my new feed, or the hay.  

I don't like this new hay!

Meeting my new friends for the first time

The new people spent time with me, though, and I liked that.  They seem nice.   Then the new lady started putting a horse in with me so I'd have company, and I got to meet everyone.   Then I got to go out in the pasture with all the horses, and I like that!   The new lady gives me toys to play with, and I like to try to get the other horses to play with me.   And the lady takes me out and brushes me and teaches me stuff.  I got to meet another lady and got a pedicure, and then a vet came and I got a spray up my nose that my mom calls a "vaccine" and I didn't like that at all!   But I like sleeping in my stall, and I like my hay, and the lady fixed up my feed so it tastes better now.

Out with all the other kids

 This new place is pretty nice.  I don't have to be out in the cold rain - they bring me and the other horses in and we stay warm and dry with hay to eat and a soft stall to sleep in.  They even put a radio on in the barn for me.  The other day I got to go for a walk around the pond with this lady, and we practiced what I've been learning.  There's all sorts of stuff that's new to me, and everyone is being really patient.   This lady keeps mentioning something about taking me to a show, and I have no idea what that means but I know Deuce goes all the time and he seems pretty proud of that.

Learning to walk over the narrow wooden bridge 

Oh boy!  A giant ball to play with!

So I guess this new place and new people are ok.  I like going to school with this lady.  But can someone please explain what a show is, so I can practice and be proud of myself like Deuce?   I wanna be like Deuce, just not as grumpy!

- Joker

Sliding Into a New Year

It's been a while!  Things got busy and I'm finally having time to sit down to write again.

Records are fun to break - speed, distance, weight - but not temperature.   This winter has not been fun.  I mean, we live in the South.  If I have to put up with 100 degree summer days, I shouldn't have to freeze in January.  And that's what we did - set a new record for consecutive hours below freezing at 200 hours and 19 minutes.   Hurray.  We've lived here for just over 4 years now, and I had never seen the large pond out front frozen over...until now.   Completely frozen over, end to end, all the way to the bank.  Craziness.

Hockey, anyone?

And it snowed!   The first snow not so bad, but the second, 4 inches.  Now, I know you are thinking hey, aren't you from up North?   Four inches of snow should be nothing!   Well, all true.  Until you live somewhere that doesn't have any snow plows, or big stockpiles of salt, or ways to clear the roads, along with people who didn't grow up driving in the crud.   An inch of snow is enough to completely shut down a southern city.  I've seen it happen.  More than that is absolutely crippling!

It snowed so hard you could hardly see down to the woods!

I bet you are thinking so you are stuck at home in the snow, you rode the horses in it and it was fun and beautiful!   Sigh.  I wish.  It's counterintuitive that there's more work on a farm in the winter.  Hoses and hydrants freeze.  Hay needs moved and fed.  Horses blanketed.  Old, arthritic legs need wrapped at night.   We decided to keep the horses in at night this winter to ease up on old Chuck and his sore feet, which meant stalls had to be cleaned every day, night time hay had to be fed so they could keep warm, etc.  

The front yard

Ok, mom, we are done playing.  Can we come in now?

Plus, on the really crappy side, Deuce got injured in training just after Thanksgiving.  We tried rest and supportive therapy, but he didn't really improve.  Turns out he has a damaged collateral ligament. Vet said we are looking at 6-9 months of rest for it to heal.  So right now, I am rideless.  More on that in the next post.

But - it's not as dismal as it seems.  We have a good handle on taking care of the boys in the cold now.  I seem to have accumulated enough blankets for the horses that they always had a dry change of clothes.  And because of the cold and snow, we ended up with a new family member.  A woman saw a small cat get hit by a car on the road in front of our farm, and stopped to pick her up.  She couldn't keep her, and because I'm a sucker, I took the kitty in.  We took a trip to the vet and turns out she has a broken hip.  Amazingly enough the vet said it would heal on its own, just give it time.  So the kitty is living in an upstairs bathroom until she heals, gets spayed, and is ready to become another barn cat. We named her Flurry - she came to us in a snow storm, and also after my favorite hockey player.  It's been about 6 weeks and she's running and jumping and playing so she's ready to start her life as a barn cat!

Little Flurry

Plus, I kinda like the cold.  I mean, I could do without the whole "all the water is frozen and if I am outside any longer my eyeballs will freeze, too" for days on end, but I like the change in seasons.  I like the early morning walk I take when it snows and the only other footprints are from the animals we share the farm with.  It's quiet with no cars on the roads.  I love when the horses are sent out after a snow and they walk outside like "hey, where did all this white stuff come from?!"  And then I like having my tea while I warm up in front of the fire and watch cartoons. 

So here's some pictures of our farm in the snow, and of a winter I'm glad to be putting behind me.   As I'm writing this we've already had almost a week with temperatures dancing well into the 60's each day, and I think a day or two flirted with 80!

Early morning on small front pond

Two paths diverged in a frozen wood, and I took neither.  Because I had chores to finish and my toes were frozen.

No more ice, but still cold!

Oh, and can't forget these girls - I was very worried about my bees in the long stretch of cold we had. They were a small colony headed into winter and I didn't feel they had enough food stored up.   We wrapped the hive in insulation, but I had my doubts.  The first warm day we had, I was thrilled to see lots of activity!  They made it!

The girls out and about on a warm afternoon

Happy trails!

-J.