Spring happened!

Spring is here and it’s unbelievably lush, almost as if I live in a jungle. Not to insult any real jungle bloggers out there, because of course there are no panthers here.


There was one wolf, recently, the first spotted in West Germany in 100 years, and a farmer shot it dead. When he turned himself in, he said he thought it was a stray dog. Which makes his story worse because there are no feral dogs in Germany; if you see a loose dog (you won’t), it is someone’s pet trying to find its way home.

It’s been perfect weather for me – in the 50s and 60s, a little rain, a little sun. Enough sun for a sunburn on my shoulders.

I’ve got the grill out and am fully into grilling our dinners. Still looking for corn on the cob (really, really rare here) and I found a “somewhat less seeds” tiny watermelon (volleyball sized) to scarf down, my favorite God-made food.

The cat has found out she can jump from a woodpile up into our hay loft, and she spends her time up there hiding from evil black neighbor cat (who messed up our kitchen), and peering into the birdhouses on that wall. Chickadees have babies in all 3 birdhouses this year simultaneously. I really hope the cat cannot figure out how to get them. She’s not very coordinated so I think they’re safe.

The pasture is off limits to the equines for the most part in May as hay is growing fast. Baasha and Bellis have done a very good job trimming the three grazing strips very short, but there’s still enough to keep them busy all day/night.

I have to tell you about Baasha’s coat, since I body clipped him completely in January. It worked – I have circumvented shedding season! Right now he has his Summer coat, and he usually is shedding horrendously these last few months through June. If I brush him, tiny quarter-inch long hairs come out, but not enough to be unpleasant for me. Springtime shedding is usually an awful time and I usually have to attack him with tools to make a dent in the amount of fluff he’s still wearing. This is really wonderful. Although some Winter days were stressful when I couldn’t be there to add or remove a blanket layer, this is exactly what I wanted. Practically no shedding season. He has a slick, shiny coat now that I cannot stop touching. And he has that smell of a grass kept horse, I love it.

(Update: This morning was 9C/48F and raining and he was shivering so he's back in a blanket.)

Bellis still has a thick coat that sheds when I groom it, but I don’t feel the need to try to shed her out – I’ll just see what happens with her. She doesn’t smell as good, she smells like a donkey, which is an odd smell. She still wants her ears rubbed but you can get pretty gross doing that favor for her.

She’s so fat I wonder if she’s gonna give birth, but I think it’s just a donkey thing. She doesn’t have a crest so I don’t have to worry that she’s being overfed.

Their behavior has mellowed out unless something changes our routine – for example if I lock Baasha in the stall for his evening mash, he’ll go nuts and won’t eat it. I have to lock Bellis up for him to eat, so he knows she cannot leave him. That’s really sad cuz poor Bellis doesn’t even get a mash.

But for the most part they are peaceful together and there is no more bickering. Baasha does not let her push him around, and he doesn’t push her around. He defends his food but since he takes so much longer to eat a bit of hay, I separate them a couple hours every evening. This also gives me a chance to work on clicker training Bellis and pick up her hooves. I also spray Baasha with our ultra-expensive German fly spray in hopes the gnats won’t tear him up.

It’s funny to see the influence she’s had on Baasha. Well first of all he’s getting a lot more exercise, (whew!), because they spend so much of their time at pasture and not just standing by the gate. (Although they do both spend some time standing at the gate which irritates me because I don’t want mud by the gate.) But they spend their days going up and down the hang, the pasture climbs, and moving around complicated obstacles. Sometimes they canter around together, but not often.

Bellis has taught him to eat the oak trees. I’ve put up a fence so the trees are protected, and my man cut down some low hanging branches that Bellis had stripped of bark, but whatever they can reach of those trees, they nibble on. Baasha, being taller, can reach more. But thankfully there is not much they can reach – they’re pretty tall trees. Baasha never touched those trees before the donkey arrived.

He spends more time grazing, simply because she does. She stripped two tiny ash trees that were expendable, and is halfway through a fence post (ugh). Good thing we have mostly tposts.

He also chews on our woodpile, which is basically an equine big toy now. They take down wood almost every day, but I don’t mind.

I discovered that I can get Bellis to move away fast if she knows I’m mad at her. She knows she’s not supposed to go in the storage area (Baasha’s old stall) but the other day she took one step inside. I ran over and yelled at her and she flew backwards and did a 180 fast!! I think she is starting to understand good vs. bad behavior from my body language. I found out that waving my hands at her or moving toward her quickly gets a big reaction. This is good – I didn’t think she could give a big reaction. She still moves in close to try to press against me and this is not allowed. Hopefully she'll get that eventually.

Today I'll switch grazing strips - I have to say, having my pasture sectioned is one of my favorite things of having my horse at home. It is such a salient activity, proving to myself that this is my pasture and I can decide where they graze. At a former dressage stable I worried, "I wonder if my horse will get turnout today" (among other worries about his care) but now, every day, every hour, I know. Although I am not riding, and that really hurts, I am really basking in having Baasha right here and every evening the first thing I do is change out of my work clothes and hang out with them.