Friday, January 20, 2017

A pitchfork split in half and airborne

I was at the barn from 8:30 til 1:45 and no one showed up until 1:45, I'm serious. That's 5 hours of being alone at the barn, which I really enjoy but *ONE* other person would be great!

Oh well, today wasn't a riding day because yesterday was so nice I like to soak a while on good feelings.

It took me an hour to clean my stall because it was so cold I had to stop and make myself some tea and browse a book from the 70s called "The great book of Ponies, in color." This is the second book I've found in the rider's lounge that has photos of horses gaits and they are mislabeled, or ignorant about gaits. But this book was cool, I learned there is such a place as "Hafling" (if we can call Haflingers ponies) and that Icelandics are working horses for adults, not children's ponies. Oh, I kind of want an Icelandic, I have such respect for tiny powerhouses with sweet faces.

When I emerged with my second cup of tea, Willy shouted Guten Appetit, I mean, Prost! to me, both of which are not exactly correct - you only say prost when you are giving a toast. My German is not gonna improve by conversing with him!

He told me how Mag flings his hay out of the bathtub every day and pecks through it like a chicken, but since it's just snow now and not mud, it's no big deal. He also said that the other day the fence was off and he found two other geldings in Mag's paddock with him, eating his hay. What? These are the things I wish he wouldn't tell me. I might have misunderstood and Mag was not in there. Language barrier yay.

Then he said, "Your bucket stays unfrozen, look!" I said, "Yes, but are the others frozen?" Indeed they were, even though Mag's stall door was the only one open. Wow, that was a great investment, for my peace of mind that my horse has fluid water at night, 174Euros, which seemed like a lot for a bucket at the time.

I tried to explain the concept of tank de-icers but since they don't exist in Germany, no one understood me.

Willy was using the tractor to scoop the manure pile into the trailer of the other tractor, and when he does this, I'm temporarily blocked either in or out of the barn with my horse, cuz the vehicles fit right up against the barn opening.

I tried to clean Mag's day paddock but the poop was frozen to the earth so that was impossible, I gave up. He was very cute, nuzzling me and playing with the wheelbarrow, his favorite toy.

I brought him, along with the wheelbarrow (he's so good that I can trust him to follow me even when I push a wheelbarrow!), but Willy was blocking so we waited. And Mag was so calm about the tractor I took a little video. I forgot that the camera was recording my voice, so I'm giggling a little. I am wondering if that fated pitchfork is showing right here in the intro image below, at the very right of the image:
You can see how the trailer is blocking the entrance to the barn.



Earlier, at the paddock, I also took a video:

In the grooming stall I gave him his bucket and took the clippers to his fetlocks, I hate hair on feet. I amazed myself by doing the best job ever - usually you can kind of see the clipper marks but not today. It looks totally natural!

I never really groom him, I don't know why, probably cuz it's too cold to be without a blanket. I usually brush the saddle and girth area and obsess about the hooves. Well today for the first time I folded his blanket over his butt and thoroughly groomed the front half of him.

Like Baasha, he seemed to enjoy his face groomed very much. OK then, we'll do that more often. He nuzzled me as I curried his chest. OK then, we'll do more of that then!

Then I left him loose in that grooming stall and ate my lunch, two hard boiled eggs and some Irish cheddar. (In the freezing cold - and as I type this I'm still cold, there is no recovering.) Willy returned with the tractor and trailer and said Guten Appetit to me. As I sliced and ate my wonderful aged cheddar (tastes just like Tillamook!) I said to Mag, who was watching me intensely, "You know I've lost the ability to digest milk products. I'm Leonard Hofstaeder. Good thing no one else is here." Sometimes I love that I can just say whatever I want and no one will understand me. OK, a lot of times. (The problem is when I go back to America and forget.....)

Then I went back to Mag, spraying his hooves with disinfectant spray, and suddenly I heard this crack and what sounded like wood hitting pavement. I looked up and saw half of a pitchfork, the handle half, lying 10 feet from us, with such a jagged edge it looked more like a knife than wood. I was aghast, I could have been killed! Well, 50/50, depending on which end hit me, the rounded end, or the split one.

When Willy jumped out of his tractor I took it to him and demonstrated how it flew through the air and almost killed me. He said, "Here's the other half - the tractor slid on the ice and I lost control and hit the pitchfork." I can't really picture it but I trust him. He said, "This is why I don't like to have people around when I'm doing this particular job." Oh. *sigh*  He said, "Kids, especially." I said, "I understand." Well there's no way I can stay away from the barn on the days he's using the tractor, that's so often. Just, less ice and snow would be great.

Then I tried to squeeze Mag through the tiny space between the trailer and the barn wall and Willy stopped me, "No, it's too dangerous, it's thick ice!" Hrmph, I could have done it, but he said, "Just give me 2 minutes and I'll move!" Nice that he cares, and probably he knows ice better than I do, I'm just a boarder.

In the arena I set up two cavaletti in a row, because it's time Mag really learn to do that rather than just push aside or step on the foam ones. The wooden, raised cavaletti he has a little respect for.

I am realizing we need to work more on a proper forward walk on the lunge as well, and a forward trot, because Mag can do that lazy jog all day (that I love!) but he needs that other gear. Sadly Mag thinks terrr-ot! means canter, even though I've never confused the terms. I laughed at him and said "Nein"  - ok sometimes I speak German to him. Then I worked on his energetic trot and started cracking myself up because I wondered if it would help if I mimicked the Germans. They say, "Come, Come, Come" when they mean "Go." Seriously. So I started saying "Komm, komm" and then had to stop cuz I was laughing and Mag thought I was cuckoo.  I always think of my neighbor across the street, where I used to ride Mara, how he'd turn out the horses and herd them with a lunge whip to pasture, the entire time saying, "Komm, komm, komm!" where in fact he meant, "Go, go, go." Any German reading this please explain this to me.

I was working Mag in that scary corner and he was getting animated, and I decided to let the scary corner inspire his proper trot, when suddenly he burst into a gallop on the line, running furiously around me, but with my new cavesson I had perfect control over the nose part of him. He ran the cavalettis beautifully, and let the corner scare him each time around. I realized that he wasn't being bad, he just wanted an excuse to move. He needed to run, and he wasn't doing anything contrary to any command. So I let him for a while and then got him to trot again.

Did something change? Did Mag show me sometimes he needs to race on the lunge and it's not necessarily naughty? Hm.

He was so incredibly compliant the entire time, we didn't do much and then for the first time I took off his cavesson, leaving him totally naked, a sign to him that it's ok to roll. I started pawing the ground myself and nothing happened. I started kicking dirt at his hooves and finally he dropped and rolled. And rolled and rolled, I gave up counting how many times.

Then I wandered around with a rake, smoothing the spots he rolled, and then I went to the entire hufschlag and smoothed footing from the wall to the hufschlag. (The rail area.) I found Mag looking over my shoulder. He went to the door, looked out, saw nothing, and then came back to me and watched me work. What a sweetheart, choosing to be with me directly after work.

I gave him a snack but he isn't too fond of them (too healthy) so he sucked on it a bit, not sure if he ate it. I took him to the school horses and for about 10 minutes let him share their haylage. Two or three of them stretched their noses to him, "Please touch me" but Mag was snobbish and just ate their food.

5 hours at the barn, doing not much of anything besides finding my horse adorable and very very good.

Tomorrow's Saturday so I'll have a different story to tell. Hopefully with no flying pitchforks. And my goodness, wouldn't it be great if the world wasn't just white?



I know it, I hung his bucket in the worst possible place, directly next to his paddock door, so there is a constant stream of icy air hitting it. But it's also the perfect test!





This is what I found on arrival this morning. He drank 2/3 of his bucket last night, and the rest is completely fluid! That grey thing is a lid that tries to help keep the water from freezing. Apparently it works!





This is Maja's stall next door to Mags, with her door closed. For some reason people keep their private stall cleaning tools in their stalls. Huh. The Fjord horse (who I loooove)  - her bucket is frozen solid. But good for Christina, providing a large, American style bucket.





In contrast to this situation, the other side of Mag's stall, where Wolke lives. She has a crappy little 2? gallon bucket, that is simply not enough. I flashed back to my last dressage barn where horses often had two full sized 5 gallon buckets in their stalls.





This is the interior of her sad little bucket. Just ice.





Argo has a slightly bigger bucket but also, just ice. I was so surprised that my bucket works so well!






This is Ducky's stall, the 30 year old Standie. His stall also serves as a tack room, with leg wraps and blankets and a rake and lunge whip? inside. And a bucket completely frozen solid. (It looks like the upper part of the door is open but it's not, it's just glass.)




This is the entry way to the barn, facing out from the barn. The dark stuff is solid ice. BTW in Germany if you do not clear ice in a public area (the sidewalk in front of your house/apartment) you are liable for any injury that occurs. So my mother in law will be suing, cuz she broke her arm this week outside a business.





Almost everyone smokes. I think the idea is, we all die, so why not have perfect control over the way you die?





I stopped counting at 8 kettles today. This is where I'm spending a lot of my time lately. At the electric kettle, with my little bucket that I transport boiling water to Mag's bucket and his beet pulp, to defrost it. I am so, so thankful that we have this device. It only holds 1.75 liters, and I wish there were two of them. If there were a Value Village in Germany, I'd be there grabbing electric kettles.





I took this picture after turning around from the sink area. There are two stalls, very large, in this area of the barn, which I find very, very wrong. There is an apartment over this area where some random people live (not horse people, sadly). Nothing wrong with that, but this area of the barn stays warm and they shut the door so it's nearly airtight. It stays above zero all Winter, and a little stuffy. Everything I know about horses screams at me that they should not be shut in a musty stinky closet, and this is it. Do horses need to be kept warm? Note the cute little feed tubs by each stall, the starling? nests on the fluorescent light, the cat Socke (oh, a cat named socks...). and the glass windows keeping Winter out. To the left of this photo is the rider's lounge, which also stays slightly warm simply by being under an apartment.







Wow, Gabi is law abiding!




Finally upstairs. Unfortunately someone on the left didn't shut her locker, hiding all the other lockers on that side. But you can see the row of feed tubs in the middle. And you can see how there is no room for me to have one of my own: ( It's really freaking inconvenient to have to fetch my grooming stuff, my saddle, everything, up a flight of stairs, my stirrups banging against my spider bite on my leg. But it is fun for me to open those lids and see what people are feeding here. Wow, lots and lots of oat-free food! In fact, none of those bins contained oats, not one. I was impressed that a couple contained just chopped hay. Super, duper expensive hay in a bag. To be fair, we are forced to provide something because Gabi feels it's unfair for some horses to receive grain and not others, so we all must provide something. Mag gets a tiny ziplock baggie of vitamins and a handful of cheap pellets to get the vitamins in. Although Mag is thin, I would never use grain to fatten a horse.





Getting closer, people also attach hooks to the outside of their lockers to hang stuff. I can't believe how stuffed these lockers are, wow, people have entire pharmacies in them, or several pairs of boots!




Here is mine. Seems that a shelf, above my saddle, is missing, making the space usage difficult. But I am very, very minimalist, I brought, "ONLY WHAT YOU NEED TO SURVIVE" to this barn.





Since there is no room for my feed, I keep it in my locker, in buckets. That's beet pulp in one, and pellets in the other. The sack on the door is full of clean fluffy towels, cuz I cannot not have towels around my horse. Today I had to soak a cloth and wash his eyes out after rolling in the arena dirt, and he hates that but he lets me. In this pic you can see my canola oil and salt, and my coffee can for measuring beet pulp. The bucket on the shelf is full of medical supplies and three types of shampoo for his tail.





I wanted a pic of Mag when he first sees me. Nice fences, huh?





How bout some rain to clear away all this white stuff!





This is what he does when I clean, no, try to clean up poop. He follows me around and nudges me very gently. BTW, I failed to remove that poop pile, or any other today, they were all completely stuck to the ground.






The area to Mag's left is the gelding boarders. The gorgeous red horse in the foreground is Sleipner, an unknown breed, but total eye candy. You can see Jack, the paint, playing with Moritz the Haflinger behind him.




My wheelbarrow, how I love it!





Mag's day-time water supply. I don't call it water. *sigh*





The mini Shetland Lucy's feed bowls, the cutest ones, of course, all her things are lovely.





MORE WHEELBARROWS! He chewed on all of them as I waited for Willy.





On the way home there was this awesome sunset over the rolling fields of white and I didn't ask J in time, but finally I did and he took one almost home - I thought this one looked like Puget Sound: )

9 comments:

TeresaA said...
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Miss Toffelees said...
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Achieve1dream said...

Even though you didn't get to ride it sounds like nice bonding time with Mag, well except for the cold and the death pitchfork....