Baasha's first bath of 2011

Well first of all I cannot type very well cuz I cut my index finger with a hoofknife today. It was about 5 seconds after I thought, "I don't need gloves." Right!

After another deep cleaning of Baasha's feet, I tormented him with another shedding session - don't you just hate the feeling of a hair sliding down your throat. Or when you go to remove a hair from your mouth and get 15 more (as Lisa put it).

Lately I've been coming inside, washing up, changing, taking off my watch and finding a handful of long white hair in a perfect circle stuck to my damp wrist.

So after another bobcat came off, I realized dang it's like room temperature out here (about 16C), and my horse is really hot - I had to go find him in a shady spot today because I think the sun was too much. Lo and behold it might be bathing temp!

Poor Baasha got a cold bath. But it was so warm out he didn't even shiver.

I had a terrible time because so much hair was coming off it was getting all over me and sticking. It is kind of ridiculous to bathe a horse with so much hair. I could have never gotten away with this back home - by the time it was warm enough for baths, he didn't have much hair left. Well, he also has way more hair here in general. It just feels wrong to bath a horse in full coat.

He was very concerned that I'd leave him tied in the sun to dry as I put things away. I didn't even get to the hose because he was looking at me plaintively, "Don't leave me here at the torture rack!" And when I finally came to untie him he nickered at me so gratefully!

I showsheened his mane and I am so happy to have that grungy brown gone from the roots. It's pure silver now, finally. I even washed his forelock and that was a trick, I had to use towels because there is no spraying Baasha in the face.

I noticed him shaking his head yesterday and sure enough, the gnats are alive from this warm spell. There was some blood on his belly and when I inspected his ears there was blood on my fingers. No visible wounds but that was coming. I spot-on'd him - never have I had to do this before May!

I was careful not to bathe the underside of Baasha because otherwise I'd be wasting that spot-on.

After I scraped and used 6 towels on him, he was ready to go out grazing so I led him around a bit, prolonging the clean horse moments before he rolled.

He's half green/brown and half pure white because he only rolled on one side. But his mane and face look much better and I know he's clean under the grass stains.

He is incredibly soft - I'd totally forgotten! His red flecks are returning too.

I've been removing his blanket every morning but nights are still below freezing so I bundle him up again. Nothing like having your horse at home for the convenience of blanketing on weather whims!

I can sure type alot for only have 9 good fingers *lol* I'd never be able to do those "wordless" or "silent" posts!