After trim photos and a trot out video

First the video cuz look how happy he is to be out! And apparently sound on pavement (but not sound on grass).



to be continued after I upload all my photos to the server and then force them over to blogger....

I'm sitting here with my feet in a bucket of ice water (two trays of ice) because that is the only way to survive here. It's 92F, 60% humidity, heat index 105F. And last Sunday I froze my butt off. Tomorrow should be even warmer.

I made the dumdum call today to take Mag on his first walk in many weeks (8?), since his lameness. It wouldn't have been so dumb if I'd left at dawn, or before. I thought, how hot can it be at 9:45. Oh man, I got punished. Even Mag was dragging behind me after the first half hour. We were out 2 hours. I like to do things thoroughly, good and bad, apparently. It was wonderful to see him striding out sound on pavement, but awful to see how that fell apart if he stepped onto gravel. (I'm bidding on an Easyboot Backcountry that might fit his odd LF tonight - any experiences with these boots? I'm a fan of the glove but he is measuring, still, 120X140 and 120X130 L and R fronts.)

The trimmer was here last night and she cut up all his stretched walls so his hooves are "claws" now, as she calls them. She scolded me for doing too much, for worrying and medicating and and and...however I was interested to see she took the nippers to his hooves, despite my recent trim.

She said that the pastures around here are not fit for horses. And all the hay comes from local pastures (you will never see a hay truck on a freeway here). So, what to do? Feed as much hay as you can, she said. And stop worrying, just trim him and have her over more often (she was here 5 weeks ago, so I call that often).

On ebay I found some hay today and yet again packed some tiny bales into my poor car.  I laughed on the way home, to myself, "At least my car is packed with sweet smelling hay, instead of rotten meat."

I have to show you my pasture, what it looks like at the moment. The "aftergrass" is so lovely. Aarene said it's "Teletubby hill" - I like my pasture to look like this, but eventually the penalty came in the form of hoof pain. Two abscesses in 2 months.








J told me to take this photo, cuz he spent the day weed whacking under the entire fence, the entire 5 acres. His hands and arms were numb. We like the electric fence to work.....



This is the lower grazing strip, on the right is the creek, under those odd white weeds. The creek that runs into our ponds, and the neighbors'. You can sort of see the upper fenceline at the left of this photo, cutting short our pasture into this lower strip. It's about 20 meters wide. This is all my animals have these last weeks. I can't believe how well a little strip of grass can do with two animals on it. It's high enough to brush my ankles, and full of thistle (but who cares about thistle?).



As happy as I am to see such a weed free pasture, well, if this is what yours looks like, you might bide your time til it attacks hooves. That is if you're in an emergency and have no hay.....



Here you can see one of the holes the trimmer dug on one of the quarter zones on his LF, I know, it's sick. But he's able to walk with 4 legs this week, rather than sparing this leg completely.


He was "broken leg" lame LF until that other abscess burst and only marginally better the next few days. Now that his hooves are all cut up, and there's nowhere to pack cotton into anymore, I'll just take him for walks as therapy. And give him all the hay he can eat. Did you know, when we finally got hay, they pooped a week's worth in 3 days? I couldn't believe it.

I must admit, I have not been able to solve his case of scratches even though I was cocky about it here. The vet said I had it under control, but it has not changed status. I wonder if it's photo sensitivity, but he's in the shade for most of the day. And they are on two grazing strips now, with no clover. I washed with betadine and realized I'm an ounce from running out, in 10 years. Washing and drying it seemed to help, but neosporin and athlete's food cream did not help at all. Zinc cream neither, at least, it's a standoff.

But as the trimmer sat on the bumper of her car, she refused to give me the lead line as she drank the ice water I gave her, wanting Mag right there. He nuzzled her all over, until he started using his teeth and she corrected him. Then he started to mouth her car all over, and all her equipment. I told her "Seriously, he will EAT your car if you let him" as he was starting to chew on the rubber edging under the hatch back door.

Then Mag started nuzzling my husband and, dropped (well, he's usually dropped by this point), he started nickering to J in a most inappropriate way. The trimmer and I cracked up and I pushed him away from J, who had no idea that Mag was flirting with him. WTH!?!??! I've never seen a horse flirt with a human.

I finally took Mag and told him to stand a meter from me and stay there, but I comforted him from time to time, he was just not allowed to come back into the party and start eating the car/people again. Honestly I sometimes wonder what sort of grand colic he has in store, because he loves to chew plastic and rubber, if given the chance. My wheelbarrow handles will never be comfortable again. I just hope he's gonna be OK, with all these bad choices. It only takes a second for him to notice a poop scoop left unattended. Like  a baby, it's "Eat it first, see if it tastes good later."



She has the lead line short cuz Mag was tearing apart her car. Hey, she insisted on holding him!













Scratches without end: ( Shouldn't have been so cocky. I'm starting to think it's photosensitivity due to the location.

Anyway, onto the following day.

During our walk we trailed a huge recycling truck, with men jumping off both sides running to both sides of the street to drag containers up to it. It was extremely loud, and very exciting. Mag walked as far as possible from the truck. We were only 3 meters from that thing a few times. It was so loud, the inner mechanics crushing up cardboard. It was awesome cuz we were going the same speed. We'd keep walking and they'd stop, get the paper containers, and move ahead of us, and stop, and we'd catch up, and I think those guys thought I was nuts, staying so close to them, and not just standing still for a few moments to let them get ahead of us.

We were passed by bikes 3 times, a baby stroller, an odd man with a cane, tapping his way along, and every so often reaching up to cut a blackberry bramble. What? Please, come to our place and do it there! Dogs barking behind fences, picnickers enjoying the sweltering heat (!?!), nothing bothered Mag, he was thrilled to be out there, but he seemed tired to me. I started walking slower and slower, and taking breaks, and he did too. No need to tell him to slow down. We encountered two separate fields of goats, all color coded. One field was all doberman colored goats, who ran to us happily. What, does a lady with an off-white horse feed you every day? The other was all white goats with so many babies making those sweet noises. Mag was nervous, but I told him to eat grass next to them. I'm committed now to teaching him to graze on command and not, if I don't tell him. This will probably take years.

The good neighbors stopped their car and I was happy to see them. They asked me if we're going to the carnival at the city center this weekend. I admitted it's too hot to do anything.

Mag stood there bored the entire time, even as the neighbor behind him was up on a ladder taking an electric sander to his window frames.  I know Mag is an impatient horse, but he's getting lots of practice waiting for humans.

Later another neighbor started up a pressure washer exactly as we passed by. Mag flinched, but didn't scoot. Good boy.

I'm thrilled to rediscover how non-reactive he is, for his age/experience. A silage bale made him skitter a bit, and I said ho and he stood there, pondering life and death.

When we got home he drank and drank, and then a few minutes later, drank again. I dumped out the trough and filled it with crystal clear cold water, because they have no air conditioning out there, and I do. They can at least have cold water. He drank and drank again.

I got an SMS tonight, from the lady I "helped" at her horse show Sunday. She said she signed up for the next two shows in our region and wants me there, as we make a great team.

I told her she doesn't need my help.