Facebook sent me an ominous warning: "The temperature will change 26 degrees this week, it's an extremely high colic risk." I don't need extra worry, but today it reached a Summerly 17C. After last week's -5C. It was a shock to us all - the migrating cranes are just circling our house not sure to choose South or North.
Mag has found mud again. And he is revelling in it. Surrepititiously. With precision - the forehead and eyelids must also be coated in a plaster-like coating that there is no grooming through.
Grooming, ha.
Someone showed up today to fish a geocache out of our walnut tree (with a "fishing pole") and my donkey was lying down next to the cache. It worried me, but I realized she's just overheated with her polar bear coat. Mag is a true item of the desert - nothing is too warm for him.
It was nice, though, to see him walking casually around today with his tail held in the proper Arabian position, and not clamped to his butt.
My new theory is this: My horse is itchy in his God-given Winter coat. Forced to wear a blanket in -5C makes it worse. Blanket removed, he must roll to help the itchiness.
Coated in a plaster-like layer of black mud, it soon dries and creates waves and valleys in his hair coat.
That itches. He must roll.
So the cycle continues. He rolls, the mud dries his coat into disgusting waves, and he must roll again cuz it itches like that.
I don't know, but I'm pretty sure this is TRUTH.
***
Aarene asked about Mag's Shortest Adventure.
It's pretty boring with a dash of Schadenfreude.
You know Mag ripped up his heel last week on frozen mud. I needed to know if he was sound, on the 3rd day. With the snow and ice I could not observe him in their area, so I needed my husband to do a "walk out" for me on our car's driveway.
J was happy to do it. Putting the halter on Mag, he trembled with expectation.
I handed the lead rope to J and Mag immediately nudged him in the arm, "LET'S GO!"
I asked J to walk to the end of our driveway, which as you know is 3 car lengths long.
Mag's tail was completely over his back, his neck was as high as it can get, and he was DANCING, unable to walk.
*sigh*
Happiest horse ever.
Saddest horse ever, when I said, "OK that's enough, you can come back."
Mag got to go 3 car lengths on his long awaited outing, and then was put back away.
I couldn't help but crack up at Mag's face, his shock and disappointment.
I feel cruel but I promise I will take him out for a walk when he's been able to stretch out the kinks in his body on his own (no round pen here). Our pasture shows Mag's stretching today - skid marks everywhere.
SO happy that he can strech his legs (and brain) again. Yesterday he and Bellis ran laps around the wooded lot, 72. For some reason, it was more fun to have an obstacle course to run through than just going to the freaking 5 acre pasture and running the craziness out there? Help me understand.
***
The hint of Spring is upon us. Snowbells everywhere. I put seeds in dirt on my windowsill.
My good neighbor Norbert came to talk and he had Spring in his eyes, he has the best garden in the village.
***
J drove home from school yesterday ---- BTW schools will open to only 12th, 13th graders for 3 hours at a time --- and when he arrived he said, "A brown horse is rolling around in our mud in our pasture." *grin*
Was it Mag's 2nd, 3rd time on that day?
Is there scientific evidence that rolling in mud is a cyclic addiction due to the itchiness it causes?
8 comments:
Rolling is important, always, but ESPECIALLY in spring when shedding season is upon us...which for Fiddle will be in 2 months. I swear she's always the last kid on the block to drop her winter coat, and it all comes off in about 3 days. But Extended Rolling Season begins now!
The pictures of your *brown* horse crack me up.
Snowbells already! Lucky you! I remember days of the gray mare - brown most of the winter & early spring!
Snowbells already! Lucky you! Seeing Mag covered in mud - brings back memories of the gray mare - brown most of the winter & early spring!
Have you tried a tigers tongue? I love mine!
Is it wrong that I am jealous of your temperatures? I am so tired of the cold and white.
Remind me of this next time I bemoan the mud.
awww, he just wants to make sure you spend some quality time with him and brush him, just so he can get dirty again. I hope you can go for a walk soon. I laugh that they like to run around 72 onstacle course and not the pasture, I always wonder why Major doesn't run out the silly in his pasture and instead waits till I am riding, maybe he needs more obstables…
Aarene, J and I are talking about "the many different words for MUD" lately: ) He pulled 11 T posts out and complained about the mud but I said, "This is mostly-dry mud. This is not impossible squishy mud!" *lol*
Connie, you have snowbells there: )
Nat, is 20Euros a normal price for one of those? I used to have one but I don't recall it costing 20Euros.
Teresa, So sorry. your horse is clean though!
Irish, for some reason I've never had a horse that loves grooming. I tied Mag up and soft-curried him and he likes it on the neck but scrubbing off the individual mud clots is no fun for him. And of course as you say, he rolls immediately again. 3 times a day is what I'm counting now. After shampooing his mane and tail, *sigh*
I think it is the obstacles, if you're right......maybe my most-loathed sport of barrel racing has some sort of equine husbandry behind it? My gosh, I need to re-evaluate my paradigms about horses yet again.
Spring fever! It hits horses too. Moondance would "dance" for me every morning . Yes they do love to gallop over the rough terrain- just to see if they can cause us a heart attack!
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