The horses had been in for a few days because of the rain we've been getting this week. As a result, they were all freakish at turn out yesterday, dancing all the way to pasture as if they were 2 year old race horses, not the 13 to 26 year old Geritol jumpers that they are.
When released from their lead ropes they'd all canter out to mid pasture, drop, roll, race around a little more, buck with all four feet off the ground and then gradually put their heads down to graze. Everything was actually fairly predictable until Czar Bobbie, the tiniest terror of all, was turned out.
At first, he too dropped, rolled and bucked. However, after his final leap, he took off like a turbo charged Secretariat chasing the other horses around his personal killing field like he were an evil barbarian Hun looking for the fresh peasant kill.
The other horses on typical day would be spooked by as little as deer, kites, umbrellas or a Republican landslide election (Yes, horses, by nature are very liberal creatures). However, this time the fear was more primal as if they were the antelope being hunted by the "mini me" lion.
McGuiver would have defused the Bobbie bomb with some chewing gum and dental floss. However, his services weren't needed here. After 15 minutes or so, an uneasy calm returned to pasture.
Unfortunately, you never know when the angelic creatures of calm will return to the wild beasts of turmoil. We often have talked about having a bucket of grain in clear box by the pasture with a sign that said, "For emergency break glass. Hurl grain towards the little one."
We've all survived another day.
Showing posts with label pasture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pasture. Show all posts
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Icy Horse Halloween
Halloween played a cool little trick today with some icy snow, not so gently falling from the heavens. Clearly there must have been a cold front moving through heaven. I picture angels bundled like Green Bay Packer fans with icicles dangling from their wings and frost on the halos (or probably on their cheese heads at game time).
Today the horses are all bundled in blankets. They wanted to go out regardless and are now munching on freshly chilled grass in the pasture. "Frost on the Pumpkins" is a phrase you hear around here a lot and we've been using it this year since mid-September.
As I took a wheel barrow of manure out to dump, my fingers burned from the cold and I was quickly reminded that I needed to get new barn gloves. My old ones were thrown out on a warm day last spring. "I'll get new gloves", I can remember announcing to the world as if I were moving from the Cavaliers to the Miami Heat. Of course 90 degree days in the summer aren't always the best for marketers of winter apparel. They do seem to be good marketer's of the Miami Heat.
You know you live in Central New York, when parents annually jam snowsuits under their kids spiderman and princess costumes. Yes, they'll be a lot of overstuffed miniature ghosts prowling for candy tonight.
Time to throw another coal in the fire. Time to defrost the candy.
Today the horses are all bundled in blankets. They wanted to go out regardless and are now munching on freshly chilled grass in the pasture. "Frost on the Pumpkins" is a phrase you hear around here a lot and we've been using it this year since mid-September.
As I took a wheel barrow of manure out to dump, my fingers burned from the cold and I was quickly reminded that I needed to get new barn gloves. My old ones were thrown out on a warm day last spring. "I'll get new gloves", I can remember announcing to the world as if I were moving from the Cavaliers to the Miami Heat. Of course 90 degree days in the summer aren't always the best for marketers of winter apparel. They do seem to be good marketer's of the Miami Heat.
You know you live in Central New York, when parents annually jam snowsuits under their kids spiderman and princess costumes. Yes, they'll be a lot of overstuffed miniature ghosts prowling for candy tonight.
Time to throw another coal in the fire. Time to defrost the candy.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The Equine Snow Angel
Winters in Central New York are tough ... it's like jumping into any icy river just walking out the back door some days. With a monstrous lake effect snow machine (off Lake Ontario), on average, Syracuse NY gets dumped on with over 115 inches of snow every year, more than any other larger city in the United States. The towns up here have the tools, plows and salt to keep the roads clear, although not always with laser guided precision.
The plows sadistically knocked our fragile mail box off it's helpless post four times last month. Funny how nobody at Home Depot questions when I buy three mail boxes at a time, knowing that the average life of a rural mail box is shorter than that of a dung beetle in sub zero weather.
If you think driving and living in the snow is bad, try taking care of five horses in the winter. With layers of thick blankets, the horses still do like to stretch their stiff legs all winter long out side, which makes for brutal days of blanket changing, fighting sub zero wind chills and shoveling snow paths to the barn and pastures.
So, while I'm at work enduring the harshness of fluorescent lighting, ringing phones and the heat that just always to seems to be a degree or two off. My sainted snow angel wife is bundling with layers of long underwear, ski pants and fleece like Sir Edmund Hilary on Mt. Everest, to go out into cold. With frequent six foot snow drift blocking the way to pasture, she shovels paths to fields to get our pampered equine snow mobiles out for a few hours of snow play. Of course, there's no grass in the winter, so, she lugs hay on the kids plastic red sleds to our tundra-like pastures.
The cold actually changes the dynamic of stall cleaning. On day's like today when it's 10 degrees out (yes Fahrenheit), the horse poop freezes in the barn within minutes of it dropping from it's heated maker. So, at least, the horses can't grind it into the shavings. The snow's too freaking deep to dump the manure too far from the barn, so it gets dumped in a big pile not too far from the huge front doors. Of course, in the spring, it gets moved to another pile, closer to our unsuspecting neighbors who can't quite figure out why the damn flies are so bad in the hot summer.
Yet, even with the cold and snow, it looks absolutely amazing outside with the happy horses eating hay on the white snow covered field. As steam exhales from their muzzles,icicles dangle from their whiskers like these are mystical polar horses from arctic circle. They roll and dance in the snow like school children ecstatic with yet another snow day off from school.
My wife is a saint! A cold saint ... but a saint none-the-less -- a virtual equine snow angel.
The plows sadistically knocked our fragile mail box off it's helpless post four times last month. Funny how nobody at Home Depot questions when I buy three mail boxes at a time, knowing that the average life of a rural mail box is shorter than that of a dung beetle in sub zero weather.
If you think driving and living in the snow is bad, try taking care of five horses in the winter. With layers of thick blankets, the horses still do like to stretch their stiff legs all winter long out side, which makes for brutal days of blanket changing, fighting sub zero wind chills and shoveling snow paths to the barn and pastures.
So, while I'm at work enduring the harshness of fluorescent lighting, ringing phones and the heat that just always to seems to be a degree or two off. My sainted snow angel wife is bundling with layers of long underwear, ski pants and fleece like Sir Edmund Hilary on Mt. Everest, to go out into cold. With frequent six foot snow drift blocking the way to pasture, she shovels paths to fields to get our pampered equine snow mobiles out for a few hours of snow play. Of course, there's no grass in the winter, so, she lugs hay on the kids plastic red sleds to our tundra-like pastures.
The cold actually changes the dynamic of stall cleaning. On day's like today when it's 10 degrees out (yes Fahrenheit), the horse poop freezes in the barn within minutes of it dropping from it's heated maker. So, at least, the horses can't grind it into the shavings. The snow's too freaking deep to dump the manure too far from the barn, so it gets dumped in a big pile not too far from the huge front doors. Of course, in the spring, it gets moved to another pile, closer to our unsuspecting neighbors who can't quite figure out why the damn flies are so bad in the hot summer.
Yet, even with the cold and snow, it looks absolutely amazing outside with the happy horses eating hay on the white snow covered field. As steam exhales from their muzzles,icicles dangle from their whiskers like these are mystical polar horses from arctic circle. They roll and dance in the snow like school children ecstatic with yet another snow day off from school.
My wife is a saint! A cold saint ... but a saint none-the-less -- a virtual equine snow angel.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The Toughest LIttle Pony on the Planet --- Who is Bobbie No Socks
January 31, 2010
Bobbie No Socks, a tiny mix of Welsh and Standard Bred in pony body, we first met fifteen years ago through an ad in the paper when my daughter was a wee little equestrian extraordinaire in kindergarten. We had no money then and for that matter while we qualify for bigger credit lines now, still don't have money (yes, we're like every other human on the planet with horses). I saw Bobbie and I thought no freaking' way am I spending $800 of my good hard earned money on this tiny pony. I certainly never thought I'd put my daughter on this walking dust tornado.
He had chipped hooves, thick burdocks in his tail and mane and when my wife patted him on his broad back, a choking dust cloud circled his body like a swarm of angry bees. I barely touched his fat round butt and he bolted forward in terror, likely from years of being trained as a trotter on the track. He nipped me on arm with such force that I swear I saw my dead grandfather at the end of long tunnel. However, my wife saw something in him. It could have been the twinkle in his eye, it could have been that he had good strong teeth or it just could have been some secret equestrian intuition. We broke the bank and bought him, with a credit card check.
If this pony were human, he'd have been Micky, Rocky's tough as nails trainer. The stable where we first boarded him wasn't the ideal snooty English Stable. In, fact it was more of a western barn with a huge turnout pasture with 20 quarter horses, a bunch of mules and 10 Texas Long horses mixed in one endless field. Other than field mice, Bobbie was the smallest mammal in the huge turn out pasture.
Yes, he was but a speck in the pasture, but within an hour and a couple of quick territorial battles of gnashing teeth, blood oozing wounds and kicking hind hooves, "Bobbie the Tiniest" was the the "supreme pasture emperor". He was the baddest thing that pasture had ever seen. Somehow he'd bring huge geldings in line, herding them from their mare's. He'd stare down Long Horn bulls and make 'em look like baby lamb's crying for their mama's. He somehow began herding the cattle and other horses into their appropriate places in realm of his pasture-dom. He had that pasture whipped into shape like he was an army drill Sargent, Jillian on "The Biggest Loser" or my 1st grade Sunday school teacher (she was meanest person I've every known).
Over the years, that mean little pony bit us countless times, threw a couple trainers into the dirt, forced my neighbor to have her hand re-attached in a grueling eight hour surgery and somehow became more loved in my family than I am. He gives great presents at Christmas (I love the tie he bought for my birthday). However, ultimately, this mean little pony became, the cheapest horse we ever bought (by far), my daughter's first walk trot pony (he even won a class or two) and became one of my best friends. We now have five horses, including him. However, he will always be the king of the pasture and Czar of our hearts!
Bobbie No Socks, a tiny mix of Welsh and Standard Bred in pony body, we first met fifteen years ago through an ad in the paper when my daughter was a wee little equestrian extraordinaire in kindergarten. We had no money then and for that matter while we qualify for bigger credit lines now, still don't have money (yes, we're like every other human on the planet with horses). I saw Bobbie and I thought no freaking' way am I spending $800 of my good hard earned money on this tiny pony. I certainly never thought I'd put my daughter on this walking dust tornado.
He had chipped hooves, thick burdocks in his tail and mane and when my wife patted him on his broad back, a choking dust cloud circled his body like a swarm of angry bees. I barely touched his fat round butt and he bolted forward in terror, likely from years of being trained as a trotter on the track. He nipped me on arm with such force that I swear I saw my dead grandfather at the end of long tunnel. However, my wife saw something in him. It could have been the twinkle in his eye, it could have been that he had good strong teeth or it just could have been some secret equestrian intuition. We broke the bank and bought him, with a credit card check.
If this pony were human, he'd have been Micky, Rocky's tough as nails trainer. The stable where we first boarded him wasn't the ideal snooty English Stable. In, fact it was more of a western barn with a huge turnout pasture with 20 quarter horses, a bunch of mules and 10 Texas Long horses mixed in one endless field. Other than field mice, Bobbie was the smallest mammal in the huge turn out pasture.
Yes, he was but a speck in the pasture, but within an hour and a couple of quick territorial battles of gnashing teeth, blood oozing wounds and kicking hind hooves, "Bobbie the Tiniest" was the the "supreme pasture emperor". He was the baddest thing that pasture had ever seen. Somehow he'd bring huge geldings in line, herding them from their mare's. He'd stare down Long Horn bulls and make 'em look like baby lamb's crying for their mama's. He somehow began herding the cattle and other horses into their appropriate places in realm of his pasture-dom. He had that pasture whipped into shape like he was an army drill Sargent, Jillian on "The Biggest Loser" or my 1st grade Sunday school teacher (she was meanest person I've every known).
Over the years, that mean little pony bit us countless times, threw a couple trainers into the dirt, forced my neighbor to have her hand re-attached in a grueling eight hour surgery and somehow became more loved in my family than I am. He gives great presents at Christmas (I love the tie he bought for my birthday). However, ultimately, this mean little pony became, the cheapest horse we ever bought (by far), my daughter's first walk trot pony (he even won a class or two) and became one of my best friends. We now have five horses, including him. However, he will always be the king of the pasture and Czar of our hearts!
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