Comparisons (Oct 08, Oct 09)

I wrote this post in October, 2009. I was so happy with the changes, comparing then to now. Our last boarding situation with our first at-home forever lifestyle. It feels odd to post it now, due to the change in season. This is one of the most negative posts I've ever written here on Horse Crazy American. But it has a happy ending, if you'll bear with me.
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October. It's that time of year when German horses go inside their box stalls, and if they are lucky, they have winter paddocks to get some fresh air during the day. I don't like the footing in these situations, they often use concrete or blocks as winter paddock footing, to make them easier to clean. It's true, the horses stay immaculate all winter, because they do not want to lie down on the hard ground. And cleaning paddocks is a breeze, on asphalt.

Their stalls are also concrete floored, with no mats. I have not yet seen a stable in Germany that does not have concrete stall flooring. No mats. I just visited another stable that uses a deep bedding system with horses, that is, leaving the wet spot for a month, and only removing manure. This gives the horses a deeper bed to lie on, but definitely a wetter, stinkier one. I guess if you don't have rubber mats, you have to stretch bedding somehow....

Last October my horse had just arrived in Germany, and he was being chased around by evil pony mare and evil herd leader.

Unterdahl

Why did I keep him there then? Turnout was my priority. And this particular private stable did not use the concrete winter paddock system. In fact, it was just the opposite.

Pure mud.

The mud was ubiquitous. There was not a step of their winter paddock that did not sink 6 inches when stepped on. Boot sucking mud, you often lost your boot as you tried to navigate around with the manure fork. I hated it, but I still think it's better than concrete paddocks.

Neighbors would walk by and call it a Horse Mud Spa. Hrmph.

But seriously, mud halfway to the knee. I had to spray his legs with the hose to find his legs and hooves, and then try to assess how bad the scratches and thrush were. Oh, then I had to clean up the spray area, because it was a shared driveway with 3 houses, and they did not want horse mud on their driveway. (They also did not want a wisp of hay, so every day, I had to sweep the driveway clean of any wisps, and spray the mud. But spraying the mud sometimes caused an ice rink driveway, and those days I got in trouble for that too.)


Worse, in the winter paddock, when the poop became mixed in, you could not even differentiate manure from mud, to remove it. We had to simply leave it, and let the horses live in it.

When it froze, it froze in the undulating, pocked surface made by 5 horses, 2 with shoes. It was dangerous to navigate. I worried a lot.

Yet I was grateful to be there. It was either mud and evil paddockmates, or concrete and more paddockmates, who would probably also have some evils in there as well. New in Germany, I wasn't aware of many options.

In Unterdahl, I didn't have to pay board, and with no job, it was affordable. I only had to pay for what I used, foodwise, and the morning caretaker's fee. I also had to come twice a week to feed, water, and clean the paddock.

During the 6 months my horse lived in Unterdahl, while we searched for a home, the owner took 5 vacations. Five! During her vacations, I had to be there every day. One of these vacations was 2 weeks during the worst freeze of the year.

This Seattleite had to learn to drive a car in deep snow up and down hills, to care for the 5 horses every night.

I know I have spoken of this before, but it was so horrible I have to say it again. I had to borrow water from a neighbor's bathroom everyday to water the horses, because the water pipes to the barn were frozen, and the barn owner did not give us a key to her house. (Only the maids had keys.)







I apologized every day for 2 weeks, for getting dirt in the neighbor's bathroom floor, and tried desperately to wipe it up with bits of toilet paper.

After filling my 7 gallon American water tanks, I hefted them into the wheelbarrow for the hike to the winter paddock, which was not located at the house, rather, 5 houses up the street.

Up, meaning UP! Up an icy concrete hill, where pushing a wheelbarrow full of water tanks was treacherous! Every step was almost a crash to my knees on ice. I kept trying to not fall down, have you ever tried to push a heavy wheelbarrow up an ice-covered street?

I had to navigate a neighbor's car, and often he was angry at us for the mud in front of his car, so he purposefully (and passive agressively) parked so I absolutely could not reach the paddock.

Then after watering, I had to bring hay up the same hill, past the same 5 houses, where neighbors watched from indoors. I hated the lack of privacy, and that everything I did was under someone's eye. And then I made one more wheelbarrow trip with grain.

The barn owner returned from her two weeks in Italy, not even suspecting the icy street we had to wheel the wheelbarrow over every day, almost killing ourselves on it. The weather had broken. She had no idea what it had been like, what we had been through.

I took a respite. I quit showing up on weekends for 2 weeks in a row, to take a break. Barn owner flipped out. She said I had promised I would be there on weekends to feed. I said, "I committed to Tues and Thurs, and told you I would probably be there as well on a weekend day, but that I would not commit to that. Only Tues and Thurs were my scheduled days to feed and clean the paddock/fields.)"

She did not believe it. She had a mental lapse, I guess, but she got really mad. She demanded I come out there to help. I came out every weekend since. Along with the paid help who feeds every morning.

Meager Times

All the while my horse was becoming thinner and thinner. Her horses were much faster at eating than he is, and they would come down and push him off his grain every feeding.

My horse was often seen standing near the haystation, but not eating, because the other horses kept him away. He waited his turn every day, and snuck in for some hay when they had to drink or something. It was infuriating. I mentioned it to the barn owner, and she said, "Yes, you have to BRING Baasha to the haystation. Pull on his blanket and bring him up to it, and then he will eat." What? What kind of solution is that? This is a herd dynamics issue. Physically bringing my horse to the feeder will work for like 5 minutes. When we leave, the others will push him out again.

What is more heartwrenching than seeing a skinny horse standing outside the hay station, waiting for someone else to leave?

He had a blanket on, but whenever I brought him in to do his feet, I took it off. Sometimes the hired help would see, and say, "He's so thin!"

I would say, "I'm glad you noticed. What can we do about it?"

The answer is,

Buy a home.

Bring the horse home.

Feed him yourself.

Don't let there be another horse that steals his food. That chases him laps around the field for fun.

Like I said before, the first day we brought Baasha home, March 31, 2009, he lay down and slept.

He lay down and slept so long, I could not disturb him when I brought a camera over, and knelt next to him.

Now he's home, and he is not coming up with injuries anymore, and he has the weight I have been waiting for.

If we find a companion for him who will be kind to him, we will go for it. For now we are just putting the word out, waiting for someone with a very kind, hopefully old, companion to respond to us.

Mud Solutions

As for the mud situation here at home, we have it in our grasp. These are geotiles lining the path to the barn in our sacrifice area. The holes in the tiles have grown full of grass which cannot be trampled. I actually run the lawn mower over this path, cutting grass on the tiles. It makes me smile, because of my loathing of mud.







Since it started raining, I am out there with the shovel, digging into Baasha's path, and installing geotiles where he walks every day, from stall to field. My goal is to have a totally mud free farm. (The picture shows the path Baasha has made on the way down to the ponds, to get to his pasture. I am putting in geotiles every day now, as the rain softens the ground for me.)






It's not a mud free farm, though, around the tiles there is mud, and at gates. But these are isolated mud spots - not a continuum of filth, like last year.







As for feedings, Baasha gets his mash twice a day. No one steals it. (Well, sparrows wait in the tree for anything he drips, but I don't consider that "stealing".)




Comfort of Home

Who among us always gets dressed before feeding her horses? I know, because I have taken to just going out there in my jammies and robe, and slippers, with my bucket o' mash. When my man leaves for work, he tells me if Baasha is in his stall or not. On those mornings, he yells, "Your horse is here!" and I roll out of bed earlier to make his mash.

I step carefully on the coarse gravel, and mat, and slip into his stall, hoping to avoid unexpected manure bits.

It mostly works. I know the garbage men may see me, so I make sure my robe is wrapped completely around me.


Nothing is better than this

Boarding is not for me, I knew it since I was a kid, when I wanted to put a horse in the garage. I just had to wait a very very long time. But I promised him. I whispered in Baasha's ear years ago, "Before you die, you will live WITH ME."







I was able to keep my promise. Not in the country I thought I'd be in, but a horse friendly one. When I compare last October to this October, and boarding to not, it makes me so happy.